At one company I worked for someone suggested that we should all stop using metaphors linked to cars and internal combustion engines, to stop normalizing these things and help fight climate change. And look, I don't like this car-centric design; I don't even have a driving license. But how does this stop climate change? "I'm helping!"
This was shot down pretty hard by the CEO and pretty much everyone else by the way.
We should be pointing out the car centric transportation systems we have and work to fix them. We shouldn’t be encouraging things like suburban sprawl that increases car dependence. Reduce car usage, and you will reduce oil consumption.
But consumer vehicles are a tiny percentage of our actual overall consumption
Yes we can and should reduce our usage here, but it needs to be in addition to other much bigger and important changes (which don't get talked about enough)
Climate change isn't limited to one country.
Additionally, you're also mis-quoting your source. According to your link, only "about 28% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2021 was for transporting people and goods from one place to another". The 54.2% you're citing is the percentage of light-duty vehicles that make up that 28% of energy use. In other words, only ~15% of energy usage in the US is from light-duty vehicles.
Globally it's estimated to be a smaller percentage overall, although it does seem that it still is closer to 10% according to this: https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/cars-and-vans
So yes, maybe it's not "tiny".
My point still stands, I think. We are focusing much more than 10-15% of our overall efforts on optimizing a slice that doesn't seem like it will contribute improvements relative to our efforts
No, because it's not about passenger cars. How do you think the supermarket gets stocked? And how do you think the food gets grown? And how did that laptop you're using go from raw materials to the laptop?
Whether you like it or not, oil is needed for damn near everything. "Oil companies" really aren't the problem here; they're not forcing anyone to buy oil. The problem is the entire modern economy runs on oil in all sorts of ways, and actually changing that requires a much more wholistic solution than "zomg Microsoft does business with Big Oil!"
You logic is self defeating. Restricting supply of oil is exactly the right approach and will cause economy to move to alternatives
I never said that. I said the efforts were misdirected.
The feds should get ahead of it and declare a rail electrification standard so that as it builds out it's all compatible.
Electrifying a thousand miles of track in the middle of nowhere that sees one train a day is nowhere near as worthwhile as electrifying busy corridors.
Electric trains powered by solar and wind? Sure, saves 90% fuel compared to planes (the trains still have support, lubricant, etc that will use some fuel, but sure, assume 100%).
But globally it can't be more than about 12% of the total CO2 (see https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport ) - and that is GLOBAL, trains across the Atlantic are harder to build.
And that's only 12% of total CO2 from transportation - which itself is less than half of the world-wide emissions.
6% of world-wide would be noticeable, but that is only if every plane is replaced by an electric train. The trillions that even attempting some of that would cost could be better spent elsewhere, likely.