Agreed, especially if those people are my grand grandchildren, its my responsibility. And if I need to live in the 70s for some aspects of my life well so be it.
I don't want future generations role-playing Fallout. So I try my best to reduce the emissions.
Bike, have less and smaller cars.
Its not the middle ages and you still can have a quality life.
Exactly my point, it was not the middle ages, and yet: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/trfvolusm227nfwa (better if those are done is less polluting vehicles) and in the country of cars, other countries were not living on dirt roads
Besides, modern engines get pretty incredible gas efficiency on the highway. A lot of the minivans these days run a 10-speed automatic with a well-tuned V6, netting nearly 300bhp and pushing 30 mpg on the Interstate.
The occasional family road trip shouldn't be a cause for disdain, families with children shouldn't be shunned for wanting to travel and enjoy the various things their region has to offer.
80% of people in manhattan have no personal vehicle and I would not say they are "living like it's the 1500s". The problem is that most of America has car-dependent infrastructure.
Any solution that requires people to live like it's the 1500s is probably a nonstarter.