The idea of just giving up having a relatively big fast car is "drastic" to a lot of people here, at least. Our cities and big towns just sprawl out with so much distance between businesses and dwelling areas. I can't afford an electric or hybrid car ATM. With the current next-to-useless one bus per hour per route transit system in Orlando, I would be fucked if I were physically unable to ride a bike. Even with an electric hub motor added to that bike, I'd have to rethink about where I shop due to distance issues and cargo weight. Cabs are too expensive, so I'd just have to bike commute in the rain, like all the fucking time. At least that'll rinse off the sweat
.
This is what the vast majority of Americans now face as an alternative to owning a car. Grim mass transit, oxymoronically named, especially for old and poor folks. Awful-so-no-way-not-ever as far as the better off folks are concerned. So, no tax initiatives pass to truly improve it and make it viable. Private companies don't do mass transit much anymore since the '50's because right-of-way costs and capital risks are too high considering the entrenched negative mindset the public has about how awful our transit system has been, forever. How do you "sell" even the ideal efficient pleasant transit system to an embittered market?
Retrofitting buildings and dwellings to the latest LEED's level energy saving in materials, methods, appliances, etc. is quite expensive, at least until market competition made lower costs occur. So that would be economically drastic for most people. The utility bill "break even" point would take quite a few years. Retrofitting is often nearly twice as labor intensive (and doubly expensive) as building new to LEEDs stats.
For example, the cost to go off grid, or better;
reverse your electric meter (you make more electricity than you use, and it's bought by your electric company - which makes your construction loan payments quite a bit easier) with a full array of solar panels is 35 K and up for the average suburban home. Eventually, a solar panel array will cost less than a major re-roofing job. If you are allowed to do it yourself, which isn't the case everywhere, it's about half that much, less if you shop for bargains or salvage on the non-panel basic stuff (wire, fasteners, etc).
The old roof over my condo? It's gonna cost 22K for a contractor to replace it with the exact same roof type that is failing now after 35 years. To bring the new roofing up to LEEDs insulation standards - not including solar - would add another 7K for a 6 inch thick sprayed foam sealant/insul layer to the big flat roof sections between mansard shingle roof cupolas, which themselves get special insulation. In my case, the insulation is to prevent heat intrusion
into the house and for efficient storm water drainage. Getting a few K back from government rebate programs does not help enough, and most of those will expire before I am able to re-roof. I could actually physically do the basic stripping, roof deck repair, joint sealing of the re-roofing job myself with a couple of local handy men since I have experience and skill in professional remodeling (with thousands of bucks in tools in my garage). That would save me enough to pay the foam roof contractor to finish the job and meet LEEDs. But I am legally forbidden to do anything beyond changing a light fixture or painting a shutter by the rules of my weird, cheap-ass, lawyer driven condo association
. Fuck me. If they did allow me to do it myself, I could also find a way to afford to install that net gain solar panel array, adding on in phases over time, with just one electrician to help install, supervise my work, and sign off on it with the building inspector. Double fuck me.
All these many economic and legal impediments to an energy efficient, clean economy are the end result of years of bad legislation from manipulation by old school corporations that make money off the status quo, mostly Big Oil, and by some regional electric company conglomerates via ALEC and the GOP domination of Congress.