> Back to reality, west Europe is firmly a social democracy where states impose behavior through law, regulation, and policy, which is topped by a federal system that coordinates policies.

And yet, air travel continues to grow (after a small hiatus due to COVID) and state and EU money will be dumped into a new airport near me, to support more than doubling current capacity, much further away from the city (adding tens of millions of car trips to and from the airport).

I'm simply the looney for not taking the kids on low cost European city escapes.

It starts from the “bottom”: people will talk about it, but will pretty much continue to do whatever the fuck they can afford to do. And Europeans, like Americans, can simply afford to much, while harping about what will happen to the world once the BRICS can afford the same.