'You libs are not going to tell me what to drive, I have rights'. Variations on this theme appear whenever there is yet another despairing plea from the scientists of the world for someone please to take action on global warming before it is too late. I'm not sure where the right to drive an SUV is written in the American constitution or indeed the constitution of any other country. The only fundamental 'rights' you have, as one of 6 billion people, and untold billions of other organisms you share DNA with, are to air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and not to have your planet fried around your ears. If your activities stop other people having those rights, if you pollute their air and water, prevent them getting enough to eat, and start raising the global temperatures, then your rights stop there. Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.
Look, I agree you have the right, if you have the money, to buy an SUV. It can sit in your garage. You can polish it to your heart's content, or sit in the front seat and make vroom vroom noises, or, for all I care, have sex on the back seat with a consenting adult of your choice. But when you take that vehicle on to the road and start driving we are into a whole new tangled web of rights and responsibilities, individualism and community.
You remember community, they are the people you celebrate with in good times and help out, or receive help from, in bad times. It might be a community of your small town, or your state, or the whole American community, or the world community. or the Gaia community. As part of all those communities your responsibilities are as important as your rights.
When cars were first invented and began to appear on roads life was simple. There were so few cars that you could pretty well drive how and where you wanted to, as fast as you were able to, use as much fuel as you wanted to, park where you wanted to, and drive, if you chose, while drinking brandy from a flask or beer from a six pack. And every drive was very dangerous because cars had no safety features, and roads had no traffic lights and few signs.
Do you have a right to drive while drunk now? Or drive through a red light? Or the right to drive at high speed past a school? Or the right to park in the middle of a highway? No? What kind of freedom do you call that? But all of those restrictions, plus the introduction of safety features to cars, have been imposed for the safety of everyone, as a result of the massive increase in the number of cars in the world. That increase now has gone so far that there must (yes, the word is must, not should, or might) be further restrictions now on the size of cars people drive, and their fuel efficiency. You can do this by price signals/subsidies/tax mechanisms, whatever, if this suits your philosophical approach better, but your rights to be antisocial are about to be trumped by your responsibilities to whichever community you think you are part of. Get over it. Get over it quickly.
And don't tell me that your right to drive the biggest car you can find trumps my grandson's right to survive on this planet. Telling you what you can drive? You betcha.