Do Gore-type environmentalists really want to take away your car?

From an interview with David Frum:

Q: So how does the Republican Party handle an issue like environmentalism without turning into Al Gore Lite?

A: Two ways: The first is the Republican Party has a history that most people don't know. Of the major pieces of environmental legislation passed since 1970, almost all of them were passed under Republican presidents -- The Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the 1990 Clean Air Act, which put an end to the acid rain problem, effectively. These are Republican accomplishments: Talk about them. People think of the Democrats as the party that owns the environmental issue because it talks about the environmental issue even though it doesn't do much about it. You need to remind people of what you've done, because the voters don't see it as their job to remember your achievements, they see it as the party's job to remind them of its achievements.

The second thing is that it is precisely because we are not Al Gore fanatics that this issue is powerful for us. That is to say that we can offer Americans a message that says, "Look, we take this issue seriously, too. But we're not going to go overboard. We're going to do what's necessary, not more." For us, it is purely an issue of good sense, whereas for Gore, it's a substitute for religion. Or, to put it even more bluntly, "Look, Gore-type environmentalists have been wanting to take your car away for 60 years for whatever reason they can find. If it wasn't global warming, it would be something else. This is what they have always wanted to do. They have wanted to take away your car. They don't like suburbs. They want to stop the trend of American life. We are not trying to achieve anything other than a cleaner environment. That's it. We have a more limited and more rational agenda than they do."

I think people become climate alarmists for varying reasons, but I think Frum is talking about people like Bill McKibben.

I listened to McKibben in this video, entitled "Global Warming Solutions". I was quite surprised at how little McKibben focused on carbon dioxide and global "warming"; instead, he ranged far afield to talk about bedrooms that are too large, people that are allegedly "less happy", too much economic growth, the joys of interacting with people at farmers' markets, perceived problems with the music business, etc etc. It really seems that McKibben is just using global warming as a justification for his "solutions" for lots of other alleged problems.

McKibben's unfocused, alarmist blather stands in very sharp contrast to Bob Carter's skeptical climate videos here.