How do you carry groceries and other purchased items? I buy one or two weeks worth of groceries and load it into my car.
I have no problems carrying 20 or 30 pounds of groceries from Pathmark (about three-quarters of a mile away). I even carried home a bench grinder (~40 pounds) once from a store in the same shopping center. It helps to keep me in some semblance of half-way decent shape. Where there's a will there's a way. I've even seen people moving furniture on the subway. There are two other, smaller stores closer as well if I'm not in the mood to carry heavy loads. Large items like furniture, or heavy items from Home Depot, I can have delivered. Smaller large items like maybe a laser printer I can manage on the bus if need be but I get better deals mail order anyway.
Regarding public transit, as strange as it may seem to those who covet the privacy of an auto, I actually
like traveling with other people. I've met many interesting people in the course of my travels, including my last gf, on the subway. I just can't think of a better way to see large numbers of different people every day than traveling on the subway. Sure, I don't like sitting near a smelly homeless person, or anyone else with issues, but I don't have to. I just change my seat, get up and stand, or move to another car. Also, fact is whether you travel by car or train, unless you're living the life of a hermit sooner or later you come into contact with groups of people from whom you can catch illnesses. It annoys me when people act like only lepers ride on public transport. Most of the people I see are just workers, students, or people out to have a good time. It's a shame the media for years gave public transit an undeserved bad rap.
Not big on camping here so it's a non-issue that public transit doesn't go there. I get bitten enough by mosquitoes just mowing my small lawn. Last summer I was bedridden for two weeks with a fever running as high as 105 soon after noticing a bunch of bites. Probably West Nile, but no way to be sure. In any case, given all the even worse things you can catch in the bush, I'll pass. Any beauty is not worth it to me unless you can get rid of the bugs. Maybe I'd like to see Antarctica one day though. Sounds fascinating to me as it's about as far removed from civilization as you can get. It's not that I can't appreciate nature. I certainly can as much as anyone, so I can see where you're coming from. It's just that "roughing it" in order to do so isn't worth it to me. Neither is owning a car.
I agree with you 100% about living below sea level. New Orleans is still a disaster waiting to happen. If the time comes that NYC ends up below sea level from global warming then it's time to move. I just don't trust a system of dikes, levees, or seawalls to keep me safe.