A large fraction of humanity is young or old. Like, >50% of people are not really safe to ride a bike on their own, let alone at -25C. There are people who can do it, but as a solution it lacks generality.
Are you serious? My mother is 72 and pretty much bikes everywhere. If you walk or bike around in many European cities you'll see people from 2-90 on bikes. Have a look a Videos from Finland where you see people of all ages biking around in sub - 10 C.
It's also hilarious how - 25 C is being brought up as not suitable for people to bike around. Like how many people in Europe/Northern America actually encounter these temperature even once (let alone regularly that it should determine our traffic policies). These are the same arguments that ICE car proponents make against electric cars, "I might want to make a cross country road trip once every 5 years and so every car with a range of less than 800km on a single charge is not suitable".
The level of risk your mother is willing to take with a body that can’t bounce back from injuries very easily does not generalize to an obligation for others to accept the same level of personal risk.
Sedentary behavior is in itself risk factors for dying. If you break your hip bones, then your health is going to spiral downward because you can't walk.
You need to load your body. A car takes load off of you.
What don’t I accept? You’re reading too much into things. A lot of people don’t exercise enough. But countless millions of people stay at an acceptable weight without walking everywhere. Mostly it involves simply eating modest portions of balanced foods.
I am making a narrow, targeted argument in the context of a thread that has diverged into claims about the viability of bicycles as a primary means of transport, particularly for some sub populations. Fitting that question into a broad explanatory framework for widespread weight issues is outside the scope of that, and would only be a small part of such a framework in any case.
Some can, not all, and that too is still irellevant: the on-topic question for this side thread are the risks associated with bikes in particular as a primary means of transport for certain sub populations. look above and you will see that’s the context of my original response.
I lived in Beijing for 10 years, where it regularly gets to -10 or -20C for a few months, and I did commute by bike through those winters, and it is extremely taxing and hard. I don't think you'll succeed in convincing more than say 20% of the population to do that in reality. If you think you have the power to convince more, please go for it!
Yes, I am. What percent of people have dementia or alzheimer's - it's at least 5-10% right? What about Parkinson's? What about cancer? What percent are not able to manage their own lives and need constant oversight (psychological, etc.) What percent are <10 years old? these are huge chunks of humanity.
The problem with that argument is that in places that are setup for it, it clearly works because people do it. So we have to ask whether there is something unusual about the people in those places, or the infrastructure. It apparently isn't something wrong with being young or old, within obvious limits.
It's also hilarious how - 25 C is being brought up as not suitable for people to bike around. Like how many people in Europe/Northern America actually encounter these temperature even once (let alone regularly that it should determine our traffic policies). These are the same arguments that ICE car proponents make against electric cars, "I might want to make a cross country road trip once every 5 years and so every car with a range of less than 800km on a single charge is not suitable".