DRM has absolutely nothing do to with this.

Their existence is far more constant than heavily urbanized areas.

Certainly not. Moderately urbanized areas are a historical footnote. They came into existence less than a century ago, with the emergence of automobilism and cheap fuel.

Heavily urbanized areas have existed for millenia.

This is highly unrealistic. Most people do not want to be packed in tighter with other people, they want more space not less.

The alternative is that they stop existing altogether when personal automobiles become too expensive for the average consumer to own and operate.

I’m talking about moderately urbanized places (which there are a lot more of).

Such places exist as a direct consequence of car culture. Their existence is not a universal constant; they can and must be turned into heavily urbanized areas.

What kind of vehicle do you think usually pulls up to a loading dock?

Grocery stores inside cities do not have loading docks. Their goods are typically delivered by this type of vehicle to curb-side offloading sites during off-peak hours.

18 wheelers are not last mile delivery vehicles and have no business being in cities to begin with.

Once or twice.

Look, I don't think we really disagree with each other. I think it would be great if we switched to sail-based shipping. But for that to be viable the masses would have to be OK with the results of that, as you laid out above.

I'm not hopeful that will happen, not until supply chains start breaking under the strain of climate change its consequences. By then, it may be too late to switch.

I wouldn't trust any commercial studio with a Morrowind remake. OpenMW + Tamriel Rebuilt is where it's at.

I suggest you get to work on implementing your solution, then. It's very easy, after all. Let me know how it goes.

We could

Who's "we"? You're referring to some kind of collective humanity, but so such collective exists in the real world. There is no grand effort to work together to solve common problems.

You're ignoring the fact that sailing ships cannot compete with fossil power. Any problem becomes easy if you're willing to ignore reality.

We could easily

I think you and I have different definitions of that word.

drastic action is necessary which will result in large inconveniences and disruption for billions of people, but nobody wants that, and no politician will get elected selling that.

Correct.

Fair.

The point was not to imply that shipping is not a large source of CO2, but:

1. More than once, I have seen it stated that a small number of cargo ships dwarfs the world's car fleet in terms of CO2 emission. This is wrong, and originates with abovementioned conflating of sulphur and carbon.
2. At 3.9% of all GHG emissions, it is hardly correct to refer to shipping as one of the "biggest CO2 polluters".
3. It's not low hanging fruit. Moving cargo by sea is really very efficient, and we're not going to reduce that carbon source by switching to other means of transport. The only way to reduce it is to move less stuff.

I do believe you are grossly incorrect

What makes you think that? None of the sources you provide disagree with what I wrote.