As Auto Production Roars To New Records, Worldwatch Institute Sounds The Alarm
The car industry is slowly getting healthy again (except in Europe.) Worldwide sales are up 6.8 percent so far, and it looks like 81 million units could be sold worldwide this year, as data by LMC Automotive show. This has the Worldwatch Institute up in arms. Basically, it wants us to buy fewer cars and drive them less.
Says Worldwatch Senior Researcher Michael Renner:
“Automobiles are major contributors to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Greater fuel efficiency, along with the use of cleaner fuels, can help mitigate these impacts, although increases in the numbers of cars and the distances driven threaten to overwhelm fuel economy advances.”
Worldwatch singles out China as “the major driver of increased production and sales.” China had the nerve to grow its passenger vehicle fleet “at an annual average rate of 25 percent during 2000-11, from fewer than 10 million cars to 73 million cars,” says Worldwatch.
What the study does not mention: In the U.S., there are 240 million light vehicles on the road. That is one car or light truck per 1.3 people.
Using the Worldwatch number of 73 million cars in China, there would only be one car for 18 Chinese.
Cause to be alarmed even more: The official number is 114 million automobiles on China’s streets, one automobile for 11 Chinese.
Wait until Chinese car ownership reaches the standards of the developed world, that is one car for two people. Chinese car ownership would rise to 673 million cars, or about the same of what we now have on the road in the whole world.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I feel ambivalent about cars. I have owned a couple really fun cars, I like the freedom that having a car brings... But the bills are too much. Parking is a pain. Traffic sucks. Plus they pollute. There is such thing as "too much of a good thing". I think we are way past that with cars. I have ridden public transit that was very nice - in Japan, in Boston, in Europe. I have ridden bikes as my main mode of transit in Japan and in Hawaii. Personally, I think the idea of everyone having a car is ultimately crazy. Car sharing is a great idea, as is making cities very bike friendly and full of public transit. For everyday errands, I don't need a car, but it would be nice to have one to go places public transit doesn't go or for special occasions. If I had to give up cars forever to keep the world healthy, I could deal with that. My desires are not the end all and be all of life on this planet - that is to say, I put life on this planet, things like coral reefs and forests, above my desire to have a car. I think we can live very well with fewer cars; in fact, better than we live today. But it won't be the suburban fantasy, it will be something different. Maybe more walking streets like Stroget in Denmark. I've been there, and it was great. That doesn't mean I don't like cars. It just means I have priorities. A healthy planet comes before cars. The Worldwatch institute stating the obvious is not an attack on everything you've ever loved, unless you love parking, traffic jams, and commuting. I prefer being able to walk and bike to where I need to go.
Worldwide vehicle population rising into the billions is the reason that electrification of the automobile is inevitable.