Four Wheel Lifestyle

Four-Wheel Lifestyle

World War II is the definning moment of the 20th cenury. It brought about the creation of the UN, the nuclear bomb, and the consumerism age know today. In the post-war era America was the leader of the world with the strongest economy that became based on the car. After the war the suburbans were created for the growing middle class who left the cities for a safer place in the outskirts. This allowed for the creation of highways and commuting which pushed for almost every American capable to drive to go buy a car if they could afford it. This trend moved on to other parts of the world like Europe and Japan. This trend is leading to massive amounts of CO2 being released every second as pretroleum, the fossil fuel used in cars, is burned to push vehicles around. As of today the trend is still growing around the world as more countries begin to develop economically and is becoming the source of massive amounts of CO2 being released every second as pretroleum, the fossil fuel used in cars, is burned to push vehicles around. In Earth Odysey by Mark Hertsgaard, go arounds the world look at the impact of modern man's impact on the enviroment. When he looking at the impact of the vehicle trend, he say's "The automobile may well be the ultimate symbol of the modern enviromental crisis" ( Hertsgaard 90). Lately the strongest impact this trend has made has been on China. Today there is over 20 million vehicles driving the streets of China;s already polluted citties. The trend isn't slowing down as China's economy grows larger and larger every year into a new consuremism age. This age is giving millions of Chinese the ability to live a four-wheel tlifestyle and hurt the enviroment like any American.

In the 1980s the Chinese opened their market to foreign investment. This lead to a economic boom that created millions of jobs andthousands of factories in the cities. To power these cities and factories the Chinese use the method of coal burning releasing tons of sulfur dioxide in the air.Throughout cities coal burning was the number one source of air pollution and brought large amount of smong through the streets. Hertsgaard illustates this by writing " It was a Chongqing local that told me that , on the worst days of smog and fog, 'if you stretch your fingers out In front of your face, you cannot see your fingers.'" (Hertsgaard 171). The burning of sulfur dioxide of coal also brought acid rain to the cities which was both a human health issue and enviromental issue. Coal also releases C02 Hertsgaard tells us that "Coal is the most potent carbon dioxide producer of all fossil fuels" (Hertsgaard 169). Herstgard even goes on to tell us that "By 1990, China emitted 580 million tons of carbon dioxide a year". Yet to most Chinese sulfur dioxide was a much bigger problem than the release of CO2. This shown by a senior official of the Chongqing Enviromental Protection Bureau tells Hertsgaard "'We can't solve the carbon dioxide problem unti lwe solve the sulfur dioxide problem'"(Hertsgaard 187). In the 1990s factories began moving out of the cities so has to have cleaner air for the growing middle class living in the inner parts of cities that began appearing since the economic boom. Then as the factories began to move away to the outskirt of cities, office complexes began moving in to the centre of cities. At the same time cars began showing up at a rapid pace and the all smog that was had left with the factories had now come back with the cars. In a 2005 article released by the PubMed Central Richard Dahl writes "Sulfur dioxide levels have been going down in Chinese city air, but they are being replaced by vehicle emissions including carbon monoxide and ozone-forming nitrogen oxides"(Dahl page 2 par 5). Chinese may need to worry about carbon dioxide more since Chinese cities are now undergoing a shift from industrial pollution to motor vehicle pollution .

"If you talk to Chines people many of them will tell you, 'To have a car car is my dream,''" (Hertsgaard 244). The motor vehicle is a represention of today's consumerism age. It is the symbol of freedom and it the basis of our economy as well as culture. So it no wonder that after the economic boom Chinese, porspering from the boom, began going out to buy cars in the thousands. In 1997 according to Hertsgaard " China has one car per every five hundred inhabitans" ( Herstgaard 231). Statistics show that China had about 1,000,000 cars on the road. in 1990 At that time the main transportation for Chinese was and for many poor Chinese still is the bicycle. Hertsgaard talks about the conjested road with "endless streamof bicycles" (Hertsgaard 231). Car sales didn't really until 2000 and because of this jump car conjustion became a huge problem. So much so that Chinese had to eliminate bike lanes to replace them with more car lanes. In the span of three years Thomas L. Friedman saw this change in Beijing, where 1000 cars hits the road every day, when he came back there in 2001 in his book The World is Flat "in just three years the explosive growth there had erased without a trace many of those charming bicycle lanes. They had either been shrunken or eliminated to add another lane for automobiles and buses" ( Friedman 596). What Friedman saw has been happening through many of China's major cities. This disregard for bicyclist and their safety shows how much Chinese are pushed to join in this car buying trend. Car manufacturing in China has surpassed every country except America. Every year car sales have gone up in numbers and percentage wise. In an article from adweek.com Noreen O'Leary writes " China's car culture is taking off: It's expected that 4.1 million passenger cars will have more than 10 million private cars in China now, or about one every 120 people" (O'Leary page 3 par 2). As China's economy rises so those its people's income and those people want to go spend their money. No one can stop them because it is their right to own a car as much as it ours, even though it does come with consequences.

China's new consumer lifestyle is reaching many of its citizens. Many of these people are beginning to live similar lives to any average American. They want the car, the home, and the air conditioning. Yet on each thing they must cut back so afford what they can get. In any case the only person that really gets hurt in this case is mother nature and it will probably later be us. When comparing both culture there is a significant difference that shows how China's impact on nature could become greater than America's. For instance American requirements for cars is that meet