AutoblogGreen reader Manu Sharma dropped us a line to let us know about a rebuttal he's written to my post the other day on the potential problems related to the growth of the car population in India. Manu makes some excellent points about some areas that I neglected to mention. First of all, most of the cars being sold in India are much smaller than what we typically drive here and that is certainly a good thing. Also the Indian government has adopted Euro emissions standards and that certainly helps with the pollution issue.
However, I just want to clarify a little of what I said. As I said, it would be unfair limit development potential in other countries, but I think it would certainly be prudent for people in places like India and China to learn from us. In retrospect, many of the decisions about transportation and urban development in North America - and to a lesser degree in Europe - are clearly not sustainable over the long term. I never meant to imply that developing countries should address climate change before the developed countries do.
We all need to work to address the issues now. The economic development curve in India is still in the relatively early stages and it's still possible to change the path they are on. It will be a lot easier to think about how cities develop from a transportation perspective now than it will be twenty or thirty years from now. If the Indians and Chinese can learn from our mistakes and do things right, maybe we can learn something from them. You can find Manu's response here.
Related:
[Source: OrangeHues.com]
However, I just want to clarify a little of what I said. As I said, it would be unfair limit development potential in other countries, but I think it would certainly be prudent for people in places like India and China to learn from us. In retrospect, many of the decisions about transportation and urban development in North America - and to a lesser degree in Europe - are clearly not sustainable over the long term. I never meant to imply that developing countries should address climate change before the developed countries do.
We all need to work to address the issues now. The economic development curve in India is still in the relatively early stages and it's still possible to change the path they are on. It will be a lot easier to think about how cities develop from a transportation perspective now than it will be twenty or thirty years from now. If the Indians and Chinese can learn from our mistakes and do things right, maybe we can learn something from them. You can find Manu's response here.
Related:
[Source: OrangeHues.com]
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