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