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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Imagine being stuck in traffic for a week. If you're a trucker in China on National Expressway 110 you, unfortunately, don't have to imagine. You may already find yourself recently in a traffic jam that lasted nearly two weeks and stretched for more than 100 kilometers.
The mega-jam started as a result of road damage caused by a truck on a newly constructed portion of road and has been exacerbated by heavy use from truckers hauling goods into the capital city plus various accidents. This is the second such mega-jam this summer and the underlying problem is China's growing love affair with automotive transport.
Whether it be the ubiquitous small trucks piled almost to tipping with various goods or the car showrooms sprouting like mushrooms after a rain in all the major and minor cities of the People's Republic, the Chinese want to drive. More than 2,000 new cars are added to Beijing's streets every day. That Chinese desire to drive could prove a problem for the entire planet.
That's because transportation such as cars make up the fastest growing source of emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Those gases wrap the Earth in a heat-trapping blanket, ultimately changing weather patterns. And we all know what weird weather does to traffic.
What's worse, the world's worst traffic jam may have been caused by the world's other worst offender when it comes to climate change: coal. Specifically, trucks carrying illegally mined coal to the capital. If both these trends keep up, climate change is a foregone conclusion.
—David Biello
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11 Comments
Add CommentIt is ironic! When chinese want to drive, then that desire would be a problem to the whole planet? What about you American? How many years have you been a country of automobile? And the world's biggest car maker is seems a American enterprise and get funded by you gorvenment!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisshame on you!
Yes it is ironic. But it's also an awareness, From OUR own dependence on oil, we can see that the problem we started will be VASTLY increased if other countries follow in our dirty footsteps.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's right. But as a broadcast, Scientific American should be careful making conclusions or judgements. The comment " That Chinese desire to drive could prove a problem for the entire planet." makes me feel that Chinese people shouldn't drive, or even, Chinese people shouldn't have desires? As a scientific media, perhaps SA should be objective and just!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe will be burning up the oil until it becomes expensive. Does it mater if we burn it up a few years earlier than expected?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisqlovep - You're absolutely correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, the cold hard truth is that there are far more people who cannot yet drive than people that currently do. If everyone is provided with cars and fuel humanity won't survive the consequences.
As a matter of fairness if we Americans stop driving that wouldn't allow all others who so desire to drive. The best we can do is to reduce the consequences of driving. It's still not enough... In fairness, we apparently must drive the planet into the dirt, so to speak.
It is the world's international petroleum and automobile industries that a have instilled in all of us the desire to drive. We Americans are merely their most faithful servants.
The desire to drive is more than just marketing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think we should blame people's desire for the worsening environment. Developing clean energies may be a better idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think we should blame people's desire for the worsening environment. Developing clean energies may be a better idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTraffic jam has become an unavoidable by-product of the mad increase of motor vehicles. Jams of thousands of vehicles for long hours end up not only in time wasting but also greater air pollution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChina is going to pay a hefty price for its relentless quest for cars, the status bearer for the growing middle class. Yes, many Chinese seem to get rich overnight, but it will be at a huge cost to the general health and well-being of the giant nation.
One would be worried about the sustainability of its social fabric. Getting prosperous too quickly and too easily may well be a curse, albeit hidden for the time being.
Tan Boon Tee - I understand that at least one of the massive traffic jams was caused by the failure of recent road repairs. One of the common consequences of quick success is the rush to implement needed infrastructure, sometimes resulting in inferior reliability. This could eventually produce catastrophic engineering failures in public infrastructure, at a time when they are even more crucial to normal operations than today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSCI AM is becoming a propaganda machine and science is going to wayside like nearly all the print journalism in the US.
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