Sigh.
A special section in this morning’s Wall Street Journal predicts that by 2020 there will be 1 Billion cars in service worldwide. While the section has articles on hybrids, alternative fuels, congestion management, and recycling of vehicles, I did not see any prominent discussion of either peak oil or global warming (in fairness, I didn’t come close to reading every word of every article).
5 responses to “One Billion Cars”
This is scary, but I’d like that number put into context:
How many cars are on the world’s roads today?
I believe the piece estimated the current count at about 750 Million.
I did the math. It is an increae of about 33% over 14 years or about 2% per year. Presumably mostly NOT in the USA.
BTW, I heard that gasolene invnetories are at a multi year high, suggesting that we will see $2.00/gal before $3.50/gal. Might even crash after a speculative bubble bursts.
Thanks
JK
More cars and more people equals less resources and more problems.
There is no reason to have a billion cars, biycles, trains, and buses can do what we need it to if we just let it.
People are selfish and ignorant. They think that they need to have a car when they do not.
Well, maybe Portland can do its own part by trying to *reduce* VMT between now and 2020. If you can’t change the entire world, you can at least change the local world.
Jim, I’m not sure that the correlation between gasoline inventories and future lower gas prices exist. While inventories are high, consumption is also at an all-time high. China and India, in particular, as well as all those SUVs that have been sold in the U.S. in recent years, will conspire together to keep oil prices rather high. I wouldn’t gamble on seeing $2.00/gallon anytime soon. Last time I saw the prices at a gas station, it was $2.99, $3.09 and $3.19. That’s pretty close to $3.50!!!