Curbing number of cars an obvious and urgent but sadlyunpopular choice

By Wan Lixin (Shanghai Daily) 14:30, January 08, 2014

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BEIJING, Jan. 8 -- Given China’s importance to major carmakers and Chinese dependenceon cars, any proposal to discourage car use, if broached at all, must be tactfully watereddown so as not to incur bad feelings.

In recent years in the so-called exemplary first-tiered cities, cars have become so popularthat they are evolving from aspirational symbols of the good life to a daily necessity.

I have the courage to raise this sensitive topic, since I am largely emboldened by therecent exchanges over the innocuousness of car exhausts, as some experts allege.

Significantly, this latest attempt at whitewashing cars came at a time of wholesaleenvironmental degradation, particularly damning in the form of pervasive smog. There is acrying need for prompt, and collective action in addressing the issue.

One of the first shots in the auto emissions-smog debate was fired by an otherwiserespectable TV host, Cui Yongyuan, who dismissed car emissions as no more polluting than“farts.” Then came Zhang Renjian, a researcher in Beijing, who downplayed car exhaust ina paper claiming that they contribute to less than 4 percent of the smog in Beijing.

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（Editor：ZhangQian、Yao Chun）

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