Questioning Internal Combustion:
The problems with cars

from Cars: An Environmental Challenge by Terri Willis and Wallace B.Black

Background

When cars made traveling easier the weathy were free to move to more spacious outskirts of town. Suburbia was born. The middle class and poor remained in the city. They usually did not own cars, so they had to rely on mass transit system to get around. As more poor people moved toward the city centers, the government devoted fewer resources to thei upkeep turning the inner cities into slums. Cities deteriotated further when expressways were built to handle the growing number of cars coming from the suburbs. Many highways were built on once healthy neighborhoods and over parks. Thses roadways ruined housing and damaged the naighborhood appearance.

Federal, state, and city governments spent money on roads, letting public transportation degrade. Beginning in the 1930's General Motors joined forces with other businesses to buy more than 100 electric rail systems in 45 cities, they dismantled them and paved over the tracks so that more people would be required to purchase cars.

In California where pavement threatened to cover much of the landscapes, community groups formed to stop development. A group in San Francisco was successful in stopping the completion of the Embarcadero freeway, and in 1996, it cinvinced the city to reject more than $240 million in federal highway aid. In most instances, the millions of car owners, along with huge automobile and oil industries, won many disagreements. The administration of President Ronald Reagan relaxed the gas milage restrictions on US automakers. The country's dependence on foreign oil increased. The US government has not made a commitment to cutting out air pollutanted, because the costs to businesses would be so great.

Pollution

Pollution is created while cars are being built, more every minute they are on the road, and cars continue to pollute while they sit in junkyards. Emissions from cars and trucks contribute as much as 80% of the total air pollution in big cities like Mexico City and Los Angeles. Researches estimate that pollution caused by autom emissions causes 30,000 deaths per year in the US alone. The number of people who suffer illness as a result of pollution is even higher.

Byproducts exit the exhaust valves as a number of harmful compounds. The main exhaust emissions are carbon monoxide (CO2) hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NOX), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and suspended particles, such as soot that hangs in the air. SO2 and NOX from autom emissions react with moitsure in the atmosphere to create acids which in turn can create acid rain. For every gallon of gasoline they burn cars produce about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, one of the principle tailpipe emissions. The average car on the road gets approximately 20 miles per gallon and makes 1 pound of CO2 for each mile.

Exhaust emissions are not the only problems created in the mix of gasoline and gas. When oil companies explore and drill for crude oil around the world, they damage and pollute the environment. They carve out wide paths through prestine forests to drag in they heavy equipment. They build drilling platforms for offshore wells in fragile ocean ecosystems. They abandon the rusting skeletons of rigs on the Arctic tundra. Poisonous chemicals used in drilling leak into the atmosphere. The water, the land plants, and animals are often destroyed forever.

The average car on the road today in the US is less than eight years old. Most of the cars rolling off the assembly lines by the millions today will be junk in 10 years.

In the US 60,000 square miles of land has been paved over. As much as 10% of the countries potential farmland has been used for roadways. US highway officials estimate that over the next 20 years, traffic congestion will increase by more than 400% on the freeways and 200% on the roads. Dr. John Holtzclow of the Sierra Club confirms this finding: Massive highway construction will not ease traffic congestion but will only spread sprawl and congestion to new areas, and increase time lost in congestion, fuel consumption, and smog.

The future

Unfortunately our love for cars tends to outweigh our desire to solve some Earth's problems. It's clear that people in general have willingly sacrificied some of their attachment to cars if we want positive changes in the environment and society.

Less money shuld be spent on road improvements and expansion and more increases in the use of mass transit systems. People's dependence on cars could be reduced by careful urban planning. If homes were built nearer stores, offices, and factories, residents could walk to their job and do shopping by foot.

Car consumption could be reduced if all available technology were used. Car manufacturers have to know how to produce cars that are better for the environment, but there is a lack of public demand. So, small numbers of car efficient cars are being produced. Manufacturers complain that these cars can not be produced at a profit. The average American who switches to bicycle and mass transit will save 400 gallons of gas each year. Each commuter who travels by bus cuts hydrocarbon emmisions by 90% and carbon monoxide emmisions are cut by more than 75% over those given by a private car.

The millions of passenger vehicles on our roads today are responsible for pollution, congestion, safety, and health problems. exhaust emissions contribute heavily to global warming and acid rain, affecting the quality of life on Earth. We must all act quickly to protect the Earth and the life of it's inhabitants.