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Driving Toward Sustainability
Oxford University Press, USA
January 2009
On Sale: January 13, 2009
320 pages ISBN: 0195376641 EAN: 9780195376647 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
At present, there are roughly a billion motor vehicles in
the world. Within twenty years, the number will double to 2
billion, largely a consequence of China's and India's
explosive growth. Given that greenhouse gases are already
creating havoc with our climate and that violent conflict in
oil-rich nations is on the rise, does this mean that matters
will only get worse? Or are there hopeful signs that
effective, realistic solutions can be found? In Two Billion Cars, transportation experts Daniel Sperling
and Deborah Gordon provide a concise history of America's
love affair with cars and an overview of the global oil and
auto industries. America is still the leading emissions
culprit, and what is especially worrying is that developing
nations are becoming car-centric cultures as well. The
authors explain how we arrived in this dangerous state, and
also what we can do about it. Sperling and Gordon expose the roots of the problem-- the
resistant auto-industry, dysfunctional oil markets,
short-sighted government policies, and unmotivated consumers. They zero in on reforming our gas-guzzling culture,
expanding the search for low-carbon fuels,
environment-friendly innovations in transportation planning,
and more. Promising advances in both transportation
technology and fuel efficiency together with shifts in
travel behavior, they suggest, offer us a realistic way out
of our predicament. Ironically, the authors contend that the
two places with the most troublesome emissions
problems--California and China-- are taking the lead in
developing effective strategies that can help wean us from
our reliance on conventional, petroleum-fueled cars. California's embrace of eco-friendly policies, which
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses in the foreword,
and China's willingness to confront the twin environmental
and energy crises wrought by an exponential growth in cars,
suggest that if they can develop ingenious and effective
solutions, then there really is reason for hope.
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