Sep 29, 2006 11:00:40 PM cite

I would suggest that a more question might be: ‘What if all people want a car?’ As with all things taken to excess, there will be a point where saturation is reached, and the notion will be abandoned.

by RedSevenOne

Sep 17, 2006 8:41:41 PM cite

I hope these sessions will result in more incise responses than that of Mr Geert.

by imding

Sep 14, 2006 2:15:50 PM cite

This would be a big problem, because China has about 1.3 Billion inhabitants. If everyone want/has a car I think at first the citys will burst over. There isn't enough space for all these cars. They can't drive, they have no space for praking theires cars. Moreover that the industry isn't able to produce so much cars in a short time. The climate would collaborate, because of all the CO² and emissions... I think this would be a case, the world can't deal with. So for the future when more and more Chinese people get a car, the industry have to invent cars producing less emissions.

by BenS

Sep 14, 2006 1:32:35 PM cite

In my humble opinion the chinese haven't enough money to buy a car. So that this situation would never happen. But if they could all buy a car and drive with it through their beautiful country the world would be destroyed.

by Phex

Sep 11, 2006 5:11:46 AM cite

For one thing, if they all had cars, in the resulting traffic Jam, the entire country would grind to a halt.

by thedoc

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: It´s a little bit racist question. The thing that bothers me is that in Germany every family has two cars, hasn´t it? It´s the same thing in America. Chinese people want to have a car. It can be ... Everybody understands it can be a big catastrophe because it is not only about China but about India and another countries where million, million people live. But why I don´t begin from myself, "my own garden"? Why I don´t think about why I am driving the car, why I use the car, why I am not going by bus, why I am not going by tram, why not? For what do I need so many things that use so much energy? Why do I take a bath instead of taking a shower? Why do I leave the tap running when I am brushing my teeth? For this action which takes only three minutes I use, maybe, two hundred liter water! At the same time people in the other part of the world have no water and they must go three, five or ten kilmeter to bring some dirty water. Why? You know ... This is a question! Why are we doing this and what can it be?!

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: Well, everyone in China has the right to own a car... If we consider that to be a disaster we should take attention right now.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Why Chinese? What if every single person wants a car? Chinese are not the problem, eventhough there are many of them. Cars are a big problem, they are a tragedy. We must completely redefine the principle of people's displacement and transportation. Automobiles are a big mistake, an authentic tragedy.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Well I’m sure all Chinese people, most Chinese people want a car. Why shouldn’t they. Andrew, I guess we’re staring down the barrel of that gun. I think the pressure on the oil markets at the moment are measured by the kind of renewed and expanded demand that the emerging economies have for fuel. These would be India or China. So we’ve seen for instance an ecological system that no longer can sustain the kind of energy that we are burning. So, you know, yeah. Maybe it’s good that all Chinese people will have a car and that the end will arrive sooner than later, and that we can then as I say develop a response. Because people are not going to be preemptive. They are going to be reactive. Intelligence is - human intelligence is always reactive and not preemptive. Or seldom preemptive I should say. So, I regret to say that the scenario isn’t as rosy as one would like. To say that human sensibility will be sufficiently responsive in time to avert what is an inevitability. That the ecosystem will be irreparably or is irreparably damaged.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: Well, there is a couple of different ways we are approaching this question. The reality is, I think we have to expose that the dominant way that this question is asked is in a racist way, which is premised on the idea that, well, it’s okay for us -- first of all, it’s okay for us in the United States to have developed a certain form of irrational public -- privatized transportation, which involved a systematic destruction of public transportation and more environmentally and also socially sustainable forms of transportation by arranging collective public transportation. Instead we have a privatized system of transportation, which was established very consciously by the auto industry, by the rubber industry, by the steel industry, and by people who had an economic stake in developing a model of privatized auto purchase and use, and it has created a whole political, economic framework to sustain and drive that economy. That economy is utterly irrational. It leads to such overproduction that the world auto industry produces as many cars as -- are bought each year twice over, and is creating tremendous unnecessary waste because of their lack of planning, a further example of the absurdities of the capitalist system. And now, you see the encouragement of a similar process in China. And the consequences are quite frightening, but they have to be seen in the context of [audio ends].

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: I noticed that if they all want car I think it is a good thing that everybody has a car but how to maintain it, how to, you know -- how can you afford [the kind of car you want] to buy and I think it will be better off than anything. That day when everybody has a car it will be, the country will be -- we have to hope the country will be most economically independent.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think my question would be that is it correct for people and the societies, which are built on everyone having a car, the latest model of SUVs, the latest models of hummers, are we really in a position to ask the question what if all Chinese or all Indians wanted a car? The question needs to be “Do we as humanity knowing what’s happening with these climate change and other problems that we have, do we really each one of us want a car?” So, it is not just about the Chinese or the Indians or some other part of the world. It is a question that I ask myself, “Do I need a car?” “Why can’t I have a decent public transport system?” “How come money that, resources that are spent on, say wars, just because of oil in other nations, why they are not used to build decent public infrastructure systems?” “Why they are not used to build public economies and local economies?” We will not be needing cars in these modes of transportation.”

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: What I am hearing in this question is, of course everyone, we would think, would want a car. Why should not all Chinese people or all people around the world want a car? What's behind the question I think is, the thought experiment that, given the number of Chinese people there are in the Chinese population, that if every Chinese person were to have a car, what will be the consequences of that? And just to expand the question, not just for China, for India, for Africa, for all of the peoples of the world, what if everyone wanted a car? What kind of world would it be? Would that be sustainable? That’s the question. So, it’s clear that what's behind the question is not so much the Chinese people, but a metaphor for a situation in which it’s unsustainable, clearly. And I think what it’s pointing to is the need to rethink and reconsider our lifestyle and our way of being in the world. And to ask, are there alternative ways of living, where we can live in high standards and high quality of life that’s sustainable and that can be maintained? That is the question. And that’s a question that we have to think about especially in the United States, where it’s known that the Western world and the United States is using a disproportionately large amount of resources compared to the other populations of the world. So I will bring it home to America and ask, must we not now, all people of this planet, all global citizens, reexamine their lifestyles. And see if there is not a more sacred way to be in harmony with our environment and with each other and to share the resources in a new way, in a higher way, from abundance rather than scarcity. And that really opens new questions for us.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: It may be the case already that all Chinese people want a car. The question is what would happen if every Chinese person actually owns a car, drives a car? Then it's going to add to the huge emission problems that we have, to the environmental pollution, to the greater consumption of fossil fuel. However, I think this is going to compel the Chinese people as well as people all over the world to be able to look at alternative forms of transportation, whether it be mass transit, whether it be use of the bicycles, which the Chinese originally had as their form of transportation, bicycles, which they're giving up, but I also see other countries becoming more and more willing to use the bicycle as a way of transportation. So we really need to see how we all have to become more creative in seeing alternative ways that we can use transportation other than, as a car, and there really is no reason why each person in the family ought to have a car. So we have a family of four in the U.S., and you have four cars. A car for each member of the family, and in some families each member owns more than a car, one car. So it's really the excess use of transportation that we are concerned about.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 2:20:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I say that’s marvellous: They should not only want it, but also should have it! The richer all the people in the world get, the better they live. So, the world community will live better. It cannot be right that there some having a high level of life and the others have a lower level of life. We all should have a high level. So, they are saying: But the demography! The demography! The Chinese will attack us, overflow us! That’s not right. When the Chinese will get better, when the Chinese will get richer, when the Chinese will live in a modern way like the Europeans like the Americans, their demography will be exactly as balanced out as happened in Europe and in America. So, of course, we have to care for to take the environment into account because of the many cars in China. We have to care for that the resources will get saved. But that each Chinese as each European and each American will have a car is a luck itself, a good thing, we should look forward to.

by Avi Primor