As the world's fastest growing and second largest economy, China's ever expanding population and middle class must only have the right to live like Americans, right? Shouldn't everyone have the opportunity to mobilize? Thomas L. Friedman faces these issues in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. It appears that China's growth spurt of a demand for cars is catching up with them as thousands of Chinese citizens sat through a ten day, sixty mile traffic jam last month. This is what The Washington Post reported:
On Sunday, the eighth day of the near-standstill, trucks moved just over a kilometer (less than a mile) on the worst section, said Zhang Minghai, a traffic director in Zhangjiakou, a city about 150 kilometers (90 miles) northwest of Beijing. China Central Television reported Tuesday that some vehicles had been stuck for five days.
The car invasion is widely felt; Guo Jifu, head of the Beijing Transportation Research Center, told a symposium Monday that vehicles on Beijing's roads multiplied by 1,900 per day on average in the first half of this year, Xinhua, the official news agency, reported.
If the rate of this global mobilization continues, crowded countries such as China will begin to frequently face these traffic disasters. In fact, since the end of this jam on August 24th, a four day traffic jam consummated around the same area. And if China can mobilize, why not the rest of the world? Statistics show that if the entire human population was to live the American lifestyle, we would need nine Earths to survive. This traffic jam should be a slap in the face for Americans; for too long have we been living luxuriously on the account of others. Now that the rest of the world is catching up, we are eager to yell 'Crisis'. It is long past due that we begin to set an example of greener, more conservative and renewable energy lifestyles.
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