General Cycling Discussion - Pollution. Climate Change vs. locality.

The thread about climate change and pollution has brought up many interesting and key points. However, there is another point about pollution that I wish to bring up (but as a different thread because it is a bit off topic).

The first thread talked about cars and climate change. However I maintain that cars are not the main culprit in global warming (assuming that it exists), but industries are. Reducing car emissions, size, and fuel usage would most likely have the immediate effect of local pollution in cities (read : less smog!) while the change made by -- more efficient -- cars would be smaller on a global scale. However, if we look at industries (including power generation) we can see that that is where the majority of the pollution comes from and many of them are not located near major cities.

Bottom line : cars should be reduced/banned/more efficient to reduce pollution in cities because there is clear proof that city pollution is mainly caused by vehicules.

Originally posted by Spire
Bottom line : cars should be reduced/banned/more efficient to reduce pollution in cities because there is clear proof that city pollution is mainly caused by vehicules.
I guess the problem is that you don't have a minority group you can blame it on. The smokers in my department have to go outside to smoke. That's not just because second-hand smoke is dangerous, it's because there are enough non-smokers who don't want smoke around them that they won out over the smokers.

Unless we think pollution affects us enough individually to cause us to take responsibility, we'll keep tanning the inside of our lungs with car exhaust.