Originally Posted by Roody

On this issue, the US will never be the leader of the world. Of the countries of the world, the ones whre the general populace is most stupid about science--including ecology and climate change--are the United States and a few of the Muslim countries. I hate to say it, but this is because fundamentalist religion is so influential in these countries.

I think the developing countries will probably be wise enough to leapfrog past the dirtiest and most destructive technologies. China is pulling back from the automobile as we speak. Car sales grew for a few years, but now they are flat. China is trying to slow down their economy because inflation is a looming problem. Most Chinese people and their leaders seem to understand that cars will increase somewhat, but they will never want to use cars in the same way we do in the US. They can see how much worse the smog is in their cities already. Their cities are so much larger than ours, and so dense, that cars won't work very well. In the countryside there is no infrastructure for cars in most areas.

I don't know a lot about other countries, but I do know that Indonesia is encouraging people to drive less. Brazil is worrisome becuse it's such a large country that cars would probably be practical there, and they're developing huge offshore oil resources right now. Indians seem to be infatuated with cars, and they're working on an expressway system. But they lag behind the Chinese by a couple yers in their ability to afford a lot of cars.

Generally, like I said, I dont think the developing countries will necessarily repeat our mistakes, but they will have many opportunities to make their own mistakes.