Here in my Car I Can Pollute The World... (Numan, 1979)

3 months and I've yet to look into the impact of the humble automobile on global environmental change. A travesty I agree.

Despite the masses of problems associated with the use of cars, such as acid rain, noise pollution and global warming, more cars are produced than ever: while only 39,759,847 cars were produced in 1999, over 60,000,000 have been made in 2012 already (OICA, 2012). But why? Well there is a demand of course. 

More people than ever rely on their cars, and despite an increasing understanding and consideration of future consequences, short term individual interests suffocate long term collective interets (Joireman et. al, 2004). While it is difficult to be completely sure why, Joireman et. al (2004) suggest that the spatial and temporal dislocation between actions, using a car, and consequences, the production of acid rain for example, stunts the perceived need to reduce ones use of automobile.   

It is therefore necessary to think about designing cars that are more sustainable. As the environmental self awareness of the automobile industry has grown over the last half a century, environmental considerations have been widely integrated into R&D, see fig. 1 (Mildenberger and Khare, 2000).

Figure 1. Environmental R&D considerations in the production of a new car.

Despite this procedure, it is clearly difficult to ascertain whether a new product will be considered environmentally friendly in 10 years time, and even if there is a move to more sustainable
vehicles  the growth in car ownership will most likely continue resulting in further urban sprawl, and a greater consumption of land for transport, an idea elaborated upon in the last post. It is therefore necessary perhaps to look into ways to not only reduce the environmental impact of cars, but to actually entice people away from using them.