Can Both Humans And Their Cars Survive?
The Sun Herald
Saturday August 17, 1991
THE lyrics "football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars" say a lot about the esteemed place of the automobile in Australia. Australians are so attached to our motor vehicles that we have more than 10 million of them.
There is one passenger vehicle for every two people - one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world.
Worldwide there are more than 500 million cars and trucks, and at current growth rates - with one car rolling off the assembly line for every two babies born - that figure could double in the next 20 years.
But has the planet been blissfully ignorant of a monster in our midst?Should the car be written off?
"The usefulness and convenience of the motor car has been accompanied by a number of serious impacts on the environment," says the recently-released draft report of the Federal Government's Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group on Transport.
"These include air quality, congestion, noise, safety, impacts on bushland and social impacts."
That's apart from evidence that motor vehicles are slowly warming us towards environmental catastrophe through the greenhouse effect.
And then there are fuel security and the Gulf War, which no-one disputes was largely, if not totally, over oil.
CASE FOR THE CAR
TO Bill Hamel, managing director of General Motors Holden, the car has done nothing less than shape the course of history.
"The pursuit of personal mobility has been one of humanity's greatest motivating forces," said Mr Hamel.
"It has pushed economic growth, employment and technological development, while enhancing our overall quality of life.
"The car enables us as individuals or with families and friends to travel practically wherever and whenever we want.
"It does this with security, privacy, comfort and convenience."
To that Mr Hamel could have added that for many suburbs and towns across Australia, if you haven't got a car, you're stranded.
And last year the motor vehicle industry provided direct jobs for 65,000 people, with indirect employment estimated at 135,000 and thousands more people employed in the retail and import sectors.
Annual passenger car sales have fluctuated between 400,000 and 450,000 in recent years - though with the industry at present in crisis, sales are down and jobs have been shed.
GMH is a subsidiary of the American car giant, General Motors (GM).
Not only is GM the biggest car maker in the world, it is arguably also the greenest.
The company will become the first major manufacturer to offer a mass-produced electric car when the "Impact" - with as much performance as a small sports car - goes into production in 1993.
GM is a world leader in solar car technology with the "Sunraycer" and HX3 prototype.
And - at what the company says was a cost of "billions" of dollars - it was GM that developed the catalytic converter.
First fitted to the American GM range in 1975, catalytic converters have been compulsory for new cars in Australia since 1986.
The high-tech gadgets remove hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides to produce much cleaner exhaust emissions. They don't affect carbon dioxide emissions.
The Australian motor vehicle industry is eager to claim a green awareness.
"The automotive industry views the aspect of global warming as an international issue requiring significant attention," says the environmental policy paper of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).
"We have a significant part to play in helping to reduce the greenhouse effect in Australia and improve air quality.
"Our pro-active proposals represent realistic and achievable strategies."
These strategies include:
* Reducing the average fuel consumption of new cars in Australia from the current nine litres per 100 kilometres - down from 12 litres in 1978 - to eight litres by 2000, and 7.7 by 2005. (The NRMA, Royal Automobile Club of Victoria and Senate standing committee on industry, technology and commerce all recommend 6 litres by 2000).
* Adopting 1980 U.S exhaust emission levels by 1996 - involving reducing the output of hydrocarbons by 70pc, carbon monoxide by a half and oxides of nitrogen by a third.
* Phasing out the use of CFC's in car air conditioners and in the manufacture of components by the end of 1995.
The FCAI says it is no use advocating only new-vehicle solutions.
"Because of the age of the Australian vehicle fleet, with its low scrappage rate, environmental initiatives directed only at new cars take a long period to filter through and translate into meaningful proportion of the vehicle fleet."
Indeed, a recent survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed more than 40 per cent of the passenger car fleet is more than 10 years old - high by the standards of other developed countries.
For example, 43 pc of cars in Japan are less than two years old.
Old cars have high fuel consumption, use leaded petrol and produce greater concentrations of polluting emissions.
A recent American study found that 10 pc of the US fleet produced 50 pc of carbon monoxide emissions.
A reduction in the Australian tariff on completely built up cars from 35 pc next year to 15 pc by 2000 should bring new prices down and reduce the fleet age.
But the FCAI also wants governments to reduce the sales tax on new cars and increase penalties for operating older vehicles.
Governments should also place greater emphasis on vehicle maintenance and improving driver behaviour.
The Energy Guide - delivered to every household in Australia earlier this year - gives some handy hints on how significant amounts of fuel can be saved by the average motorist.
These include regular tune-ups, ensuring the air filter is clean and the tyres are pumped up properly, closing windows at speeds over 50 km/h, driving smoothly and steadily, not revving a cold engine, and not allowing the car to labour in top gear going up hills or around corners.
The guide also rates the fuel efficiency of new cars - with the 1.0 Litre Suzuki Swift coming in best and the Mercedes 300e worst.
CASE AGAINST THE CAR
THE car spews out more air pollution than any other human activity. It creates a huge amount of the world's greenhouse gases and uses a third of the world's oil. And it kills a quarter of a million people on the roads every year.
These are just a few of the stark points made in The Environmental Impact Of The Car, a Greenpeace International report which has just arrived in Australia.
The litany of evils outlined in the Greenpeace report is long.
It says the Gulf War "was the latest in a long line of conflicts motivated by the desire to secure the supply of oil".
Other wars involving oil ranged from the First Russian Revolution in 1905 to the Suez Canal crisis in 1956.
Oil spills the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster off the Alaskan coast occurred somewhere in the world once a year.
Yet industrial discharges, the dumping of oil-contaminated ballast from ships, and pouring the waste from oil changes into sewage systems combined to produce most pollution of the sea.
Then there's the "substantial environmental degradation" and enormous energy use involved in making cars.
For example, aluminium smelters were a major source of sulphur dioxide and a major user of electricity.
Most used car tyres were simply dumped, and in Western Europe 20 pc of a worn-out car's weight ended up in landfills.
Roads and freeways "have severe impacts on the natural environment" and new ones in congested areas simply encouraged more cars to use them.
But the waste that comes out of exhaust pipes is perhaps the biggest threat posed by the car identified in the Greenpeace report:
* Carbon Dioxide (CO2): The main greenhouse gas, cars emit almost 15 pc of the world's CO2 produced from fossil fuel burning.
"Add the emissions from exploration, transportation, refining and the distribution of fuel, and this figure is 15 to 20 pc of world emissions."
(Transport contributes almost 30 pc of Australia's overall CO2 emissions -with private cars producing most of that. They dump up to 150 kg of CO2 per tank of fuel into the atmosphere.)
* CFCs: Car air conditioning is a major source of CFC's which not only destroy the ozone layer, but are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in retaining the Earth's heat.
The newer "HFC's" did not destroy the ozone layer but were still powerful greenhouse gases.
* Ozone: While not directly produced by motor vehicles, ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons - which are - react with sunlight. At lower levels in the atmosphere it was not only a powerful greenhouse gas but a health hazard.
Ozone is one of the main components of photochemical smog which caused eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, coughing and impaired lung function -asthmatics and children being most at risk.
(While NSW health authorities say we have nothing to fear from air pollution, overseas research suggests ozone is involved in causing permanent lung damage.
Researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles examined the lungs of young people who had died in traffic accidents and concluded that had they survived, they would have been likely to die early from emphysema, bronchitis or possibly heart attack.
A recent CSIRO report found that parts of western Sydney experience near-Los Angeles smog which exceeds world health standards - the main cause being car emissions blown from central Sydney.)
* Lead: When people were exposed to low levels of lead over a long period the most common toxic effects were on the nervous system and blood. There was growing evidence that even very low levels could impair the mental abilities of children. (Only 30 pc of Australian vehicles currently run on unleaded fuel.)
* Carbon monoxide (CO): Cars were the major source of this gas, accounting for more than 65 pc of emissions in OECD countries.
Carbon monoxide impaired the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, resulting - amongst other things - in impaired perception, slowing of the reflexes and drowsiness. In large doses it was fatal.
* Nitrogen oxides: Nitrogen dioxide could irritate the respiratory tract, reduce lung function and may increase susceptibility to viral infections.
* Hydrocarbons: These are the unburnt and partly burnt fuels. Benzene was a "proven cause of cancer" while other hydrocarbons caused drowsiness, eye irritation and coughing.
* Diesel particulates: These could aggravate respiratory diseases such as asthma, but also carried cancer-causing agents.
Critics of the car and government advisory groups have proposed a wide variety of solutions to the problems created by the motor vehicle.
These range from short-term "Band-aid" fixes such as much tighter emission controls and fuel consumption standards than those proposed by industry, to long-term measures such as massive investment in public transport, higher-density living and decentralisation.
Then there is limiting car entry into city centres; much higher fuel prices to reflect environmental costs; alternative fuels such as natural gas, ethanol, electricity and hydrogen; car pooling; differential registration charges according to fuel consumption; and both random and mandatory inspections of exhaust equipment.
Greenpeace argues - and the State Pollution Control Commission (SPCC)agrees - that emissions improvements will be swamped by the sheer weight of numbers of vehicles.
As it is, current Australian emission standards are based on the 1976 US standard - and are five times slacker than those in place in California.
There is no independent checking of the emission performance of new cars, and the SPCC admits it hasn't got adequate resources to chase the car dealer cheats. Last month Suttons Motors, of Arncliffe in Sydney's south, was fined$23,000 on five counts of making catalytic converters ineffective.
The SPCC says it is a myth that the equipment affects performance.
WORLD MOTOR VEHICLE MANUFACTURERS PRODUCTION.
PRODUCTION
General Motors US 7,743,000 16.1%
Ford Motor US 6,227,000 12.9%
Toyota Japan 4,084,000 8.5%
Volkswagen Germany 2,875,000 6.0%
Nissan Japan 2,700,000 5.6%
Peugot-Citroen France 2,465,000 5.1%
Chrysler US 2,338,000 4.9%
Renault France 2,102,000 4.4%
Fiat Italy 2,050,000 4.3%
Honda Japan 1,709,000 3.5%
Mazda Japan 1,384,000 2.9%
Mitsubishi Japan 1,261,000 2.6%
Suzuki Japan 846,000 1.8%
Daimler-Benz Germany 802,000 1.7%
1988, including vehicles manufactured in other countries
© 1991 The Sun Herald
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