It’s disturbing. 1 million cars a year Tata hopes to sell, in India, to the vast populace whose reputations within their communities will be enhanced by having 4 wheels instead of 2, opening up opportunities to, for example, attract a good wife. Price (of car): $1,000.
I peered at the image and mused aloud, “is it powered by batteries? Solar?” My husband laughed. “It’s a tuk-tuk with an extra wheel. It’s cheap. You don’t get solar power for $1,000.”
I can understand it. We all have communities that we look to for approval – your yoga community, or school friends, or fellow church-goers, or hip clubbers. We make ourselves look good for them, by buying the eco-mat and eating whole grain / txtng r frnds / praying ardently / putting lots of hair product & trendy jeans on. So the average Indian fellow looking to improve his lot in life is going to leap at the chance to make himself (and by extension Mr. Tata) better off. Or seemingly.
A million new cars a year in India – what’ll it smell like? How will a million new horns a year sound? What’ll it look like? 3.29 million square km of urban jungle? Will the cars last? Where’ll they go when they break down and are discarded because this year’s model is just as cheap and comes with, say, a built-in tissue-box space?
So is it good for Tata and “tah-tah” for the planet?
The article I read was in the ecologist: www.theecologist.org
For a lot more of this kind of environmental stuff check out www.astraea.net/blog.
