Environmental Issues: Should cars be more efficient?

Environmental Issues: Should cars be more efficient?

Introduction

In the advent of Industrial revolution, no one could comprehend the negative implications of one of the major juncture in the human civilization. Applications of Fossil fuels reached an entirely new level completely ignoring the downsides of excessive use. As human knowledge expanded, human realized the presence of new entity in its surroundings which has always been there but never gained out attention i.e., our environment. Consequently, it was also recognized that human practices have seriously affected our environment for quite a while. In contemporary times, no one can deny the importance of transportation. As human become more aware of the environmental issues, it also boosts the drive towards the production of fuel efficient cars. However, the real thrust comes at the point when OPEC crisis surfaced and fuel prices skyrocketed when the demand for fuel efficient cars becomes persistent. Although, the creation of automobiles including cars have proved to be of great convenience but factors like global warming and surge in fuel prices started a new debate on the question “Should cars be more efficient”. Conservation and efficiency becomes the mainstream of this debate in view of the fact that these cars have major dependency on oil which is getting short in supply and detrimental effects of pollution coming out of these automobiles cannot be ignored any longer.

Discussion

In contemporary times, we are faced by many critical issues which must be addressed on priority basis; Time will come when we will run out of oil resources, what will happen then? Pollution coming out of vehicle due to excessive dependency on oil is taxing the earth, who bears the responsibility? The market for energy efficiency is currently undergoing a significant change, which opens the way for new alternative technologies, innovative solutions, new actors and possibly new business models.

State of Economy

Global market economies suffered a major setback in 2008. In the aftermath of this crisis, consumers are the main stakeholders who took the burnt. There was general increase in inflation rate and unemployment with simultaneous decrease in real income. In other words, decline in purchasing power of consumers by numerous folds forced them to adopt alternative measures in order to sustain. In the same course, where fuel prices surged and touched its peak in 2008 so is the demand for fuel efficient cars increased. It is also anticipated by the experts that if world economy did not recover from last financial crisis or supply of oil from major OPEC countries failed to meet the demand for oil in developing nations, the oil price will once again touched $6 per gallon. It has already happened in American during Oil Crisis of 1974-74 and again in 1979-80 during Iranian Revolution that every American was engage in gasoline rationing and there were long queues of cars outside pump station. At that time, these gas guzzling cars were commonly referred to as “GAS HOGs” and all of sudden, their worth fell drastically ...