China is on the verge of an automobile boom, according to this Washington Post article. And many Chinese like SUVs and other big gas hogs. While SUV sales are tanking in most of the developed world, they’re up 43 percent in China. In fact, more big Buicks are now sold in China than in the United States.
Fifteen years ago, few Chinese owned a car. Now there are more than 15 million autos in China — and the numbers are expected to explode in coming years.
That’s not only bad news in the global fight against climate change. The growing Chinese demand for oil likely will keep U.S. gas prices high, too.
29 Comments
Don’t worry you pro-China Republicans, those Buicks are made in China so you are keeping your comrades employed.
So?
As long as we inflate our tires correctly, get a tune up, and don’t drive as much we should be able to conserve our way out of this.
Then China can drive as many SUV’s as they want!
*EYE ROLL*
At $2.60 a gallon, the Chinese get their gasoline price subsidized by the government.
“Oil-producing countries are even more generous to their residents. In Venezuela, gasoline costs 12 cents a gallon. In Iran, it costs 41 cents. In Saudi Arabia, it costs 47 cents; in Russia, $3.90″
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/27/AR2008072701911.html?wpisrcnewsletter
Sell those Buicks to China, General Motors. :D
I’m doing my part, pumped up all my tires to about 85#, no need to drill now!
Hey all you free traders out there?
Yeah thanks a lot.
Now you’ve got the most populous nation on Earth (China) aspiring to emulate the most wasteful nation in the history of the world (US).
I hope you can invent up a second and third planet to sustain it.
Somehow? I’m kinda doubting it.
Chalk it up to the bush Globalization trend of the last 7 yrs.
I used to wonder if capitalism would work on a global scale, due to limited resources I think not.
Just think of the great wars yet to be fought, when oil starts to run out significantly!
China is severely restricting vehicle use around bejing, trying to get the air clean enough for the athletes to compete. Also shutting down manuf. plants. temporarily.
Libs
There are no NATURAL limits on our resources, at present.
There are only UNNATURAL, man made limits on our resources.
Limits placed there by liberals.
You libs, on this board, are amazingly smug, ignorant and arrogant, to say nothing of heartless.
Was China supposed to stay poor, and without any automobiles at all, so that you could feel good about your enviromental religion?
Man Made Global Warming is BS, just like Penn and Teller say it is BS!
Besides, even if the Earth is Warming, even if man is the cause (we aren’t) — there is no way in hell that China is going to buy into your green, global warming religion.
China would rather feed its people than join the global warming gullible.
econ posted August 1, 2008 at 10:37 am
“Man Made Global Warming is BS, just like Penn and Teller say it is BS!”
————
Penn and Teller are one of the AGW denier’s most credible scientific sources.
Cosmos
There are many, many people with far more credentials than you, or Al Gore, who think that Man Made Global Warming is a hoax.
Just how much do you think we have to conserve to both stave off our own natural growing demand for more oil AND the rest of the worlds as well?
Drill here, Drill Now, Pay Less.
Climate change cannot be controled by man. People should be able to drive what they darn will please without any holier than thou libs, saying they can’t.
That is the point george.
The liberals know they can’t tell you what to drive, but they sure can make it too expensive for you to drive what you want to.
Listen to them here. Mary, BlueJay, and others all are glad that prices are high because it will force us to change.
Why else would the oppose drilling for more oil at every turn?
Why else would the Democrats always be wanting to raise taxes on gas and the oil companies?
econ posted August 1, 2008 at 12:23 pm
“There are many, many people with far more credentials than you, or Al Gore, who think that Man Made Global Warming is a hoax.”
——–
Science is based on scientific methodology, not “credentials”. You people do not have the science to support what you “think”(sic).
Cosmos,
You don’t have any “proof” for what you believe either.
You have predictions based on speculations based on imcomplete data. Calling it the “scientific method” doesn’t make it Gospel or fact or something which can’t be disagreed with.
Nathaniel,
Gravity is also just a “theory”. You’re welcome to try to disprove it, by jumping off a tall building.
Lies from your people, like the agricultural economist Dennis Avery, do not disprove AGW science.
Cosmos,
So what do lies from your people prove?
Nathaniel,
AGW science is not “lies”. If it was, your people wouldn’t have to use lies to try to refute it.
Cosmos,
I didn’t say that “AGW Science” is lies.
I said:
“What do lies from your people prove?”
“Mary, BlueJay, and others all are glad that prices are high because it will force us to change.”
When did I give Nathan leave to speak for me?
Oh yeah, I didn’t.
Unless you count some cons who have a lot of debt (I have none) I probably have the least financially of any poster to this blog.
I have said and maintain that the price of gas is high because we are being gamed. If gas were really in short supply we should see evidence like shortages and lines.
But yes, I am glad that the situation is causing us FINALLY to look at getting around without dinosaur fuel. We SHOULD have done that 30 plus years ago.
Price controls supply.
We do not have lines and shortages because, in a free economy, the price allocates supply, not the government.
Yes, we are being “gamed” — but we are being gamed by liberal greens who will not let us:
Drill HERE, Drill NOW!
There IS a shortage at $2.00.
There IS a shortage at $2.50 a gallon.
There is no shortage at current prices.
We want a plentiful supply at less than $3.00 a gallon.
That requires that we:
Drill here, Drill NOW!
Actually, price controls demand.
Demand controls supply.
Supply should rise to meet demand.
If it does not?
PRICE goes up!
Nathaniel posted August 1, 2008 at 3:55 pm
“I didn’t say that “AGW Science” is lies.
———-
Actually, you did. Nathaniel and econ don’t have any credible science to support their (false) opinions against AGW science.
Science is about the science, not the scientists.
Drill in Detroit! NOW!
‘Drilling in Detroit ‘
Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/fuel_economy/drilling-in-detroit.html
Drill in Detroit! NOW!
‘Drilling in Detroit ‘
Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/fuel_economy/drilling-in-detroit.html
“We want a plentiful supply at less than $3.00 a gallon.”
Does paulie have a mouse in his pocket?
His “we” clearly does not include the oil companies. THEY are making record profits on a commodity that is SUPPOSED to be short in supply.
This does not compute.
Drill here, drill now? Poppycock.
The oil companies will just SELL the oil to China.
Remember China? The place where all the money is?
Tell ya what? I’ll go along with drilling.
The crude stays here though.
NOW watch who won’t compromise!
That makes China of $ 3 to man. Man may only have spoken French, but we got on so well with them, and before long we were playing our tires, and miniature houses, etc, etc, which was Drill Now, plus we got to practice our French on them.