Not In My Back Yard [NIMBY]

As long as Americans treat our autos like one of the family, we have little hope to reduce congestion and lower our carbon footprint.

At age 16 or thereabouts, we adopt or marry autos that reflect our personality, income and education. We name them, care for them and sometimes spend more per hour on parking them than we do on day care for children or old people.

We clean them, feed them with gas and take them to the mechanic more often than some of us visit our physicians for check-ups. The special rooms cars occupy in our homes are usually bigger than our bedrooms and living rooms. If we park them on the street, we worry about their safety and long for a garage.

After housing, most of us spend more on transportation than we do on any other line item in our household budget. The only category that can exceed transportation could be daycare for young children.

We view cars as essential, and build our societies around them. In the same way car ownership blossomed in the 20th century, pollution from cars may cause the demise of our society in the 21st century.

Car ownership in China is now 6 cars per 100 people -- the same rate as in the USA in 1920. Today, American car ownership is 90 percent. China is 20 percent of the world's population. They emulate America.

You do the math, while we can still see through the smog and congestion.

We are doomed if the people of Chindia fall in love with autos the way we Americans have.