There must be more to the good life than a Ferrari

SMOG smothered Shanghai on Wednesday and stifled me with a mix of industrial and traffic fumes as I mused on a British author's advice to global leaders to fiercely and fearlessly consume the earth to embrace a full life.

In his 2010 book "Ferraris for All: In Defense of Economic Progress," British economics and finance journalist Daniel Ben-Ami asserts that human needs are more important than the needs of the planet, and that society should applaud, not scorn, unrestrained consumption of consumer goods.

It's an outrageous assertion in these days when the earth is imperiled by reckless consumption and plunder of resources. And the aspirational Ferrari, to more objective observers, is a symbol of everything that's wrong with relentless, consumerist culture spreading around the globe.

The title makes very clear the author's conviction that unbridled consumerism makes the world go around and makes its people happier and healthier. Society, he says, should focus on getting more, not settling for less. "Popular prosperity has given us longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives," he asserts. "Prosperity may not be the entire story but it is a precondition for being able to live the good life."

That is, you won't have a good life without a Ferrari (or some other symbol of wealth and status) and the world won't turn without lots of Ferraris on the road.

But the author must struggle to reconcile his belief with the fact that many of our ancestors lived fulfilling and smoke-free lives precisely because there were no Ferraris, or internal combustion engines.

Car emissions, among other noxious modern fumes, are a major cause of smog. The word "smog" was invented in the early 20th century when industrial smokes such as car emissions were found to have fostered smoky fogs. Despite author Ben-Ami's optimism about man's mastery of nature, smog has choked mankind for more than 100 years and spread from San Francisco to Sao Paulo to Shanghai.

In this sense, the Industrial Revolution is indeed Industrial Pollution. That's not to say the Industrial Revolution was all bad, but the author errs on the side of worshiping industrialization as a modern god. The Industrial Revolution, he asserts, changed human life for the better, like nothing else in history that preceded it.

As a late comer in the globalized race towards life on wheels, Shanghai saw smog much later than many Western cities. But from 2000 to 2009, every one of three days in Shanghai was smoggy, People's Daily reported in 2009.

Smog retreated during the World Expo last year only because of government intervention aimed at showcasing an unpolluted city. Traffic was restricted and construction sites were closed temporarily.

Smog staged a comeback last December, as auto emissions, industrial smoke and dirt from construction sites spewed into the air after the Expo ended in October.

Killer smog

Xinmin Evening News reported on May 30 that Shanghai now has around 2.5 million registered automobiles, of which 1.03 million are private cars. If every one of Shanghai's 23 million residents had a car- to say nothing of a Ferrari - what kind of monumental killer smog would envelop us?

A car is a car, there's no such thing as zero emissions. One Ferrari may not make smog, but 23 million Ferraris will.

It's chilling to consider the author's reckless idea of enslaving the earth with 6 billion Ferraris.

Throughout the book, Ben-Ami takes on the growth skeptics - from Al Gore to Thomas Friedman to Jeffrey Sachs. He says man will conquer nature and that natural resources are not finite. Other fuels not yet imagined will take the place of oil and coal, he argues. But he can offer no proof.

John Maynard Keynes said: "In the long run, we are all dead." Today we might say, "In the long run, we are all choked to death" by car emissions.

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