Having nightmares about broadening prosperity

What Gives the Alarmists Nightmares? By Greg Pollowitz
Planet Gore/NRO, Mar 23, 2009

Would you believe it's the Nano, a $2000 car produced in India? From the Green, Inc. blog at the NYTimes.com:

People across India have been saving money for months with the goal of purchasing the car, made by Tata Motors, a branch of the Indian conglomerate Tata Group, and which will be priced at about $2,000. For many, it would represent a leap, overnight, from the indignity of two-wheeled motor scooters to the relative luxury of four wheels and a roof.

For millions the car has become emblematic of their aspirations, as Vishal Bhatia, a Green Inc. reader in Mumbai, suggested in his comment the last time I posted about the Nano:

“I’m buying it because it gives a sense of freedom,” Mr. Bhatia wrote, “freedom to go to someplace in uncrumpled clothes, with my deodorant still being able to mask my body odor. But above all to see the look in my family’s eyes when they see it in person.”

Environmentalists, however, have decried the Nano and its low-cost imitators as an impending disaster. Certainly, the seemingly guaranteed success of the Nano may create more traffic and strain on India’s already rickety urban infrastructure.

And although the car may emit fewer greenhouse gases than some two-wheelers, its launch still has troubled officials leading efforts on global climate protection. Last year, the Nobel Prize winner Rajendra Pachauri, who is head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was quoted as saying he was “having nightmares” about the car.

Unbelievable. These guys actually have nightmares about broadening prosperity — and the economic freedom that brings it about.