Asia's urban rot is deeper than it appears

[Ken Hanly]

It would seem that having so few motorcars is a plus rather than a minus. The
problem is not the small number of motorcars but the lack of pollution control
on public transit and commercial trucks. By the way does anyone know if diesel
fumes are worse than gas in health terms. Diesel fumes smell and look worse than
gas emissions but are they are a more significant health risk? Are those
belching noxious diesel fumes just the tractors or is it intended that this
refer to all the other classes of vehicle as well. I doubt that there are very
many diesel motorcycles. Perhaps they are two-cycle engines that mix oil with
the gas.

   Cheers, Ken Hanly


> In Bangladesh, urban air all over the country is under severe attack from an
> enormous proliferation of diesel-guzzling vehicles. To get a measure of the
> problem, here's a revealing bit of statistics: of 490,806 vehicles
> registered in the country in 1998, only 86,708 were motorcars. The rest were
> jeeps, buses, minibuses, taxis, trucks, auto-rickshaws, tempos, motorcycles,
> and tractors that gulped only diesel and belched noxious fumes. Lead levels
> in Dhaka are higher than in many other cities in the world.
>