We will have to hope that Beijing will look at the results of the car controls during the Games and come up with some ideas for how to further reduce the pollution from transportation. Unfortunately much of the focus in the news has been that Beijing does not want there to be a decline in automobile sales. I am not sure exactly why this is the case: is it because China needs more and more consumption to drive its economy and create jobs, or is it just due to pressure from oil and automobile companies?

I see nothing wrong with trying to reduce sales of cars in China. Just because USA has so many per person, does China need to ‘beat’ the USA at number of cars and size of automobile market (only #2 at the moment, globally). This is the kind of attitudes that need to change; and these assumptions (we need consumption, for example) also need to change, as they are just not sustainable.