$2,000 Tata Nano gears up to revolutionise travel for millions. Written by south Asia correspondent Randeep Ramesh and shared with EcoWorldly as part of the Guardian Environmental Network.
India’s Tata group has announced that the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, will roll out of its car plant with a price tag of just 100,000 rupees - £1,350 or $2,000 - and will be exported to richer nations, beginning with Europe, in two years.
By Andrew Williams •
January 28, 2009
A huge increase in China’s demand for rubber is leading to the destruction of vast swathes of the country’s precious old-growth forests, and could cause irreversible environmental damage.
The shocking findings have been revealed in a new study by scientists at the Chinese Academy of Science’s flagship conservation institute, the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG). The team have discovered that China is producing a third more rubber than it was in 2007 to feed its booming automobile and tyre industries, which has led to an astronomical rise in the number of rubber plantations.
According to one of the scientists, “We will soon hit the wall in an ecological credit crunch. This is hardly a viable investment.”
