Buckle up for this startling bit. Yesterday in India a $2,500 car was unveiled by Tata Motors. Called the Nano, it's a cramped little four-seater with an engine that wouldn't power some American snowblowers, but it's a landmark announcement with massive global warming implications.

Back in November, the Moustache that is Tom Friedman opined on this in the Times, pleading with the sub-continentals: "No, No, No, Don't Follow Us." Recognizing that Americans have absolutely no business telling Indians they shouldn't be driving, Friedman does offer a bit of a solution:

"So what should India do? It should leapfrog us, not copy us. Just as India went from no phones to 250 million cellphones — skipping costly land lines and ending up with, in many ways, a better and cheaper phone system than we have — it should try the same with mass transit."

We tend to agree.