A Banned Engine

It is interesting to read an article published on the BBC in the last hour, that China "looks at plans to ban petrol and diesel cars". The reason for this, above all, is smog. Compare with my (as yet) unpublished second edition metaphysic, in which I note:

"Since our minds are incapable of encompassing more than a finite number of relations, there will inevitably be relations which lie beyond our power to explain, and beyond our control. There will always be something we fail to take into account. Therefore, our tracing of relations will inevitably create unintended consequences, whether personal, social, political, or environmental. In many areas, our human actions have unforeseen and unpleasant side effects, sometimes many years later. Nobody foresaw smog, when the petrol engine was invented, or radioactive contamination, when we first split the atom, or ozone depletion, when we began to use fluorocarbons as refrigerants. In fact, far greater have been the unintended consequences, which have reached into every social and environmental sphere ..."

OBSERVATION: In the BBC report, what is significant is the word "ban". Something banned is something prohibited. The word carries particularly negative connotations. Which is to say, that which just yesterday was thought to be one of the greatest leaps forward in our time -- the internal combustion engine (see the image) -- now stands condemned.