The thing is, that supplying a diesel truck to a rural community might dramatically improve living standards in the community. The damage done by burning diesel is small compared to the improvement of livelihood of dozens of people.
I would say, if you are worried about trucks polluting the earth, we should stop ordering shit online and expecting that every supermarket everywhere has all the freshest produce from every corner of the world. I'm willing to bet that the ecological cost of my local supermarket having fresh cherries from Chile or watermelon from Argentina(I'm in UK) is an order of magnitude greater than all diesel trucks used by 3rd world African villages combined.
Yes, we should not forget that people adopted fossil fuels because it meant a great improvement in the quality of their lives. After decades of experience, we know that this has a cost (pollution is bad for health) and discussion is welcomed, but focusing on the cost without acknowledging the benefits is not a good start.
Fresh fruit or flowers from remote parts of the world are often flown to the UK via backloads, i.e. planes that would otherwise be empty. So the ecological cost is not as great as you may think.
I know that plane manufacturers try to make their planes as light as possible, because every kg translates to actual fuel needed to fly - so even if a plane would fly empty otherwise, filling it up with fruit has a cost. Not to mention this fruit has to then be taken to shops on a fleet of trucks etc etc.
Don't get me wrong, I love that I can buy fresh produce any time of the year - but I just wanted to point out that denying the developing world basic transport technology to fight pollution, while we burn through monumental amounts of oil just to get stuff that improves our lives marginally, is not really fair.
I would say, if you are worried about trucks polluting the earth, we should stop ordering shit online and expecting that every supermarket everywhere has all the freshest produce from every corner of the world. I'm willing to bet that the ecological cost of my local supermarket having fresh cherries from Chile or watermelon from Argentina(I'm in UK) is an order of magnitude greater than all diesel trucks used by 3rd world African villages combined.