Bush asks Americans to avoid unnecessary car trips and save energy President Bush yesterday called on Americans to drive less and conserve gas. "We can all pitch in," he said. Of course, "all" is relative: Though the president directed federal agencies to reduce energy use, Republican congressional leaders were meeting even as he spoke to push for more energy-industry subsidies and weaker environmental laws governing fuel production and distribution. This has activists gearing up for a fight. Republican leaders are "racing faster than a hurricane to smash through alleged environmental barriers before anyone realizes what they are up to," said …

Leading U.K. scientist excoriates U.S. on climate-disruption obstruction As superstorm Hurricane Rita bears down on Texas and Louisiana, Sir John Lawton, chairman of the U.K.'s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, told the Independent that neoconservatives in the U.S. ought to reconsider their obstructionist stance on climate change. "If this makes the climate loonies in the States realize we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation," said Lawton. Rita and Katrina before it are likely signs that human activities are changing the climate, said the leading British ecologist, whose commission advises the queen, the U.K. …

To counteract today's totally bummer crop of news, a cheery development from my peeps, the Swedes: Prime Minister Goran Persson announced this week that Sweden will try to end its dependency on fossil fuels in 15 years by, among other things, ramping up use of wind power, boosting research into renewable-energy technologies, and providing incentives for renewable power and clean cars. Swede dreams are made of this ...

Hurricane Katrina has triggered a whirlwind of new energy proposals in Congress -- some gratifying to environmental activists, most galling. The long-awaited energy bill that President Bush gleefully signed into law a mere month ago started looking sadly outdated when viewed against a backdrop of slackened oil production along the Gulf Coast, crippled refineries, gasoline shortages, and soaring prices at the pump. On Sept. 6, the day Congress reconvened after its summer recess, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee penned an uncharacteristically conservation-minded letter to the White House: "We would encourage you to make the federal government the leader …

Melting Arctic sea ice may have hit point of no return, scientists fear Experts on the climate of the Arctic have been busy this summer altering their dire predictions for a globally warmed future -- to make them even direr. According to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, the Arctic's sea ice has been gradually retreating since about 1978 -- no surprise there -- but the trend has worsened in the last four years or so to the point where the climate system may be unable to recover. Since September 2002, the …

Federal judge throws out multistate suit against CO2-spewing utilities A U.S. federal judge yesterday delivered a big blow to eight states that had been pushing for power plants to cut their carbon dioxide emissions in an effort to stave off global warming. A coalition of the states plus New York City had filed suit against five utility companies that together own 174 fossil fuel-burning power plants, claiming that the five firms are the nation's biggest CO2 polluters and should be forced to curb their emissions. U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska dismissed the case, saying the plaintiffs were asking the …

Warming oceans linked to increase in powerful hurricanes and storms Severe hurricanes and cyclones have become more common worldwide as ocean temperatures have increased, according to a study published today in the journal Science. Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry and colleagues studied satellite data from the past 35 years as well as computer models before reaching their conclusion: Category 4 and 5 hurricanes -- storms with winds of 131 miles per hour or higher -- rose from an average of 10 a year in the 1970s to 18 a year since 1990. During the same period, average tropical sea surface …

As Hurricane Katrina raged toward the Gulf Coast in late August, more than 4.5 million American homes tuned in to The Weather Channel -- many times the network's average audience. The channel's bright-eyed climate-change expert, Heidi Cullen, was standing by to address the question that was confounding Americans nationwide: Was Katrina's horrible wrath intensified by global warming? Was this a precursor to an era of super-hurricanes? Heidi Cullen, a pioneer on the climate beat. Photo: The Weather Channel Cullen, a climatologist, was hired two years ago by The Weather Channel, plucked from her post-graduate work at the National Center for …

World's biggest firms give lip service to cutting CO2 but lag on results More than 70 percent of the world's 500 largest companies by market capitalization volunteered information on how climate change is affecting their businesses for a survey this year, but the info they released is not exactly heartening. According to a new report by the Carbon Disclosure Project, a London-based initiative backed by institutional investors that control more than $21 trillion of assets, 51 percent of the companies participating in the survey had put in place an emissions-reduction program, but fewer than one in seven had actually cut …

Investors bullish on clean energy technologies The clean-energy sector is experiencing a post-Katrina bounce. Petroleum stocks are looking less attractive after the storm damaged Gulf Coast oil rigs and refineries, and many investors seem to think pre-Katrina high fossil-fuel prices are here to stay, making renewable-energy investments more attractive. Several small U.S. solar technology firms have seen their share prices jump dramatically since last year -- infusing welcome cash into a sector that's long grappled with both low investor interest and lean government funding. "It's not just Katrina," said Bob Wilder, an executive who helps manage the PowerShares WilderHill Clean …