American Cars Conspicuously Absent from List of 2004's Greenest Vehicles An annual ranking of the year's "greenest" and "meanest" automobiles released today found America's Big Three auto manufacturers absent from the former list -- and well-represented on the latter. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, widely considered a top source for info on eco-friendly passenger vehicles, gave the 2004 Honda Civic GX sedan (powered by compressed natural gas) its highest score, followed by gas-electric hybrids from Honda and Toyota. Volkswagen's diesel-powered Touareg SUV got pegged with the group's "meanest" designation. "The absence of the Big Three [from the "greenest" …

World's Cloud Forests Threatened The world's cloud forests, which strip moisture from clouds and supply millions of poor people in developing nations with fresh water, are in danger of being wiped out by climate change, claims a report released Monday by the U.N. and the World Conservation Union at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cloud forests are a source of water for the capital cities of Ecuador, Mexico, and Tanzania, as well as numerous other spots throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They also provide a home to hundreds of species found nowhere else on the …

Enviro Groups Ask EPA to Halt Ash Dumping A coalition of 125 environmental groups has filed a petition with the U.S. EPA, asking it to immediately halt the dumping of waste ash from coal-fired power plants. They claim the ash contains a variety of toxins and pollutes ground, surface, and drinking water. The EPA promised in 2000 to develop regulations but has yet to take any action; a spokesperson said that the agency is waiting for the National Academy of Sciences to complete a study in 18 months so they can review its findings. Meanwhile, 130 million tons of waste …

Iraq's Environment Ministry Faces Big Problems and a Small Budget Iraq's first environment ministry, facing a host of daunting ecological problems and a list of 35 priority projects that would cost more than $200 million, has been allotted a 2004 budget of ... $1 million. A report from the United Nations Environment Program presents a litany of environmental challenges facing the war-ravaged country: rivers polluted by crude-oil leaks; widespread cholera, malaria, typhoid, and diarrhea due to contaminated water; post-war looting of hazardous materials from government, industrial, and scientific facilities; and depleted uranium from weapons used by U.S. forces in the …

Warning signs. Photo: Greenpeace. ExxonMobil and its predecessor companies stretching back to Standard Oil were responsible for a whopping 5 percent of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions between 1882 and 2002, thanks to the companies' operations and the burning of their products, according to a recent study put out by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies and Friends of the Earth International. The report exhorted Exxon shareholders to put pressure on the company to begin more aggressively developing its clean-energy portfolio and streamlining its operations. "There has already been some successful action by shareholders to change the direction of …

Environmental Groups Target Bill Ford, Jr. Ford Motor Co. CEO Bill Ford, Jr., once a darling of the eco-friendly set, has come under attack by a coalition of environmental groups led by California-based Bluewater Network. In full-page national newspaper ads that began appearing Wednesday, the group lambasted Ford, Jr., for reneging on his July 2000 pledge to increase the fuel economy of the company's SUVs by 25 percent over five years. Last year, Ford execs announced that the goal would not be met due to inclement business conditions and technological challenges. Since then, the company has refused to make any …

Senate Republicans, led by Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), are trying one more time to get the Bush administration's energy bill passed, but growing worries over the massive federal budget deficit are making it difficult. You see, Domenici and crew larded the bill up with billions of dollars worth of tax incentives and subsidies (on top of Bush's already-larded $18 billion original) in order to buy the votes needed ... oops, did we say "buy"? We meant "persuade"! With deficit worries reaching an election-year fever pitch, Domenici has promised to trim the fat, but doing so may cost him the votes of …

Oh, the irony. The same week Fortune magazine released a special "Climate Collapse" issue warning its double-starched readers of "growing evidence" that "abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future," Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate have been attempting yet again to push through a controversial energy bill that would only intensify the threat. In late January, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) announced that he would be "working closely with House leadership to see what steps we can take to get the last few votes we need for final passage." Soaring gasoline and home-heating costs as well as threats …

Last year, China became the world's second-largest importer of oil (take a wild guess who's No. 1), struggling to keep up with the energy demands of an economy expanding at a rate of 9.9 percent annually. Having recently concluded, like other oil-thirsty countries, that the volatile Middle East might not be a stable, long-term source of black gold, China has begun jostling with other global energy consumers -- notably the U.S., Japan, and Europe -- to find oil in more out-of-the-way locations. Recent months have seen Chinese President Hu Jintao visit the African nations of Gabon and Algeria, not exactly …

Twenty years ago, it seemed that virtually everyone smoked. You couldn't sit in a restaurant for five minutes without stinking of cigarettes for hours. Now, in state after state, even biker bars are going smoke-free. Clearly, there's been a dramatic shift in the public's attitude toward smoking -- but it hasn't been an intellectual shift. Since the 1964 Surgeon General's report on the dangers of smoking, anyone tapping a cigarette out of a pack knew the possible health consequences. Still, through the combined magic of advertising and denial, for years the strongest image in many people's minds as they puffed …