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Automakers debate skipping directly to full-electric cars

Ah, finally! The argument surfacing among auto-industry leaders gathering for the Tokyo Motor Show this week is over whether it is time to skip past partial electrification of cars — represented by gasoline-electric hybrids such as the Toyota Prius — and push instead to revive the idea of an all-electric car. On one side are […]

How much does Dick Cheney care about the Calif. wildfire victims?

This much.

California air regulators adopt emissions-tackling rules

As part of its groundbreaking plan to tackle air-polluting, climate-warming emissions, the California Air Resources Board has adopted six new rules for manufacturers, shippers, and truckers. Starting in 2010, vehicles that go in for a tune up or oil change will be required to fully inflate their tires; trucks and trailers must be fitted with […]

A couple of additions to this week’s Victual Reality column

In this week’s Victual Reality, we ran an interview I did recently with officials from the National Corn Growers Association and the American Farmland Trust. I edited the transcript in a certain amount of haste (it was right during the chaos of our Sow What? series on food and farming) — and I left out […]

Poll: Americans deeply, perhaps irredeemably, confused

From the American Institute of Architects’ annual public survey (sub rqd): The greatest percentage — 31 percent — of respondents said they believed recycling was one of the three most important things they could do to reduce [global] warming. Reducing driving came in next, at 25 percent, followed by reducing energy consumption, at 23 percent. […]

Canada announces protections for Lake Superior

Canada will protect nearly 4,000 square miles of Lake Superior and its northern shores, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday. The announcement creates the world’s largest freshwater marine protected area; no word on how the shrinkage of Lake Superior will affect that record.

Notable quotable

“I can promise you that as president I will have him involved in our administration in a very senior capacity.” — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, on Nobel Peace Laureate Al Gore

U.N. report says world environment doing quite poorly

Just in case you thought the world’s environment might be doing well, the United Nations Environment Program released a comprehensive 550-page, 5-year report this week declaring that things are officially not OK, environment-wise. The UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook attempted to strike that rare balance between cataloguing the world’s substantial eco-ills without making the situation seem […]

Not the coal and gas kind, though we’ve seen lots of that

I’m going to keep this short and sweet, because it’s been a long day. We headed out of St. Louis in the mid-afternoon, but before we did, we spent some time with Laura Cohen, who heads up the Confluence Greenway Project — an incredibly complex (we’re talking Venn diagram here) conglomeration of agencies, nonprofits, and […]

St. Louis’ City Museum is a treasure

I apologize if the image at left is a bit hard to make out, but if it looks like a bunch of junk to you, then you’re seeing it clearly. This is the outdoor portion of the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. It’s absolutely the most unique place I’ve ever seen, and it’s completely […]