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Toyota hypes Prius as sales flatten, nations blame each other for climate change, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Sir Richard to the Rescue? D, None of the Above It’s All Ova Hybrid Lowdown Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Feeling the Heat Buena Vista? Soar Winner Honey and Vinegar Open Mouth, Insert Soot

Kristen Berry, president of avian political-advocacy organization BirdPAC, answers questions

Kristen Berry. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I am the president of BirdPAC. What does your organization do? We are a fledgling political action committee dedicated to protecting the environment and species by harnessing and focusing the power of conservationists on the political process — specifically elections. We are one of only a […]

Smells like menthol to me

In the House Oversight Committee's hearing on political interference with the scientific evidence of climate change, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) proclaimed in disbelief and frustration that, "Today we have a planet that's smoking!" He, like many before him, likened the campaign to cast doubt on global warming with the tobacco industry's campaign in the 1990s to distort information on the health impacts of smoking cigarettes.

In early 2007, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report along those same lines, exposing the disinformation campaign by ExxonMobil which used tobacco industry-like tactics. They also published an online periodical table that serves as an A-Z Guide to Political Interference in Science, which one of the witnesses to the House hearing brought up in her testimony.

Oceanus is for more than just middle-schoolers

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has an online magazine, Oceanus. Over the past few years, they've published many stories (at the middle school level and up) on numerous aspects of the ocean/climate system. There's some great material there (e.g., this article on solar effects on climate or this one on the oceanic sink for carbon dioxide). Check it out here.

Prius consumes more energy in lifetime than Cherokee

I thought this article hit a little too close for comfort. If you really want to call yourself an environmentalist, do what my sister-in-law did: Buy a small Toyota hatchback and put 5,000 miles a year on it for two decades.

Then there was this interesting article in the Economist discussing the future of diesel cars in America:

The dirty little secret about hybrids is that their batteries and extensive use of aluminium parts make them costly to build in energy terms as well as financial terms. One life-cycle assessment claims that, from factory floor to scrap heap, a Prius consumes more energy even than a Hummer III. Diesels are unlikely to consume anything like as much over their lifetime. That could change, of course, if some bright spark decides to replace a hybrid's petrol engine with a diesel--to launch a family car capable of 100mpg. Now there's a thought.

Actually not, Economist staff writer person. That assessment you refer to says that the diesel Jetta wagon will also use as much energy in its lifetime as the H3. And guess what? In all likelihood that diesel hybrid you cite will too, for the same reasons as the Prius and Jetta. But you would have known that had you bothered to actually read that lifecycle assessment. I don't blame you, actually. The damn thing is over 400 pages long. I know because I did read it. In fact, I built a spreadsheet with the data I gleaned from it to answer some burning questions I had.

Umbra on convincing colleagues to turn the lights off

Dear Umbra, I’m always hollering at my friends and colleagues to turn off the lights when they leave the room. Considering my business is green-related, it blows me away that my staff can’t seem to get a handle on flicking the switch. But it’s probably mostly a matter of them not really knowing why it’s […]

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Another ‘Proper Education’ video

Below the fold, a response to the “Proper Education” remix video we mentioned in Grist List last month. Instead of one long storyline, this one features clips from a number of sources including a Blair speech, An Inconvenient Truth, and the "Tick" global warming video from the Ad Council. It’s a bit long, but worth […]

Inside the mind of the skeptics

Matt Yglesias flags a … novel argument about energy from Michael Novak and says this: It’s interesting how money impacts political ideas. One doubts that any of these various rightwingers were actually humming along and then got bribed by energy companies to come up with the outlandish conservative arguments you hear on this score. Rather, […]