gossip

Is Toyota developing a purely solar-powered car?

An AP report is generating headlines around the world:

Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy ...

According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources.

Getting some electricity from rooftop PV panels isn't news, though it is a good idea, if only a "symbolic gesture" until panel costs drop sharply. (See also Treehugger's "Solar-Powered Toyota Prius Project.")

But there isn't enough rooftop area to run a car solely on rooftop solar cells. I don't see how it would work even for an ultra-lightweight short-range city car with a really big roof area -- an ungainly, unaerodynamic design. And don't forget, cars are often parked inside.

Is defending an industry against modernity really good for it?

“The auto industry declined while [Dingell] was chairman, ranking member and chairman again. He said we should do nothing to modernize the auto industry. That kind of protection is why we lost out to the Japanese and why Detroit chose the wrong kind of cars to make.” — an unnamed “aide to a [Henry] Waxman […]

The frightful thinking behind a Palin presidential nomination in four years

One of the top (online) pundits in the country, The Atlantic‘s Marc Ambinder, thinks a McCain loss would make Sarah Palin the top contender for a Big Oil-fueled presidential run in 2012. ThinkProgress’s uber-pundit Matthew Yglesias agrees. Since the notion should be pretty scary to those concerned about clean energy and climate, and since Halloween […]

Ian McEwan writing a novel about climate change — with funniness!

Ian McEwan. Photo: Eamon McCabe Booker Prize-winning British novelist Ian McEwan, now best known for Atonement, is at work on a new novel about climate change that will include “extended comic stretches,” The Guardian reports. The unnamed work isn’t due out for another two years, but McEwan read an excerpt to an audience in Wales […]

BP-powered no more

Remember that new environmental blog at The New Republic that was "powered by BP"? Apparently it is no longer thus powered. As gratifying as it is, in a schadenfreudey sort of way, to see that other small media operations can be as dysfunctional as, er, some small media operations I’m familiar with. I’m glad this […]

Gossip, cool events, and personal vignettes I’ve come across during my travels

1. Japanese press at NYC show commenting on how no eco-fashion label has hit their fancy yet. (Oh, but how far we have come since a few years ago!)
2. People Tree (ironically a very popular brand in Japan) has secured 300,000 Euros to help expand its line.
3. Sofala Investments, the parent company of the African luxury label a.d. schwarz, will plant a tree this October and November at its forest reserve in Mozambique for every registered race participant in The Race against Global Warming, to neutralize each racer's carbon emissions.
4. Posh labels like Bahar Shahpar and Be Carbon Neutral hit the L.A. scene at the Eco Nouveau show.
5. "Nice Toms": The passing compliment I got from a girl on the subway in regards to the Toms shoes I was sporting. (For every pair you buy, Toms will give one pair away to a child who does not have shoes ... and rumor has it that the company is going to be doing a shoe drop soon.)
6. Model before the Ekovaruhuset runway show commenting on how she hopes her nip doesn't slip in her itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny tiny organic cotton bikini.
7. Plugging the plight of the Great Bear Rainforest (the largest contiguous coastal temperate rainforest in the world, just north of Vancouver, whose surrounding trees are often pulped for junk mail and magazines) at a speech in front of Hearst Corporation executives in NYC (the largest magazine publishing house).
8. Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain known for its production of wind and solar energy, is bringing back sound textile manufacturing practices and becoming a breeding ground for more eco-conscious fashion labels.
9. Getting compliments from the boat crew in the Great Bear Rainforest on my stylish (and very functional) recycled PET jacket shell from Nau. It rained every day for eight days straight. That jacket was really working hard for me!
10. Talks of a "Not Made in China" label.

We’re staying on top of this story

So a bunch of onetime Gore advisers and aides gathered for a meal last night: Among those longtime Gore loyalists who munched on a buffet of sandwiches and salmon at the [Gore friend and ally Peter] Knight home: Longtime powerhouse Dem fundraiser and Democratic National Committeeman Robert Zimmerman; Knight’s wife, Gail Britton; Tom Hendrickson, the […]

Hell hath no fury like a Lohan scorned

On the list of most environmentally unfriendly ways to avenge yourself on an ex-boyfriend, leaving the water in your tub running so it can flood your former squeeze's apartment sits pretty close to the top. But punishment-by-excessive-water-use is exactly what Lindsay Lohan allegedly wrought on Harry Morton last month.

This, from TMZ.com:

A fish story in the Telegraph

Update [2007-4-22 12:29:39 by David Roberts]: Gore’s people deny it all. Figured. Friends of Al Gore have secretly started assembling a campaign team in preparation for the former American vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House. So says Tim Shipman in the Telegraph. I suggest a high degree of skepticism. The story […]