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| Headline |
Author |
Published |
Section |
Two, Four, Six, Eight, Why Do We Procrastinate?
Big Auto to host fuel-economy rallies in Midwestern cities |
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15 Aug 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| Two, Four, Six, Eight, Why Do We Procrastinate? Big Auto to host fuel-economy rallies in Midwestern cities Revved up over fuel-economy rules, Detroit's Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers will hold rallies in Chicago and St. Louis this week and next. The demonstrations are a reaction against the U.S. Senate energy bill, passed in June, which would raise fuel economy for both cars and trucks to 35 ... |
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| Topics: Big Auto, business, cars, legislation, news (all these topics) |
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Idle oughts
We still heart Rocky Anderson |
Kate Sheppard |
15 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Rocky Anderson is in the news again, reminding us why we all love him. Now he's taking on idling autos, calling for city-owned vehicles and personal vehicles on city business to limit their idling to five minutes, except in emergency situations. Fifty percent of air pollution in Utah comes from cars and trucks, and Rocky wants the city to do their part in cutting down on the smog-creating emissions. His environmental adviser, Jordan Gates, says this latest executi ... |
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| Topics: cars, energy, fuel efficiency, placemaking, politics, Utah (all these topics) |
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Feds fund Bloomberg's congestion plan
But still no actual decision on whether it will happen |
Kate Sheppard |
14 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The federal government has agreed to allot $354 million to New York City to help it launch its congestion pricing plan. Yeah, that one where state legislators were first like 'Hmmm, I dunno,' and then they were all like 'no way,' and then some enviros were like, 'Eh, maybe it's not that great anyway.' Not that federal funding guarantees that the state will approve the plan, so stay tuned. |
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| Topics: cars, New York, New York City, placemaking, politics (all these topics) |
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It Only Hertz a Little
Rental and car-share companies get hip to hybrids |
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14 Aug 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| It Only Hertz a Little Rental and car-share companies get hip to hybrids Fueled by consumers' green interests, rental, car-service, and car-sharing companies are increasingly turning to hybrids. (Hear the collective sigh of relief from guilt-prone enviros who cringe with every tap on the rental accelerator.) Big renters Enterprise, Hertz, and Avis have all recently added several ... |
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| Topics: cars, consumerism, electric vehicles, green living, hybrids, news, Prius (all these topics) |
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Electric cars a-comin'
Comin' 'round the bend |
David Roberts |
14 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Coming to a showroom near you: a $30,000 all-electric sedan with a top speed of 80mph and a range of 120 miles per charge. Why the low price? It's made in China, with cheap labor and advanced lithium ion batteries that came out of government-funded research. There's competition: Phoenix Motors has a four-door utility truck with similar performance capabilities that it's planning on selling to the public around the same time. And Tesla Motors, makers of the $100, ... |
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| Topics: cars, electric vehicles, green living, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Move Thyself: Flying objects edition
Watch out for that flaming bag of McNuggets |
Todd Hymas Samkara |
13 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I'm so spoiled now that I live in bike-path-licious Boulder, Colorado. I hardly have to interact with cars anymore when cycling to most points in the city. But just a few weeks ago, before I moved here, I was out there with all the other Colorado cyclists in traffic getting assaulted. Sure, most assaults are verbal and harmless-ish, but then there are the ones that aren't. This article from today's Los Angeles Times leads with a list of one guy's experience in ... |
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| Topics: bikes, cars, placemaking (all these topics) |
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15 Green Cars
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13 Aug 2007 |
Grist Feature |
| The greenest way to get around? On your own two feet, of course, or on a bicycle, unicycle, skateboard, or public transit. But if you still find yourself in need of a car, these are some of the best green options on the market. If we zoomed right past your favorite eco-friendly auto, tell us in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Courtesy of Toyota via Wieck Toyota Prius The best-selling Prius is synonymous with "hybrid" in many minds, and with ... |
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| Topics: biofuels, cars, electric vehicles, energy, hybrids, innovation, lists, Prius (all these topics) |
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Word Gets Around
New bike, parking policies leave polluting vehicles in the dust |
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09 Aug 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| Word Gets Around New bike, parking policies leave polluting vehicles in the dust Now for some wheely good news (sorry, it had to be done): officials around the globe are moving forward on innovative eco-transportation schemes. Last week, the city council of Reykjavik, Iceland, enacted a rule that gives free parking to those who drive fuel-efficient vehicles. In Ontario, Cana ... |
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| Topics: bikes, Canada, cars, energy, France, Iceland, innovation, news, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Irony alert
Honk if you think I'm a giant asshole |
Kate Sheppard |
08 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| New specialty license plate option being offered in Oklahoma: 'For Sooners looking to show their terror-fighting pride while tearing up the asphalt,' writes one USA Today blogger. (h/t: TP) |
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| Topics: cars, international politics, Oklahoma, politics (all these topics) |
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Very well said
The green cartopia ain't likely to happen |
JMG |
06 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Kurt Cobb writes a smart and sensible review of Who Killed the Electric Car? Excerpt follows: The documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? is an excellent murder mystery filled with dislikable corporate and government villains. It also features heroic engineers, salespeople and average citizens as well as a sprinkling of good-looking actors and actresses who play, well, themselves. As I watched the film recently for the first time, I found myself doing something that I don't ... |
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| Topics: cars, electric vehicles, green living, hybrids, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Test Drive
New York to paste 'global warming index' stickers on some new vehicles |
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06 Aug 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| Test Drive New York to paste "global warming index" stickers on some new vehicles New York has become the second state in the U.S. to require new cars and light trucks to bear a "global warming index" sticker. (We'll give you a minute to guess which one was first.) The law, which begins with the 2010 model year, aims to educate consumers and cut pollutio ... |
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| Topics: cars, climate, consumerism, greenhouse-gas emissions, New York, news, shopping (all these topics) |
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Carbon Conscious Consumer contest
Go car-free, win stuff |
Erik Hoffner |
03 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Here's something most Gristers are probably already doing: going car-free once a week. So step up, take credit, and get entered to win these prizes from New American Dream: Grand Prize: A one-week Bike Tour of Oregon for you and a friend, provided by Sustainable Energy in Motion Second Prize: A Villager U-frame Breezer Bike Third Prize: A $200 carbon offset from Native Energy (and a snazzy t-shirt as well) |
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| Topics: cars, green living, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Engines could easily gulp less gas
MIT lab rats cook up a less wasteful gasoline engine |
Elsa Mary |
03 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Don't hum the requiem for the gasoline engine just yet. MIT brainiacs say it's easier than imagined to flip a car between the usual gas-guzzling state to a low-pollution, ultra-efficient mode. The researchers have tested a system that can run on a quarter less than the usual amount of gas without needing any fancy fuel. With the flick of a switch, the setup alternates between regular, spark-triggered combustion and experimental homogeneous charge compression ignitio ... |
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| Topics: cars, energy, fuel efficiency, green living, oil, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Of cars and carbon
How the Prius stacks up against other cars |
Clark Williams-Derry |
02 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Sure, everybody knows that what you drive affects how much you warm the climate. But after the jump: a chart that proves the point. Just to be clear: this includes only the emissions from the highway fuel itself. It doesn't include upstream emissions from drilling for oil and refining it into gasoline or diesel. And it doesn't include emissions from vehicle manufacturing. In other words, these are conservative figures -- so use them with caution. This is ... |
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| Topics: cars, climate, green living, greenhouse-gas emissions, placemaking (all these topics) |
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They're counting on you
To count ... heh |
Kate Sheppard |
01 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| WNYC is calling on New Yorkers to go outside and count the SUVs in their 'hood as part of an experiment in getting citizens involved in the reporting process. Sez their website: This our experiment in 'crowdsourcing,' where we employ you, the listener, in an act of journalism. We're trying to find out just how much gas-guzzling SUV use there is throughout the New York area, with all the talk of environmental sustainability in the city. So you go out and repor ... |
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| Topics: cars, green living, New York, New York City, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Is the Chevy Volt just more GM greenwashing?
Sure looks that way |
Joseph Romm |
29 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Back in May, I was seduced by GM's seeming sincerity in developing a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt. We must always remember, however, that GM is a master greenwasher. An article in Edmunds, 'Chevrolet Volt Goes to Washington To Underline GM's Anti-CAFE-Increase Argument,' suggests GM is using the Volt the same way it used fuel cell cars to kill the electric car in California (as the movie explains): General Motors' North American operations chief, ... |
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| Topics: business, cars, electric vehicles, energy, fuel efficiency, green living, greenwashing, hybrids (all these topics) |
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Aero 101
Airliners are shaped the way they are for a reason |
biodiversivist |
29 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| We took our Prius over the mountains a few weeks back. I was looking forward to testing it at the extreme end of its design envelope, with a bulky cargo carrier to boot. This gave me an opportunity to see how much highway mileage would be affected by aerodynamic drag. Yes, yes, I should have stuck to the speed limit, but by not doing so I preemptively squashed a bitching point leveled by hybrid hatas -- Prius drivers sticking to the speed limit are always getting in t ... |
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| Topics: cars, electric vehicles, green living, hybrids, placemaking, Prius, tech (all these topics) |
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Congestion pricing saves more than it costs
Bloomberg’s law: Environment equals economic growth |
Grist |
28 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| This guest essay comes from Steven Cohen and Jacob Victor. Steven Cohen is executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and director of its Master of Public Administration Program in Environmental Science and Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs. Jacob Victor is an intern at Columbia's Earth Institute. After overcoming numerous obstacles in Albany, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial congestion-pricing plan finally appear ... |
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| Topics: cars, green living, New York, New York City, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Boxer Sticks It to Johnson
Senate hearing probes EPA chief's delay on tailpipe decision |
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27 Jul 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| Boxer Sticks It to Johnson Senate hearing probes EPA chief's delay on tailpipe decision Can U.S. states enact stricter tailpipe regulations than the feds? That question has been hovering in the air since California requested a waiver from the U.S. EPA in late 2005. Why no answer yet? At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing yesterda ... |
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| Topics: Barbara Boxer, California, cars, climate, Congress, greenhouse-gas emissions, news, politics, US EPA (all these topics) |
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All You Need Is Lovins
A conversation with energy guru Amory Lovins |
David Roberts |
26 Jul 2007 |
Main Dish |
| If politicians think in sound bites and intellectuals think in sentences, Amory Lovins thinks in white papers. His speech is studded with pregnant pauses -- you can almost hear the whirs and clicks as an enormous mass of statistics, analyses, and aphorisms is trimmed and edited into a manageable length. I've talked to experts who struggle to substantiate their answers. Lovins struggles to leave thing ... |
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| Topics: Amory Lovins, biofuels, cars, coal, Congress, energy, energy efficiency, ethanol, fuel efficiency, Iraq, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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Plug-in hybrids rule; PHEV Hypercars rule even more
Let's go all the way |
Gar Lipow |
26 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| When David pointed out that plug-in electric hybrids (PHEVs) can reduce carbon emissions in all possible futures, two main arguments were raised in opposition -- practicality, and the possibility that they will provide too low a reduction, while blocking the path to something better. The way commercial plug-ins look to be implemented within the next five years is that normal hybrids will be built with large batteries and the ability to plug into a socket in your d ... |
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| Topics: cars, electric vehicles, energy, fuel efficiency, green living, hybrids, placemaking, tech (all these topics) |
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Great news
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David Roberts |
25 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Soon you'll be able to get a GMC Yukon that gets almost 20 mpg! |
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| Topics: green living, cars, fuel efficiency (all these topics) |
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Is it unmanly to carpool?
A gender fender mind-bender |
Katharine Wroth |
25 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| For the last few weeks, my fella and I have been staying with a male friend during a monthlong gap between homes. Fella and Friend work at the same company, about 30 minutes away. Every morning, Fella and Friend get up, go about their morning routines, get in their cars, and leave -- all within 5 minutes of each other. Before we moved in, and once since then, I suggested that they carpool. Different schedules, they protested. Wouldn't work. This morning, as I waved ... |
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| Topics: cars, climate, green living (all these topics) |
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Clean diesel: General Motors says yes, Toyota, no
GM will offer clean diesel passenger cars in 2010 |
Erik Hoffner |
24 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| GM is planning to bring diesel Saturns and Caddies to the U.S. market in 2010. (A Caddie that gets decent mileage? Who'd have guessed?) They join Nissan, Honda, DaimlerChrysler, and of course Volkswagen in planning to market clean diesels that will meet the new 2008 regulations on NOx and particulate emissions from diesel vehicles. Missing from this list of diesel adopters is Toyota, which is saying that clean diesels "... would end up being more expensive than ... |
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| Topics: business, cars, energy, green living, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Toyota moves to test plug-in Prius in Japan
It's getting closer |
Joseph Romm |
23 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Green Car Congress translated a story that appeared in the Japanese press: Toyota Motor Co. will obtain permission from Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport by the end of July for the testing of a prototype plug-in Prius on public roads. Toyota will be the first car maker to obtain permission for a plug-in hybrid test in Japan. After completing the road tests, Toyota will start building a way to market the model by leasing them to pu ... |
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| Topics: cars, electric vehicles, green living, hybrids, Japan, placemaking (all these topics) |
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