Sunday, May 3, 2009

Two Billion Cars


Or, as the subtitle rather optimistically puts it, "Driving Towards Sustainability". Sounds a bit like tree-felling towards biodiversity. Well, there are already more than 1bn cars on the planet, and these authors, energy and transport mavens, see an inevitable rise (largely driven by China and India) to 2bn in a few decades. How to minimise their impact on the climate? The twin prongs of a solution are emerging alternative-transportation developments (such as Bus Rapid Transit, platoons of buses in dedicated lanes); and alternative fuel sources for cars, a field distorted in the US by subsidies for one of the worst options, corn ethanol.

Read Ethanol comments about Sugarcane (Ethanol without subsidies).

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Shifting Climate Alters Pattern of Atlantic’s Giant Seaweed Blobs. Blooms of yellowish-brown seaweed along the Equator are breaking records and defiling beaches, while a centuries-old patch farther north is disappearing.

Mexican National Guard members during a sargassum seaweed cleanup event in Cancun, Mexico, in June. Credit... Paola Chiomante/Reuters   By E...