News

Detroit car makers lost another battle in their fight against stronger emissions regulations last week, this time in Vermont.

Britain's Liberal Democrat Party unveiled a detailed plan to tackle climate change which includes a ban on fossil fuel powered cars by 2040. The Guardian reports:

Grist recently produced a list of the world's 15 greenest cities. Streetsblog favorites Copenhagen, Curitiba, London, and Bogotá all made the grade. StreetFilms' posterchild Portland captured the number two spot right behind geothermal-powered Reykjavik, Iceland. San Francisco and Austin were the only other U.S. cities to make the list with Chicago meriting runner-up status.

The Sierra Club points out that in India, there are currently about 7 cars per 1,000 persons (as compared to nearly 500 per 1,000 in the US). With the advent of the $3,000 car, that is surely about to change. The Independent's Andrew Buncombe reports:

A new NRDC report ranks U.S. states on their level of oil vulnerability measured by how heavily each state's citizens are affected by increases in oil prices. States are also ranked on their implementation of solutions to reduce oil dependence. The report found that while oil dependence affects all states, some are hit harder economically than others. And while some states are pioneering solutions, many are taking little or no action. In fact, the report finds that about one-third of states are not taking any steps to reduce their dependence. From the NRDC report (via Car Free USA):

... as NASA Scientist James Hansen and six other scientists publish a new global climate change study that concludes, "The Earth today stands in imminent peril and nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the environmental cataclysm of dangerous climate change."

Department of Transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan continues to assemble an impressive management team.

Quebec will become the first Canadian province to impose a carbon tax on energy producers. Bloomberg reports: