Auto sales are worst in 26 years

January sales tumble more than expected at GM, Ford and Toyota as rental car companies slash purchases. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Auto sales tumbled even more than expected in January to their worst levels since at least 1982, as a pullback in purchases by rental car companies became the latest problem for the troubled industry. […]

GM to offer buyouts to all hourly employees

NEW YORK News of the buyouts first broke on Monday. A union official told The Associated Press then that GM would offer $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 car voucher for workers who retire early and those who simply leave the company. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because workers were not yet notified […]

Former Interior Dept. official gets probation

NEW ORLEANS Tuesday’s sentencing follows months of scandal at MMS and the Interior Department. In reports last September, the department’s Inspector General chronicled a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” at an MMS office in Denver from 2002 to 2006. …In Las Vegas on Monday, a retired Interior Department official named in a September Inspector […]

Kyrgyzstan to close US air base

MOSCOW Interfax and RIA-Novosti quoted Kurmanbek Bakiyev as making the statement just minutes after Russia announced it was providing the poor ex-Soviet country with billions of dollars in aid. AP

The Bubble Is Close to Bursting

Water is the gossamer that links the web of food, energy, climate, economic growth and human security challenges the world faces over the next two decades. We simply cannot manage water in the future in the same way we have in the past or the economic web will collapse. This is the stark warning of […]

Crisis could open Russian energy to West again

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A decline in output of Russia’s star asset, oil, could provide a rare opportunity for foreign firms to gain more access to its energy sector, even though the sting of Moscow reneging on previous deals still hurts. Speaking at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin surprised […]

Dangerous Oil

There has been much debate recently within the defense community between adherents of the so-called Many of the factors which could cause instability around the world are fairly well known. The United Nations has been warning for many years about the probability of significant population expansion in the areas of the globe least able to […]

Drought warning as the tropics expand

California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, warned on Thursday that his state “is headed toward one of the worst water crises in its history”. Now new research suggests that the three-year drought in the Golden State may be a consequence of the expanding tropics, which are gradually growing as human emissions of greenhouse gases warm the planet. […]

Defectors take the car, cooperators go by bus

National economies are driven by the automobile, even during an economic downturn. Every day, hundreds of millions of people take their cars to visit remote places, to commute, and to reach the supermarket. The total outlay for building roads amounts to trillions of dollars and millions of worker-hours. Miklos Szilagyi of the University of Arizona, […]

Buying local isn’t always better for the environment

Shopping locally may not be as good for the environment as having food delivered, according to new research by the University of Exeter (UK). Published in the journal Food Policy, the study shows that, on average, lower carbon emissions result from delivering a vegetable box than making a trip to a local farm shop. The […]

In Bolivia, Untapped Bounty Meets Nationalism

UYUNI, Bolivia For now, the government talks of closely controlling the lithium and keeping foreigners at bay. Adding to the pressure, indigenous groups here in the remote salt desert where the mineral lies are pushing for a share in the eventual bounty.

Stimulus bill may add highway, transit funds

WASHINGTON Murray’s plan would increase the money in the bill for highway projects by almost 50 percent, to $40 billion, reflecting complaints from lawmakers in both parties that Obama’s plan doesn’t do enough to relieve a backlog of unfinished projects. Mass transit programs would get a $5 billion boost, while water projects would get $7 […]

Chavez doubts U.S. can shake oil needs

CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he supported U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to find alternative energy sources but doesn’t believe the United States can do it. “I don’t know how he will achieve what he said he would,” Chavez said in an exclusive 30-minute interview with CNN en Espanol’s Patricia Janiot […]

BP Posts First Quarterly Loss in Seven Years on Oil

BP Plc, Europe’s second-biggest oil company, reported its first quarterly loss in seven years as the global recession spurred a record plunge in crude prices. The loss was $3.3 billion, or 18 cents a share, compared with net income of $4.4 billion, or 23 cents, a year earlier, London-based BP said today in a statement. […]

Uganda won’t export uranium

Uganda will not export its uranium until it develops its capacity to produce nuclear energy, President Yoweri Museveni has disclosed. Addressing the 12th ordinary summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa yesterday, Museveni said even if the whole of Africa’s hydro potential was developed, this would create only 300,000 megawatts. He said the US […]

Water – another global ‘crisis’?

Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics – to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission. Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a […]

Crisis looms at the Pentagon

We face a double crisis at the Pentagon: we can no longer afford the pretense of being the Earth’s sole superpower, and we cannot afford to perpetuate a system in which the military-industrial complex makes its fortune off inferior, poorly designed weapons. This self-destructive system of bloated budgets and purchases of the wrong weapons has […]

U.S. becomes top wind producer, solar next

The United States overtook Germany as the biggest producer of wind power last year, new figures showed, and will likely take the lead in solar power this year, analysts said on Monday. Even before an expected “Obama bounce” from a new President who has vowed to boost clean energy, U.S. wind power capacity surged 50 […]

China in bid to turn solar energy into major energy source by 2050

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has launched an initiative to boost the development of solar energy technology, in a bid to turn it into a major energy source in China by 2050. The initiative, which was approved by CAS’s CCP committee on Dec. 23rd, 2008, was made public on the annual meeting of CAS […]

Struggling solar firms look to public projects

GUILDFORD (Reuters) – John Fitzpatrick is in a buoyant niche of construction. Building subsidised homes for disadvantaged people, with solar panelled roofs for environmentally friendly power, he is funded by the government. A scheme to halve the cost of installing solar panels on schools and social housing is aiding a solar power industry hit by […]

New graduate school sets out to make sense of rapidly changing technology

SAN FRANCISCO – Technology is changing the world so rapidly that even geniuses need help making sense of it all. That’s the idea underlying Singularity University, an unconventional school that will host its first class of 30 graduate students this summer. They will take a nine-week course exploring ways to ensure technology improves mankind’s plight […]

Kunstler: Road Trip

“We will not apologize for our way of life….” This unfortunate phrase from President Obama’s otherwise sturdy inaugural address, echoed through my mind last week as I cruised the suburban outlands of Montgomery, Alabama. All the usual commercial furnishings of consumerist America hugged the flattish ochre and dusty-green landscape of played-out cotton fields where thirty […]

Project envisions post oil Vegas

…The goal was to address social, economic and environmental problems in Las Vegas and answer how they can be addressed for the year 2016 when the global supply of oil will be steadily declining. Lee-Anne Milburn, an associate professor at UNLV explained that

It’s Time To Adapt To Climate Change, Scientists Say

In the United States, most of the debate over climate change is focused on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But some environmentalists say we’re talking too much about how to prevent our climate from changing — and not enough about how to adapt to change that’s already here. Robert Repetto spends a lot of […]

Carmakers fear emission plan could ruin recovery

SACRAMENTO Along the way, critics warn, near-insolvent automakers will be forced to invest billions in new technology all the while hoping higher sticker prices and more-limited selections don’t scare customers away from showrooms. But if Obama’s targets are met, supporters counter, California and the nation will benefit economically and environmentally. Future car fleets should average […]

Global crisis casts shadow over Saudi

…King Abdullah Economic City, or KAEC, is one of six planned

Lightering our way to abundance

An old Wall Street shibboleth says that nobody rings a bell at the top. To prove the point, even as oil and other commodities were making blistering new highs on a daily basis last year, few people saw the carnage that was to come in those markets as the year progressed. But the same cannot […]

Spain wind power firms see steady growth in 2009

Spanish wind power companies in the world’s third-largest producer expect steady growth in capacity this year despite the credit crunch due to long-term investments, an industry spokesman said on Monday. Wind power business group AEE tallied 16,740 megawatts in installed capacity in Spain at the end of 2008, a rise of 1,609 MW for the […]

Chavez Bonds Sink on President-for-Life Bid, Oil Drop

Bond investors are telling Hugo Chavez he should be voted out of office instead of winning his campaign to serve as Venezuela’s president another 10 years. Venezuelan bonds fell the most in Latin America since December, when Chavez began pushing for a referendum to abolish term limits so he can serve through at least 2019. […]

China links coal use and birth defects

The Chinese government appears to have taken another step towards recognising the dangers inherent in its reliance on coal power after an official admitted for the first time that there is a link between the rise in birth defects in certain regions and high levels of pollution. “The problem of birth defects is related to […]

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