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Republicans are not just talking about slowing progress on clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate change, they're doing it…by doing nothing about it. I'm over it. There's a lot of phooey balooey about compromising, reaching across the aisle, Republicans and Democrats working together, a spirit of bipartisanship, a 'new kind of politics'…

Pilot Program is First In NYS to Provide Funds to Help New York's Neediest Heat With Oil More Efficiently as Winter Sets In Measures Can Save Low-Income Households Up to $1,000 Annually on Heating Bills Funding Provided by Cuomo's Record Settlement with American Electric Power Last Year NEW YORK, N.Y. (November 10, 2008) - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a new program created by his office that will deliver $1.9 million to New York's neediest families to help them cope with the high cost of home heating oil. The Oil Efficiency Pilot Program is a first-ever initiative in New York to help low-income households heating with oil to pay for heating upgrades and weatherization. These measures can cut average household heating costs by as much as $1,000 annually, while reducing smog, acid rain and global warming pollution.

-Amory Lovins, a renowned author and big thinker on energy, specializes in making the impossible real. His 4,000-square-foot Colorado home has no furnace, uses a few dollars' worth of electricity a month, and features an indoor tropical garden with banana trees and papaya plants. In conversation, he's quick to pull out his iPhone to show a car prototype inspired by the Hypercar, which is three to five times more efficient than conventional cars. He's the chief scientist and co-founder of nonprofit advisory firm Rocky Mountain Institute, which develops environmentally friendly solutions using business as a lever. Among the organizations it advises are Ford Motor, Wal-Mart, and the Pentagon.

Engineers and entrepreneurs are rushing to explore alternative sources of efficient and renewable energy in New Jersey and elsewhere in the country. A Rutgers School of Business-Camden professor has strong words of caution as projects involving wind farms and photovoltaic cells proliferate.

Even before George W. Bush can settle into his new house in Dallas, his legacy on the environment is being dismantled by his replacement in the White House. In less than two months, President Obama has put on hold Bush's plans for power-plant pollution, offshore oil drilling, nuclear waste storage and endangered species. THE PRESIDENT'S AGENDA: What's been done, what lies ahead The Obama team has rolled out policies Bush officials delayed, such as requiring higher energy efficiency from appliances. Such moves have significant impacts and not just on the environment. They could affect electric bills, gas prices and the time it takes to build highways, dams and bridges.

Using fully stock production gasoline engine powered vehicles, with engine modifications limited only to changes in fuel mixture and ignition timing, Shell Oil Company served host to an open competition in automobile efficiency. The fruit of their forum was sweet indeed as a two-door, full-sized production car was able to drive off with the prize by achieving 376.59 miles in normal driving conditions using a single gallon of fuel. A more heavily modified vehicle was able to achieve over 1140 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Results like these are truly astounding and beg the question: Are we really getting all we can in efficiency from auto makers?

President Barack Obama took aim at climate-warming greenhouse gases on Tuesday and ordered the struggling auto industry to make more fuel-efficient cars under tough new national standards to cut emissions and increase gas mileage. Obama said the standards, announced at a White House ceremony attended by auto industry and union leaders, would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and give five years of cost certainty to an industry battling to survive. "The status quo is no longer acceptable," Obama said in an announcement that will pressure carmakers to transform and modernize the industry to produce more efficient vehicles.

The efficiency and eco-credentials of solid fuel fires have seen such products witness a recent increase in popularity driven in part by the soaring cost of other forms of energy. solid fuel appliances increase in popularity Writing in the Guardian, Andrew Martin stated that while it is necessary to burn smokeless solid fuel, except in the case of where approved appliances are used, these products can offer a carbon neutral solution to heating. Mr Martin stated that wood used as a fuel is carbon neutral because the carbon dioxide that is emitted is captured by the growth of the tree.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is today expected to adopt the most radical global warming plan in the U.S., and possibly the world. If passed, it will force individuals, as well as the state's utilities, refineries and large factories to fundamentally change the way they do business, and slash greenhouse gas emissions. The plan will outline for the first time how people and businesses will be required to meet the state's 2006 'Global Warming Solutions Act' and transform California into a global leader in the fight against climate change. The board will be in session all day to consider approval of the AB 32 Scoping Plan to Reduce GHG Emissions in California. Key aspects of the plan include: * The creation of a carbon-credit 'cap and trade' market designed to give the state's major polluters cheaper ways to cut emissions; * A Low Carbon Fuel standard; * Stringent transport related greenhouse gas targets; * A target of generating 33% of the states's electricity from renewable energy by 2020; * Ambitious vehicle efficiency measures; * Implementation of a high speed rail system; * A radical green building strategy.

Bail out General Motors? The people who murdered our mass transit system? First let them remake what they destroyed. GM responded to the 1970s gas crisis by handing over the American market to energy-efficient Toyota and Honda. GM met the rise of the hybrids with "light trucks." GM built a small electric car, leased a pilot fleet to consumers who loved it, and then forcibly confiscated and trashed them all.

It's stuff we all know about - compact fluorescent lighting, wind energy, efficiency, green jobs - the kind of stuff we talk about incessantly on TreeHugger. Yet seeing all these solutions in Earth School's 4-minute trailer of the upcoming documentary Carbon Nation makes them feel more real, just like seeing Al Gore do his shtick in An Inconvenient Truth brought the reality of global warming home (whether or not each individual fact he uttered could be 100 percent proven). And that's a good thing. Global warming gets scarier the more you think about it, but Carbon Nation, scheduled to be released late in the year, aims to dwell not on the scary but on the possibilities for solving the problem.

The arrival of more fuel-efficient cars and trucks promising cleaner air and more energy independence is being set back as automakers worldwide scramble to hoard cash in an industry meltdown. Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Japan's Nissan Motor and France's Renault, on Wednesday warned that automakers "can't find the financing" for aggressive development of so-called green cars. In a keynote speech at the L.A. Auto Show media preview, Ghosn said companies must husband cash to survive an auto recession expected to last until 2010.

THE graphs climbing across these pages (see graph in detail, or explore the data) are a stark reminder of the crisis facing our planet. Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale. Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency. But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.

Costly as it may seem, California's mandate to cut climate-altering exhausts from vehicles and industry by nearly one-third in the next 12 years actually will boost the economy, a state analysis released Wednesday predicts. The improvements in fuel and energy efficiency and extra clean-technology jobs needed to achieve the required 30 percent emissions reduction would result in a net household savings of $400 to $500 a year and a net 0.2 percent or $4 billion gain in the total annual output of goods and services, according to the report.

Electric grids are getting smarter in an IBM lab in Texas as the promise of billions of US economic stimulus dollars fuels a drive to make power delivery more efficient and greener. A chunk of stimulus cash aimed at promoting a "smart grid" designed to foster renewable energy generation and let people and utilities better manage electricity use has IBM in alliances with a growing host of startups. "Smart grid was starting to get hotter, but post-stimulus it is dead center at IBM and in the venture community we deal with," said Drew Clark, director of strategy at IBM's venture capital group.

I have known the New York Times energy reporter, Matt Wald, for 15 years, and generally think he is pretty good. But he has published perhaps the most flawed, inaccurate, and indefensible article in his career. Wald's piece could also be a poster child for award-winning journalist Eric Pooley's searing critique of the media's coverage of climate economics (see How the press bungles its coverage of climate economics - "The media's decision to play the stenographer role helped opponents of climate action stifle progress").

Who is to blame for the summit disaster? The US? China? The EU? The G-8? In fact, all of the above. It was a coming together of states that killed off a vital resource for the world: trust. In Copenhagen, the outlines of a dangerous world were there for all to see. The climate summit did not end in a fist fight between tens of thousands of people, despite the fact that serious global problems were not resolved. Barack Obama did not have to fly out from the roof of a burning conference center. Nevertheless, it was palpable that this is a world in which trust is harder to come by than oil, and where there is more mistrust than CO2 emissions. And yet Copenhagen has proven that trust is the most important resource for the transformation of the current oil-based system into a green civilization. It is more important than all the money that will be required for new technology, more efficient machines, dams and the survival of forest inhabitants.

Who is to blame for the summit disaster? The US? China? The EU? The G-8? In fact, all of the above. It was a coming together of states that killed off a vital resource for the world: trust. In Copenhagen, the outlines of a dangerous world were there for all to see. The climate summit did not end in a fist fight between tens of thousands of people, despite the fact that serious global problems were not resolved. Barack Obama did not have to fly out from the roof of a burning conference center. Nevertheless, it was palpable that this is a world in which trust is harder to come by than oil, and where there is more mistrust than CO2 emissions. And yet Copenhagen has proven that trust is the most important resource for the transformation of the current oil-based system into a green civilization. It is more important than all the money that will be required for new technology, more efficient machines, dams and the survival of forest inhabitants.

Peak oil isn't getting much airtime in the mainstream press lately, but David Strahan has a column in The Independent - A Government still addicted to petrol. "All targets and no trousers" seemed to be the gist of the reaction from environmentalists to last week's Budget. Greens welcomed the introduction of new, legally binding, carbon-reduction goals but attacked the lack of a clear road map showing how they could be achieved. Some applauded policies such as the extra subsidy for offshore wind and investment in building efficiency, but attacked overall funding of £1.4bn as miserly in comparison to the enormity of the climate crisis and recent financial bailouts.

President Barack Obama announced plans on Tuesday for a national fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standard that would significantly increase mileage requirements for cars and trucks by 2016. Obama called it "an historic agreement to help America break its dependence on oil, reduce harmful pollution and begin the transition to a clean energy economy." The new requirements mark the first time there has been a nationwide standard for emissions of greenhouse gases. They require an average mileage standard of 39 miles per gallon for cars and 30 mpg for trucks by 2016 - a jump from the current average for all vehicles of 25 miles per gallon.

Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes.