ECOLOGY

SCIENTISTS BACK GORE'S READING OF ENVIRONMENT

An Inconvenient Truth, but an unavoidable one, too. In a recent AP poll,
the nation's top climate scientists are giving Al Gore's documentary on
global warming five stars for accuracy. This comes on the heels of an
intensifying effort to trash the science of the movie by The Wall Street
Journal and The National Review. However, the overwhelming consensus of
over a thousand climate scientists in 120 countries, as well as the US'
own National Academy of Sciences, is firmly in Gore's camp. With an
undeniable agreement among the world's scientists and oil industry
hackishness coming to light, is the US about to turn the corner on it's
conventional wisdom about man-made global warming?

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/52596

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U.S. RESPONSIBLE FOR NEARLY HALF OF CAR-CAUSED GREENHOUSE GASES

JANET WILSON, LA TIMES - American cars and pickup trucks are responsible
for nearly half of the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles globally,
even though the nation's vehicles make up just 30% of the nearly 700
million cars in use, according to a new report by Environmental Defense.


Cars in the U.S. are driven more miles, face lower fuel economy
standards and use fuel with more carbon than many of those driven in
other countries, the authors found. According to the report by the
environmental group, due out today, U.S. cars and light trucks were
driven 2.6 trillion miles in 2004, equal to driving back and forth to
Pluto more than 470 times. . .

One surprising finding was that small cars emitted more carbon dioxide
than SUVs, 25% of the total compared with 21%. That is because there are
more older small vehicles with higher emissions still in service, said
lead author John DeCicco, a mechanical engineer specializing in
automobile research.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-greenhouse
28jun28,1,4252181.story?track=rss