Saturday News You Can Use

1) Australia Gets It!
Australia: Drivers face fuel ration shock

Looming oil shortages would produce the biggest change in society since the industrial revolution, Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara warned yesterday. Mr McNamara says he will recommend the State Government focuses urgently on ways to cut private-car use. "I cannot overstate this – we need to adopt a wartime mentality," he said. "We're going to face a level of urgency that will require dramatic change."

XX My take -- We are in an oil CRISIS. America needs a little of that "wartime mentality" to get through the energy shock.

2) SmartCars Aren't So Smart
I'd heard they had great gas mileage, but apparently the manufacturer (Mercedes Benz) saves the fuel-efficient engines for Europe. The New York Times gives us the skinny on why the SmartCar's time hasn't come.

3) Global Warming With a Vengeance
A new study published in the journal Nature by a team of Swiss, French and German scientists adds 150,000 years of data to climate records assembled from previous ice drilling, confirming that CO2 levels are the highest in at least the past 800,000 years. "We can firmly say that today's concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are 28 and 124% higher respectively than at any time during the last 800,000 years," said Thomas Stocker, an author of the report.

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