GM’s New Plan: Fewer Jobs, More Chevy Volt - Environmental Capital - WSJ

It’s worth recalling just what the government auto task force had to say last month about GM putting all its chips on the Volt : “While the Volt holds promise, it is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable.”

Is the Chevy Volt really GM’s salvation, or a bit of misdirection, intended to keep the market and public eyes off the automaker’s epic struggle for survival? That is certainly what Chrysler’s public debut of the Peapod on Earth Day felt like.

18-part video: Al Gore testifies before Congress on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 | GORE LIED

Anyway, here’s Al Gore’s entire testimony.

SF Environmental Policy Examiner: Of Arctic Ice and Polar Bears

Those who are most passionate about the threat of global warming have recently been up in arms about melting ice in the Arctic and using the cutest pictures of polar bears to illustrate the threat to nature caused by global warming.Never mind that the population of polar bears is growing (from an estimated 5,000 in 1960 to 22,000 today--see below), and we could make it grow even more quickly by, umm, not shooting them. The pictures we see of the polar bears 'stranded' on a small ice floe make them look forlorn, but in fact these bears are either surfing--or fishing. Polar bears swim quite nicely, thank you and rest on the occasional floe, or use it as cover while they look for something to eat.

Government Motors - Henry Payne - Planet Gore on National Review Online

With government calling the shots, says Littman, GM will now become a ward of the state producing products that politicians want, not customers.