Star-Telegram: Less gasoline. Less jet fuel. Less crude oil. Less natural gas falling 7 percent and October 4.5 percent. The result? Gasoline consumption plunged 8.5 percent in September and was down 4 percent in mid-December, the latest figure available from the federal Energy Information Administration. It’s a similar story in the skies. U.S. air travel in November was the slowest since 9-11. American, United and Continental airlines all said traffic was down at least 10 …

Sierra Sun: As California Attorney General and climate change crusader Jerry Brown increases the pressure on local planners to consider future projections for the effects of global warming, more and more government agencies in the Tahoe Basin are integrating climate change into their agendas for the coming years. "The bottom line of climate change for the Lake Tahoe region," says Dennis Oliver, community Affairs Officer for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, "means more precipitation of rain …

Associated Press: Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday. The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market. Toyota’s offices were closed Thursday and officials were not immediately available for comment. According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an …

Guardian: Current approaches to deal with climate change are ineffectual, one of the world’s top climate scientists said today in a personal new year appeal to Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the urgent need to tackle global warming. With less than three weeks to go until Obama’s inauguration, Prof James Hansen, head of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked the recently appointed White House science adviser Prof John Holdren to pass the missive directly to the …

Guardian: Coral growth across the Great Barrier Reef has suffered a "severe and sudden" slowdown since 1990 that is unprecedented in the last four centuries, according to scientists. The researchers analysed the growth rates of 328 coral colonies on 69 individual reefs that make up the 1,250 mile-long Great Barrier Reef, off north-east Australia. They found that the rate at which the corals were laying down calcium in their skeletons dropped by 14.2% between 1990 and 2005. Corals around …

Saratogian: As of today, we can all breathe a little easier than we have in a very long time but it almost didn’t happen. Take note, because it’s yet another small sign that things are changing for the better for the average taxpayer. We have finally begun to stand up for ourselves. This time the benefits cover not only our wallets but the well-being of every family member. The first phase of the 2005 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Interstate Rule, or CAIR, goes into effect on …

Telegraph: But now tropical coral reefs are facing a renewed - and hidden - threat from environmental change which is stunting their growth, claim scientists. Researchers looking at the world’s biggest and best preserved reef - the Great Barrier Reef - found that it is growing at its slowest rate for at least 400 years. While the damage is not visible to the naked eye scientists believe it is a "very worrying" indicator which could spell disaster for the biodiversity of the …

Express-News: What’s a ‘green economy’ look like? No one is precisely sure what President-elect Barack Obama has in mind for January’s anticipated $500 billion economic stimulus package, but it’s expected to include billions in spending for green energy initiatives — part of his campaign promise to create a new generation of jobs. But even with the uncertainty over what the package would fund, San Antonio utility officials, green energy advocates and members of the construction industry …

Reuters: Coral growth since 1990 in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has fallen to its lowest rate for 400 years, in a troubling sign for the world’s oceans, researchers said on Thursday. This could threaten a variety of marine ecosystems that rely on the reef and signal similar problems for other similar organisms worldwide, Glen De’ath and colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science said. The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral expanse, and like similar reefs …

Associated Press: A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by a federal commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads. The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is the second group in a year to call for higher fuel taxes. With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4 cents a gallon …