Something a little lighter for the halfway mark in the week…  

This treehugger article shows the efforts being made to introduce a more biofriendly mode of transportation – the Ecocab.  This three-wheeled pedaling machine first came out in Toronto Canada at the beginning of May, but has already been frequenting the streets of Dublin, Berlin and Stockholm.  Advertising is the major breadwinner for the owners of these environmentally friendly cabs, for now anyway.

Currently in Stockholm, there are eight Ecocabs pedaling through the streets.  For each fifteen minutes of pedaling, it will cost you 40 Swedish crowns per passenger (about $6.50).  As fit as the drivers must surely be, they are backed up by a 12 volt self-charging battery to assist with the tougher inclines, and to run the electrics such as the indicators.  And although they have a top speed of 25 kilometers per hour, they usually only reach about half that, so hopefully they’re not road hogs.

So if you’re not in any tremendous hurry, these sound like a great way to go.  Sit back and enjoy the views of the city and maybe, if you’re paying attention, you might find some hidden city treasures that you may not have noticed before.

A study has been conducted by climate change researchers, which examines the anticipated effect that global warming will have on the U.S. energy supply.   The study concludes that weather changes caused as a result of global warming could seriously disrupt the extraction, refining and transportation of oil in the U.S.

A summary of the report is outlined in this NaturalNews article.  Basically, with the earth’s temperature rising, snowcaps are melting and sea levels are rising, which could destroy the oil and gas infrastructure along our coastlines – possibly leading to equipment damage, flooding or erosion.  Also noted in the report is the effect that storms driven by global warming will damage the oil industry’s infrastructure.

“Increases in storm intensity could threaten further energy supply disruptions of the sorts experienced in 2005,” says the report (e.g. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita). 

Personally, I would be content to go back to the horse and cart days and stay warm by campfire, but I would never admit that publicly from fear of ridicule.  However, if the report holds accurate, it seems we are chasing our tails in a sort of catch-22 scenario. Because of course, if the above scenarios eventuate, we will consume more energy to fix the damage attributed to consuming all the energy in the first place.  A bag of feed and a saddle sounds much more simple no?  As my luxury item I nominate firelighters though – no point going to extremes.

According to this Trading Markets article, 37% of people polled in the U.S. believe that improving fuel efficiency and investing in alternative fuels should be given the highest priority for investment and development.

The national survey, which was done by the Fairfax County (Virginia) Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), ranked ‘fuel efficiency and alternative fuels’ as the highest priority for investments (37%), followed by ‘medical’ at 30%, ‘environment’ at 14%; with the last 9% comprising of ‘security and defence’, ‘transportation’, ‘space exploration’ and ‘telecommunications and media’.

A similar survey undertaken in Great Britain found the same categories in the top three; ‘medical’ polled first at 38%, followed by ‘fuel efficiency and alternative fuels’ at 33% and ‘environment’ at 14% - the remaining 9% covering the remaining categories.

Although ‘environment’ polled third in both surveys, I wonder what the statistics would have shown if the survey asked what the motivating factor was for selecting ‘fuel efficiency and alternative fuels’?  The two greatest factors behind this category would surely be economics/performance and the environment.  After all, vehicle pollution is one of the biggest contributing factors to our environmental concerns.  Since we’re probably not too far from ‘drive-thru’ everything you can think of, the development of fuel efficiency and alternative fuels is clearly a very wise investment.