Word: planetful
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...conventional car, the only sound is the hiss of the rain outside and something like an accelerating yawn from the electric motor. Czinger is showing off his company's battery-powered car, the Coda Automotive sedan, which emerged in public this June. As one more car to save the planet, the Coda is nice enough. It gets around 100 miles per charge, handles well and - unlike many of its competitors - actually exists in drivable form and not just in a press release. But what really sets the Santa Monica company apart from its fellow dreamers, and what might make this...
...there's already an $8,800 subsidy for local governments and taxi companies that buy electrics and hybrids - which is more than the U.S. government offers. And China already makes more lithium-ion batteries - the energy-dense technology key to new electric cars - than any other country on the planet. "This is a priority for the Chinese government," says Kelly Sims Gallagher, author of the book China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development. "They see it as a pathway to a more energy-secure future...
...think that's bull," says Couture, an alternate on the 1988, '92, and '96 U.S. Olympic wrestling teams. "I don't think there are going to be any long-term ramifications, other than I'm going to be in great shape for as long as I'm on the planet...
...tied intimately to our industrial way of life. The millions of tons of soil fertilizer used in U.S. agriculture alone add N2O into the atmosphere, as do livestock manure, sewage treatment and automobiles. And it's not just our doing: two-thirds of global N2O emissions come from the planet itself, as bacteria in soil and the oceans break down nitrogen. Though N2O is regulated by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 as a greenhouse gas - and one that is nearly 300 times more potent for global warming than CO2 - that treaty doesn't cover all nations, and will expire...
...some good ideas might come up at the U.N. Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in December. Reducing the quantity of fertilizer used in farming, switching to a less meat-heavy diet and lowering the number of cars on the road while boosting fuel economy will all help. The planet itself will continue churning out its own N2O, of course, but the planet did that for eons. It was our N2O production that pushed the gas past the tipping point - requiring that we now push it back. "It can be a win-win phasing out these gases, both for climate...