Honda To Launch Inexpensive Hybrid Sub-Compact

A Japanese newspaper reported last week that Honda Motor Company, Japan’s third largest automaker, plans to launch the world’s least-expensive mass-produced gas-electric hybrid car early in 2007, a modified version of its popular Fit subcompact model. Consumers in the U.S. can expect to pay under $17,000 for the car–about $4,000 less than Toyota’s popular Prius hybrid–when it is released globally next year. And given the car’s small size and excellent gas mileage projections, Americans can apply generous government tax credits to their purchase of the car, bringing the total cost down to less than $15,000.

Did the car companies really conspire to kill the trolleys and streetcars

Indeed, in the 1920s automaker General Motors (GM) began a covert campaign to undermine the popular rail-based public transit systems that were ubiquitous in and around the country’s bustling urban areas. At the time, only one in 10 Americans owned cars and most people traveled by trolley and streetcar.

The Ultimate Flattery

Biomimicry is the concept of looking at natural systems to solve such problems as keeping cool in the heat, recycling toxic wastes or self cleaning. This new science doesn’t involve taking any part from an existing animal or plant, but instead mimicking the means by which the problem has been solved over millennia. Unlike typical human solutions to natural problems, "biomimetics" copy natural designs, which by nature are usually non-polluting and use minimal energy.

After the Storm

The one-two punch doled out by Katrina and then Hurricane Rita literally wiped out thousands of promising small businesses—and the jobs that went with them—all the way from Texas to Alabama. Several socially responsible community investment projects are helping shoulder the daunting burden of getting the local economy back on its feet.

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Tenting Tonight

Every so often we need to interrupt our regular lives and go off and live in a tent. I don’t say this for the usual benefits associated with camping—the simpler living and getting close to the outdoors, though those things go far in renewing our perspective. More importantly, we need to spend time away from home, constructing a shelter at night, taking it down in the morning and moving on, because that gets us close to a truth we usually deny. We are merely passing through this life.

Biodiesel Basics

For financial, political and environmental reasons—including the fact that we may soon reach the peak of oil production, after which fossil fuels will get increasingly expensive—Americans are trying out biodiesel, both in their vehicles and (mainly in the Northeast) for home heating.

The Facts on Fats

If “fat” has become a dirty word in your nutritional arsenal, you should know that all fats are not the same. Some may be harmful, but others are helpful—even necessary—for proper functioning of our bodies. The key is choosing the right fats.

Portland’s Green Scene

Many environmentalists and well-educated idealists have moved to Portland, Oregon, in recent years, drawn by the pristine natural beauty of nearby areas, by wild salmon splashing in clear mountain streams, thundering waterfalls, elk wandering through old-growth forests, snow-capped mountains and wildflowers dotting the meadows. But after arriving, many were soon numbed by the diversity of threats to the wilderness by man’s consumption: majestic forests cut to stumps to make toilet paper, rugged mountains flattened to extract coal and metals and woodland streams turned green with pollution. 

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