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The Headlines:

Climate bill finally announced
Two startling polls
Obama’s Gulf spill bill
Volkswagen’s so-crazy-it-just-might-work idea
No poo this week, but there’s pee!

The Details:

Climate bill finally announced

U.S. Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman finally unveiled their climate bill, the American Power Act, last week. The legislation aims to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and more than 80 percent by 2050.

Also included in the bill are provisions against offshore drilling. The bill would allow coastal states to opt out of drilling up to 75 miles from their shores, as well as allowing a state near a state where drilling is to take place to stop the drilling if they can prove plausible negative impacts on their state. Those states that allow offshore drilling will receive a share of federal revenue, which is different from the current policy.

For the first time it would set a price on carbon emissions for large-scale polluters. Estimated rates range from $12 per ton of carbon emissions to $25 per ton. The bill would offer incentives of up to $2 billion per year for companies that develop so-called clean coal technologies, and it increases funding for nuclear power which was part of Obama’s initial plan.

Two startling polls

Even with the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf, we found two public opinion polls that defy logic. An Associated Press-GfK Poll asked participants about President Obama’s handling of the spill as well as their feelings toward offshore drilling. The poll found that 42 percent approve of Obama’s actions, 33 percent disapprove and 21 percent say they have neutral feelings about his response. That’s not the interesting part.

The interesting part is that more people favor increased coastal drilling for oil and gas than oppose it. At least 50 percent of people still favor offshore drilling!

A 60 Minute story on what caused the explosion

A second poll tabulated by Public Policy Polling shows something even crazier: an astonishing nine percent of the public believe that environmentalists caused the explosion that resulted in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill! And 22 percent of people surveyed said they were not sure if environmentalists intentionally caused the spill. That’s about 1 in 5 people in the U.S.

Obama’s Gulf spill bill

Speaking of the spill, last week the White House sent President Obama’s bill proposal to deal with the spill to Congress. The bill would provide funding for further safety inspections at oil rigs, grant unemployment assistance for those hurt or displaced by the spill, give money for environmental studies related to the oil damage in the Gulf and provide nutritional assistance to those in the area who might be affected by the spill.

The proposed bill would also call for a raise in “the statutory expenditure limitation for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund from $1 billion to $1.5 billion.” In addition, the bill would raise the cap on natural resource damage assessments and claims from $500 million to $750 million, providing more money for cleanup of oil spills.

But the part that many on Capitol Hill are concerned about is the money that the responsible oil companies would have to pay. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey has called for the current cap of $75 million to be upped to $10 billion. The White House’s bill has no exact figure for the companies to pay. Carol Browner, the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, offered this explanation: “We think it is important to work with Congress on determining what that set number will be. As you know, there have been bills already introduced and we will be working with them to determine what the right number is.” We’ll see.

Volkswagen’s so-crazy-it-just-might-work idea

The trunk of most cars is the place where you typically find the spare tire. But Volkswagen wants to add another set of wheels to their cars: an electric bike.

Meant to be a supplement to the car rather than a spare tire replacement, the electric bike’s use as envisioned by Volkswagen is for owners to park their car on the outskirts of town and ride in on their electric bike.

The 12 mile an hour bike has a range of 12.5 miles, but if you need more range to complete your errands, the bike battery can be charged by a car’s DC current and a typical AC plug. The bike folds up into a flat disc that is stored in the trunk in addition to the spare tire.Volkswagen’s utopian-minded electric bike should become part of their vehicles’ accessories within the next few years.

No poo this week, but there’s pee!

Did you know that the process of making bricks is an incredibly wasteful one? Apparently, it produces more pollution per year than global air travel! And 400 trees are burned to make 25,000 bricks.

The solution? A company called Better Bricks has developed a way to “grow” bricks using sand, bacteria, calcium chloride and urea. That’s right: pee bricks! It happens through a series of chemical reactions known as “microbial-induced calcite precipitation.”

The bacteria holds the sand and other ingredients together like a living glue. The resulting brick is as strong as marble and requires no baking to achieve that strength. And according to the company, if Better Bricks replaced all traditionally-fired bricks, 800 million tons of CO2 emissions would be eliminated each year.