Hybrid Cars

Mark Brody hung on to the old Volvo for years, waiting for manufacturers to come out with an environmentally friendly car. When that finally happened, he had to wait a few months more. In December, Brody bought one of the new generation of "hybrid" vehicles - low-pollution, high-mileage machines that are popular with environmentally conscious consumers but hard to find on the East Coast. That scarcity could change if lawmakers on both sides of the Delaware River adopt a California program requiring that manufacturers sell a certain percentage of vehicles with zero emissions - mainly pure electric cars - or very low emissions, like Brody's Toyota Prius.

Liz Robinson long ago reconciled herself to the naysayers, the folks who thought that green jobs were some figment of a tree hugger's imagination. "I think people don't understand," said Robinson, executive director of the Energy Coordinating Agency , a Philadelphia nonprofit that trains people to perform energy audits on houses and buildings in the city. Maybe more will now. On Thursday, the mother source of all job statistics, the office that provides research data to battalions of labor economists and academicians, released its first report on green jobs and services.

Last summer, when gas first hit $3 per gallon, I bought a hybrid vehicle. Although I had been planning to make that purchase before gas prices hit the roof, now that they are once again soaring, I have to admit a bit of smugness has set in. You see, I took a lot of flak when I bought the hybrid. I was bombarded with such comments as: "It's not worth it. " "You'll never make your money back. " "These cars don't get the mileage that's advertised. " And on and on. The scorn and ridicule I endured was not born out of a lack of belief in hybrid technology, which relies on a combination of gasoline and electricity to power the vehicle.

Drivers seeking to beat rising gas prices by buying hybrid vehicles could save more money if they are patient. Starting next year, people who buy or lease hybrid vehicles - cars or sport-utility vehicles powered by both gasoline and electric engines - can get tax credits of up to $3,400. The credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in what you owe in income taxes. It is included in the energy bill that President Bush signed into law Aug. 8. Not all hybrids have been approved for the credit, and how much you will get back depends on the efficiency of the car and when you buy it. In addition, a cap on how many hybrid purchases qualify and waiting lists for some hybrids mean you will have to act fast.

A call to action I hope Thursday's attacks in London will alert leaders around the world, be they from Africa or one of the G-8 countries, that they should finally take steps to tackle the poverty and injustice, at home and abroad, that leads to such acts. I grew up near London and have friends and relatives there, yet I feel only sadness and anger that this had to happen, because I knew in my heart it would. Death is part of life. Throughout the world, every day, thousands die early from accidents and natural disasters.

ON JAN. 3, Men's Fitness magazine released its 2002 ranking of the fittest and fattest cities. Although Philly has improved from when it was ranked the Fattest City a few years ago, we're still 4th Fattest. Interestingly, it's not just our love of junk food, poor health habits and penchant for TV-watching that's doing us in. Our sad environmental state also drags us down. According to the magazine, Philly gets a mediocre "C" grade for air quality and an embarrassing "F" grade for its water quality.

Commemorating Earth Day on Saturday is a good start, but teaching children what they can do to help the environment year-round is a great way to keep the message going. To that end comes Temple University Ambler's EarthFest 2006. Six thousand students from area elementary, middle and high schools are signed up to attend today's outdoor event, which is open to the public. "The goal is really to get students from the youngest all the way up through college age thinking about the communities - how they can be good environmental stewards," says James Duffy, a Temple Ambler spokesman.

Fisker Automotive Inc., which this week said it was laying off 26 workers at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington that was being readied for the manufacture of hybrid cars, said Thursday that it was unclear when production would begin there, given protracted talks over financing with the U.S. Department of Energy. The company, based in Anaheim, Calif., has drawn no money since May from a federally backed $528.7 million loan for green-car production. Fisker and federal officials have been discussing continuing the loan despite several missed milestones that had been set to remain in compliance, Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said Thursday.

America has a serious problem with terrorism that won't be solved by military domination of the world. Why? Because the problem of terrorist assaults within our borders is itself a response to U.S. military domination of the Middle East and other parts of the world. More of the latter will only exacerbate the former. The invasion of Iraq is a distraction from what we need to be focusing on, which is an element of very motivated, very smart and very ruthless individuals bent on tormenting and confusing us with international jujitsu.

Richard Whiteford walks Downingtown's Struble trail, pointing out Baltimore orioles and Carolina chickadees. Whiteford's passion for the environment makes him seem like an advertisement for saving the planet. He has lobbied for environmental protection laws, lectured on global warming, and urged people to buy local produce and hybrid cars. Now he has taken on another "mission": revving up members of the Sierra Club in Chester County. "I got to thinking about how over 2,000 members of the [Chester County]

Liz Robinson long ago reconciled herself to the naysayers, the folks who thought that green jobs were some figment of a tree hugger's imagination. "I think people don't understand," said Robinson, executive director of the Energy Coordinating Agency , a Philadelphia nonprofit that trains people to perform energy audits on houses and buildings in the city. Maybe more will now. On Thursday, the mother source of all job statistics, the office that provides research data to battalions of labor economists and academicians, released its first report on green jobs and services.

Fisker Automotive Inc., which this week said it was laying off 26 workers at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington that was being readied for the manufacture of hybrid cars, said Thursday that it was unclear when production would begin there, given protracted talks over financing with the U.S. Department of Energy. The company, based in Anaheim, Calif., has drawn no money since May from a federally backed $528.7 million loan for green-car production. Fisker and federal officials have been discussing continuing the loan despite several missed milestones that had been set to remain in compliance, Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said Thursday.

Vice President Biden convened the White House's Middle Class Task Force in Philadelphia yesterday for a daylong inaugural hearing on the promise of prosperity in thousands of "green" jobs expected to be created by the drives to make the nation energy-independent and reduce global warming. The event, in the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania, featured questions from six cabinet secretaries, testimony from eight experts, and a bevy of public officials, including Mayor Nutter, touting their early embrace of the coming green economy.

Free heating oil for the poor! That's what Joe Kennedy II has been peddling on TV recently. Sounds great, right? What's not to like about free? Of course, the devil's always in the details when it comes to "free," and this time the devil is more than a metaphor. This heating oil to our poor neighborhoods is flowing from Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez, whose poor are poorer and greater in number, percentage-wise. The same Fidel Castro disciple who traveled to the United Nations to call our president the devil.

Free heating oil for the poor! That's what Joe Kennedy II has been peddling on TV recently. Sounds great, right? What's not to like about free? Of course, the devil's always in the details when it comes to "free," and this time the devil is more than a metaphor. This heating oil to our poor neighborhoods is flowing from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose poor are poorer and greater in number, percentage-wise. The same Fidel Castro disciple who traveled to the United Nations to call our president the devil.

The supplies to feed America's voracious appetite for oil continue to tighten, and we have not yet done anything effective to reduce our dependence on this commodity that is so vital to our economy. What is the U.S. position in the world oil scene? Even though the United States has only 2.4 percent of the world's oil reserves, it uses about 25 percent of all oil consumed. The United States uses about 21 million barrels per day of oil. Of this, it imports 12.5 million, or more than 60 percent.

Gasoline prices continue to edge up - to an average of $2.73 a gallon locally - and Clayton Lane continues to buy Toyota Prius cars for PhillyCarShare's fleet of 300 vehicles. "We buy them constantly because they are among the most fuel-efficient cars on the market," said Lane, deputy executive director of the nonprofit agency that promotes shared car ownership. More and more motorists and fleet buyers are doing the same as gasoline prices continue to rise, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

For more than 100 years, the battery-electric car has been the car of tomorrow, but never the car of today. Why? A new documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, offers a captivating attempt to answer this question, but falls victim to the usual purist laments that sidetrack public policy. The "inconvenient truth" is that the battery-electric car - supposedly unsoiled by any fossil fuels - will never replace the family sedan. Those who continue to push for it are chasing a utopian dream, and ignoring a promising solution that is close at hand: the "plug-in hybrid," which recharges at home like a battery-electric car, but also draws power from a gasoline engine.

Last summer, when gas first hit $3 per gallon, I bought a hybrid vehicle. Although I had been planning to make that purchase before gas prices hit the roof, now that they are once again soaring, I have to admit a bit of smugness has set in. You see, I took a lot of flak when I bought the hybrid. I was bombarded with such comments as: "It's not worth it. " "You'll never make your money back. " "These cars don't get the mileage that's advertised. " And on and on. The scorn and ridicule I endured was not born out of a lack of belief in hybrid technology, which relies on a combination of gasoline and electricity to power the vehicle.