How green is your new car? Stickers will say

  If you plan to go car-shopping in July -- for a hybrid perhaps? -- you might spot a new sticker on one of the windows.

A regulation signed this week by the California Secretary of State requires that, no later than Jan. 1, 2009, all new cars sold in the state carry a label that explains their impact on the environment. It will give each vehicle a Global Warming Score and a Smog Score, based on a state assessment. Dealers may start slapping them on sooner rather than later, according to a press release from the California Air Resources Board.

"This label will arm consumers with the information they need to choose a vehicle that saves gas, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps fight smog all at once," said Mary D. Nichols, board chairman. "Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change. We look forward to seeing these stickers on 2009 model cars as they start hitting the showrooms in the coming months."

Here's what to look for:

And here's how to read it:

In each category, the label will give a score on a scale of 1 to 10. "The average new car will score five on both scales," says the press release. "The higher the score, the less impact the car has on the environment."

The ARB also has a cool site, DriveClean, with a ton of information about the cleanest, most efficient cars on the market.

-- Bill Nottingham

Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Men consume more energy than women, study says

The difference between single men and single women in Sweden? Men spend more money on cars and drive more, and thus consume more energy, so says a study by the Swedish Defense Research Agency, reports Agence France-Presse via Google News.

The article continues:

"Men's energy use when it comes to eating out and consuming alcohol and tobacco was also nearly double that of women's. Women meanwhile used far more indirect energy than men in the areas of healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and on clothing."

The study also found that women were more likely to buy environmentally-friendly products.

My point-of-view: I volunteer to interview single Swedish women about this important topic.

Someone's gotta do it.

-- Steve Hymon

16 Senators don't vote on climate change bill

Maybe I expect too much from public officials, but perhaps the most amazing thing about last Friday's vote in the U.S. Senate on the big climate change bill was that 16 Senators didn't vote -- and, thus, weren't present to haggle, argue and perhaps craft a compromise.

Obviously, Sen. Ted Kennedy had an excuse, as he's dealing with brain cancer. But as the New York Times noted, a certain three senators by the last name of Clinton, McCain and Obama were not present for the vote. All three sent letters saying that they supported the legislation.

Now, I'm not saying that the bill was necessarily good legislation. I am saying that it deserved a vote.

Why? And what's it have to do with transportation?

The transportation sector contributes more carbon dioxide -- the heat-trapping gas -- than any other sector, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

Matthew Wald, in the New York Times, also explains in a fine story from Sunday's paper:

"Emissions from coal-fired power plants already account for about 27 percent of American greenhouse emissions, but as prices for other fuels rise, along with power demand, utilities will burn more coal. And if cars someday run on batteries, a trend that $4-a-gallon gasoline will accelerate, then the utilities will burn even more fuel to generate the electricity to recharge those batteries."

Keep reading after the jump for a list of senators who didn't vote on the bill....

Senate's debate is mostly talk, little action

One statistic I'll cite often on this blog is that transportation in the U.S. is thought to be responsible for about one-third of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions. That makes transportation (cars, trucks, trains, planes, ships, etc.) the leading contributor to global warming.

In that vein, it's reassuring to know that much of the debate in the Senate over a pending climate change bill has involved arguments over who gets to talk and for how long, reports The New York Times.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report that found that global warming could cause both the Joshua tree and the Sagauro cactus to disappear as desert ecosystems change.

By the way, both the Joshua tree and Saguaro cactus have national parks named after them.

--Steve Hymon