Hey, all you people that read this site to learn what car to buy: the Green Car Journal says that your 2009 green car of the year is the Volkswagen Jetta TDI. Treehugger gives us a report:

The 2009 Jetta TDI is a quiet-running, diesel-powered car. It beat out hybrids and mini-cars to take the title. The Jetta uses a technology called “clean diesel” which actually lives up its name pretty well. It has a very clean tailpipe, and an EPA estimated 41 mpg highway fuel economy.

Also, it’s a Jetta, which means that you can drive it and it makes you trendy and hip, automatically.

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Los Angeles area residents can breath a bit easier now that the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have banned pre-1989 diesel-spewing trucks as part of an exemplary pollution-control project.   Removing 350 million tons of diesel emissions from the air will go a long way to reducing child asthma rates, drivers risk for cancer and hopefully the 1,200 annual deaths associated with the pollution.

Unfortunately, Governor Schwarznegger, another brawny relic of the 80’s, has vetoed a bill that would have raised $300 million annually for congestion relief and clean-air technologies.   It seems Governor Sarah Palin, along with other corporate interests,  strong-armed Schwarznegger into shutting down this bipartisan clean-air effort, by claiming it was a threat to the state’s fragile economy.   Let’s hope he’ll be back (sorry, couldn’t help it) with a plan that goes even further in helping clear up pollution and health hazards, and doesn’t continue to bow to conservative and corporate interests.

takepart by learning more from the Coalition for Clean Air and demand that Gov. Schwarznegger support clean-air legislation.

The Prius just about got itself served by the Ford Motor Company recently, as the Michigan automaker announced it will start manufacturing the ECOnetic Fiesta, which gets a staggering 63.6 miles per gallon - in the city.  On the freeway, the diesel car ramps it’s MPGs up to 73.5.  Unless you’re hypermiling, you’re probably not going to find much better gas mileage anywhere else.

We’ve discussed here before that diesel cars get better fuel economy than your standard engine, but Ford is doing more than just go diesel to make this car run this well.  Treehugger tells us that the car “uses a bunch of tricks to reduce fuel consumption, things like improved aerodynamics (its coefficient of drag is 0.33), weight reduction, low rolling resistance tires, and enhanced lubrication.”

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As school districts begin creating their budgets for the 2008-2009 year, the rising price of diesel is affecting the bottom lines of schools all over the nation, as more and more money needs to be allotted for gas purchases for all those big yellow school busses.   As I’m sure you’re aware, school budgets are often somewhat tight is it is, and the skyrocketing price of fuel isn’t helping any.   An article in the Lincoln Journal Star highlights the issue.

As of the end of March, the district had spent $422,260 on diesel fuel. Its budget was $393,950.  Officials predict they’ll spend another $170,740 through the end of the fiscal year.

And as prices go up and up, more money is taken away from other parts of the budget to keep the busses going.

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Diesel fuel, long regarded as the dirtier, noisier, lamer gasoline, has been reborn as a more environmentally friendly energy source, and is poised to be unleashed on the US car market.   The International Herald Tribune (the New York Times in disguise for non-Americans (don’t tell France)) reports that the new diesel emits 97 percent less sulfur than those old models, and can pass emission tests in all fifty states, even the really really hippie ones California and New York.

In the next couple years, automakers will once again attempt to turn Americans on to the diesel market.   Mercedes, Audi, VW, Nissan, Ford, GM, Jeep, and so forth and so on will be introducing new diesel vehicles to the market by 2010.

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London’s notoriously dirty air once earned it the nickname the Big Smoke, and it’s still one of the smoggiest cities in Europe. I lived there for a time when I was an angsty, antsy young anglophile, and I’ll never forget the shock I got the first time I blew my nose and the tissue turned black. It made me feel downright Dickensian.

But Mayor Ken Livingstone’s determined to give his fellow Londoners’ lungs a break by declaring Greater London a “low emission zone.” As of yesterday, all diesel-engine trucks”or lorries, as they call them”weighing more than 12 tons must meet strict emissions standards or face a stiff fine. The new standard will be extended to buses, coaches, and other vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tons beginning on July 7th.

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