The price of oil fell to a five month low today on relaxed fears over the damage inflicted by Hurricane Gustav to offshore drilling and Gulf Coast refineries.  The price per barrel of crude oil went as low as $105 in early morning trading before rebounding somewhat in the afternoon to around $110.

The news is tinged with mixed blessings from my perspective.  Obviously, everyone who drives likes cheaper gasoline prices at the pump, which will surely follow the downward trend of crude oil prices.  However, with cheaper gas, the urgency for alternative, renewable energy development will be that much less as the public tries its hardest to forget the exorbitant, record sums paid over this past summer for a mere tank of fuel.  On the other hand though, cheaper oil in today’s economy - although this won’t always be the case - helps to prop up the sagging US Dollar which now sits at one of its highest levels versus the Euro in many months as crude spirals downward.  Having cut out plans for a vacation to Spain last year over currency doubts, this development certainly makes the traveler in me that much happier. 

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

35 Million Tons of Toxic Stew by Wendy Cohen

“Waterboard Thrill Ride” Opens At Coney Island by Blair Golson

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Nicole Hughes:

Green Summer Music Tours Not To Be Missed

Eat Your Veggies: Quit Composting in the Fridge

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Andy Kondrat:

Almost Half of Earth’s Primates In Danger of Extinction

Beijing’s Pollution Not Gone, Just Moved Outside of Town

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Jon Popham:

GOP: Drill More Oil Or We’ll Shut Down the Government

Global Warming’s “Sausage Fest” Effect

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Gina Telaroli:

Olympic Flag Bearer for the US: A Champion of  Darfur

Time to Act: Sexual Assault and Women in the Military

Add another disastrous consequence of Global Warming to the list: A Sausage Fest in the Sea. Two biologists at Spain’s Higher Council for Scientific Research recently turned their research to the effects of climate change on the sexual activity of fish (Hey, why not?) and brought back some disturbing findings.

It’s a known biological fact that the gender of many finned species, including certain fish and reptiles is determined not by genetics, but by temperature. But the recent study by Natalia Ospina-Alvarez and Francesc Pifferer discovered that raising the water temperature by a mere 1.5 degrees Celsius can change the male-to-female ratio of fish with temperature-dependent sex determination from 1:1 to a staggering 3:1.

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Woody Allen is back again and this time he’s taking us to Spain. He’s admitted that the reason he shot the film there was that they would fund it (he wrote a film set in Spain right after they told him they would give him the $.) Thus far what Vicky Cristina Barcelona is best known for is the fact that Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have a threesome.

How do you think it looks? Will it be a new Woody classic or another Woody dud?

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Three weeks ago, we reported that Spain has recognized the awesomeness of our closest genetic relatives by granting great apes the right to life and freedom.

Today, the New York Times expands on the story and explains:

“If the bill passes — the news agency Reuters predicts it will — it would become illegal in Spain to kill apes except in self-defense. Torture, including in medical experiments, and arbitrary imprisonment, including for circuses or films, would be forbidden. The 300 apes in Spanish zoos would not be freed, but better conditions would be mandated.”

The article then poses some interesting questions on how we interact with different species and can be empathetic to some but not to others. Even animal cruelty laws have biases:

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The largest solar rooftop on the planet is being installed by none other than American automotive giant General Motors. The company announced on Tuesday that it plans to install the biggest rooftop solar photovoltaic power installation on Earth on top of its car assembly plant at Figueruelas, Zaragoza, Spain. The installation will cover over 2 million square feet of space with renewable electricity producing photovoltaic cells on 85,000 solar panels.

Partnering with Clairvoyant Energy, Veolia Environmental and the Government of the Spanish state of Aragon, GM will produce over 12 MW at peak output on the Zaragoza rooftop using United Solar Ovonic thin laminate panels - enough to power over 4,500 households per year. GM already operates two of the largest solar power installations in the United States at its plants at Fontana and Rancho Cucamongo, California. The latter facility powers 50% of its electricity by the solar installation.

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Oh, those wacky Brits and their comically oversized wind turbines.  The Queen of England (who, if we remember our history lessons, is the Queen of Canada as well) has gone ahead and purchased the world’s largest wind turbine.  The turbine is called the Britannia, and is 25% more powerful than the previous record-holder.  It will be built off the coast of the United Kingdom, because apparently the Queen still owns the water.

From the article at treehugger.com, here’s a quote from the Director of the Marine Estates at The Crown Estate, which I gather is fancy talk for “Guy that watches over the water the Queen owns”:

This is an important step in the future of offshore wind and a great opportunity to help establish a new industrial base of activity to advance the UK’s leadership in renewable energy.”

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Robert Capa & Gerda Taro join Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, and Lucie & Raymond
Aubrac, in receiving one of my Valiant Valentines Awards for couples who love each other and the world, and work with each other to change the world. Robert Capa, one of the most famous, if not the most famous, war photographers of the last century, is best known for his photo Falling Soldier, which captures a shot soldier falling to his death during the Spanish Civil War. Gerda Taro, the less known photojournalist, is best known for being Capa’s artistic and romantic partner, not for her exceptional bravery and photography. The two brilliant photographers shared much in common: born Andre Friedmann, Capa, who was Jewish, fled the antisemitism of Hungary and went to Paris; born Gerda Pohorylle, the Jewish Taro escaped Germany’s antisemitism and moved to Paris, where she would meet Capa. They began collaborating artistically and Robert Capa was the name they created to sign their shared work. It was their shared love of freedom which brought the two to Spain, where they would document the Civil War– the bombed cities, the deaths and destruction– in the hopes of gathering support and raising awareness of the anti-Fascist cause and of the rising fascism, which they had known so well. Sharing a love for each other as well, they would photograph not just the war, but each other.

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Robert Redford wants you to use your cell phone to watch short films - more than that, he thinks you will. In Spain on Wednesday, with actress and now director Isabella Rossellini, Redford discussed how phones can help to make short films popular and viable source of income. The audience at the Mobile World Congress listened to Redford, Rossellini and a panel of others talk about the short film industry , noting that now was an exciting time, but that there were still challenges ahead, namely getting folks to invest:

“The question is, who’s going to be brave enough to support the innovators?” Redford said. He pointed out that funding also has to include a fair share for writers, whom he praised for their long holdout in the strike. “Most of the time over the years, they’ve gotten the short end of the stick. By going on this long, you have to have a lot of courage or be crazy.” [The Hollywood Reporter]

As someone who makes short films now and then, the idea of a new venue that could be a viable moneymaker for shorts sounds like a great idea! As for now, Redford’s Sundance Institute funded Rossellini’s new short film Green Porno and hopes that others follow suit in developing content that could be screened on mobile phones. The short was created specifically for mobile phones and looks at the bizarre sex lives of insects and other creatures.

Filmmakers should to learn more about Green Porno and the exciting world that could await folks interested in making shorts. And everyone should also and definitely take a look at Sundance’s ECO-MMUNITY a community for folks who love being green!

Anne Frank’s diary, written while she and her family were in hiding from the Nazis during WWII, has been read by millions of people - and is now being made into a Spanish musical with a 22-person cast. The show will open in February at the Calderon Theater in Madrid. The musical adaptation of the book has been met with mixed reviews. Rafael Alvero, director of the show, says:

“Of course this is emotional. The thing we want to do is through the music, to understand the story better.”

Click here for more on this story from the BBC.co.uk.