AFP - The House of Representatives Tuesday received a draft bill for clean energy development that its authors claim would create millions of jobs and slash 2005 levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020.

AP - Rio’s state government will build seven miles (11 kilometers) of concrete walls around some of the biggest slums in an effort to halt deforestation of the jungle surrounding the metropolis, officials said Tuesday.

(Photo: Jim Motavalli)

ORLANDO, FLORIDA — The all-new 2010 Toyota Prius, on sale in a few months, is nothing if not high-tech.

Fall asleep at the wheel and a buzzer will sound as soon as you cross the lane divide. Press a button and a display appears at eye level, keeping you focused on the road. Got allergies? Don’t worry; the Prius’ Plasma filter (previously available on the Camry Hybrid) makes sure pollen isn’t headed your way.

Another interesting option, especially for the car’s many green customers, is a rooftop solar panel that powers a fan, keeping your car’s interior fresh while parked.

None of this stuff would matter if the Prius didn’t deliver on its basic promise of incredible fuel economy in a practical package. The good news is that Toyota didn’t mess with success — the new car’s basic layout is much like the old, only better. Instead of 46 mpg combined, the 2010 model offers 50. It also has slightly more power with more interior and luggage space.

Toyota, which employed 2,000 engineers in the task, went on a relentless campaign to lighten the car and its various components, shaving pounds off the engine, battery pack, and inverter. To improve fuel economy, belt drives were abolished — even the water pump is now electrically driven. Air flow was also improved, giving the marginally more angular car an impressive 0.25 coefficient of drag.

Toyota showed pictures of its business-suited executives planting trees around the Japanese Prius factory, which gets 50% of its power from solar. The company really wants its customers to know that the Prius is green.

Hybrid sales have been hit hard by the recession, but Toyota still hopes to sell 100,000 new Priuses in 2009, and 180,000 in 2010. A big question mark in achieving that goal is price, which is so far unannounced.

But with the $19,800 Honda Insight arriving on dealer lots, the pressure is on to keep the Prius affordable. Toyota may be willing to lose a little money to keep its market pre-eminence: More than half of all the hybrids on U.S. roads are Toyota Priuses.

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

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Reuters - The death toll among ducks that landed on a toxic waste pond at Syncrude Canada Ltd’s oil sands operation last spring was 1,606, more than three times higher than previously made public, Syncrude’s chief executive said on Tuesday.

Reuters - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives launched a sweeping effort on Tuesday to control greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time help industries that will struggle to meet the proposed environmental requirements.

AP - House Democratic leaders released a first draft of legislation to curb emissions from global warming. Here are the highlights:

AFP - Delegates at UN climate talks on Tuesday targeted more than a dozen new industrial chemicals for inclusion in the successor to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty, which runs out in 2012.

AFP - Two senior executives at French state energy giant Electricite de France (EDF) have been charged on suspicion of spying on Greenpeace, a judicial official said Tuesday.

(Photo: Carol Gering / iStockPhoto)

Being a professional cheapskate, I’m frequently asked if I buy bottled water. “Heck no,” I say in all truthfulness. “I don’t even buy bottled wine.” Yep, I prefer my water out of the tap and my Chablis in a five-liter box. In fact, I think “Chablis” is actually French for “cardboard vineyard,” isn’t it?

Prepare for shock and awe (and national embarrassment): 1.5 million barrels of oil are used every year to manufacture disposable plastic water bottles for the U.S. market. That’s enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year according to an article in the New York Times.

And the bottling process itself wastes two gallons of water for every gallon of water that it actually packages. I was never very good at arithmetic, but I think that’s mathematical madness. It’s like the company president who reports that his firm is losing money on every sale, but that they plan to make it up in volume.

But here’s the thing that really gets my Green Cheapskate blood pressure soaring: Bottled water is 240 to 10,000 times more expensive than water from the tap, depending, I suppose, on how stylish the bottle is. At the same time, bottled water is actually subjected to less rigorous testing and purity standards than our tap water here in the U.S.

According to the Times, if you drink only bottled water you’ll spend about $1,400 annually to get your recommended daily amount of H2O, as opposed to 49 cents for a year’s supply of just-as-healthy tap water. Use the calculator at www.newdream.org to calculate your savings based on actual consumption, whether it’s just for a week during Lent or, better yet, for the whole year.

And while you’re at it, take a nanosecond to sign the petition to your governor asking them to stop purchasing bottled water with state funds. It’s not only better for the environment, but it’s better for taxpayers. Now that’s the kind of thrifty talk that makes me work up a thirst.

Note: Check out these suggestions for ways to avoid bottled water.

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Jeff Yeager is the author of The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches.

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

AFP - Economic stimulus packages launched by crisis-hit countries are not investing enough in “green” sectors, the environmental group Greenpeace said on Tuesday.