Blog

Hace unos días, General Motors anunció una colaboración con Reva para el desarrollo de nuevos vehículos eléctricos de baterías para el mercado indio. En un principio, los primeros modelos serán plenamente de uso urbano de bajo coste.

Además, se esta trabajando para poder conseguir una autonomía de 160 km. Según se rumorea, el primer vehículo en serie llegará en el año 2015 y estará basado en el Aveo, del cuál podeis ver una imagen un poco más arriba.

Como bien hemos dicho, este modelo sólo sería para el mercado indio por lo que para el americano y europeo se estarían estudiando otras posibilidades.

Related posts:

1. General Motors venderá Saab a Spyker
2. El director general de Apple podría ser el nuevo CEO de General Motors
3. Hummer es cerrado por General Motors

We would rather suffer the visible costs of a few bad decisions than incur the many invisible costs that come from decisions made too slowly – or not at all – because of a stifling bureaucracy.

—Warren Buffett excerpted in “Startup lessons learned from Warren Buffett” [thx Derick]

Soup for lunch is great – except when it ends up all over the inside of our lunch bags. We’ve tried a lot of strategies over the years, from rubber bands around the outside of the container to isolating it in a plastic bag. Really, we’d just like a soup container that works! Maybe one of these products will do the job?

Read Full Post

Luke Timmerman wrote:

Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ANDS) is on the roller coaster again. The San Diego-based biotech company’s shares are up 17 percent this morning after it reported on another interim analysis of its hepatitis C clinical trial at a medical meeting in Europe.

Researchers found that 72 percent of patients who got Anadys’ experimental drug (ANA598) and standard therapies had undetectable amounts of the virus in their bloodstream after eight weeks, compared with 38 percent who did that well on a placebo in addition to the standard treatments. The drug was considered well-tolerated, researchers said. The findings were presented today at the European Association for the Study of the Liver meeting in Vienna, Austria.

Anadys has been rolling out the data from this trial in bits and pieces. Today’s slice of the data represents how patients did on a 400 milligram dose, while an earlier analysis showed how patients did on a 200 milligram dose. Investors balked at the earlier analysis of the 200 milligram dose, after Anadys saw an unusually high early response rate among patients in the placebo group. The whole clinical trial is designed to enroll 90 patients who are randomly assigned to get the low dose of the Anadys drug, a high dose, or a placebo. The main goal of the study is to show the drug is wiping out the virus for 12 weeks, although patients will also be followed longer to see if they have undetectable amounts of virus in the blood a full 24 weeks after they complete therapy, which is known as a “sustained viral response,” or a clinical cure.

Anadys shares climbed 18 percent to $3.08 at 10:46 am Eastern time today on heavy trading volume. The stock fell 12 percent back on February 25, after the company reported an earlier analysis which showed the high response rate among placebo patients.

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

The University of Queensland deploys powerful array of photovoltaic panels to improve its carbon footprint and participate in the build out of a solar micro-grid. …

… “The new project, to be located on three buildings at UQ’s St Lucia campus, will feature a 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic installation capable of producing 1750 MWh of electricity a year. This will save approximately 1750 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, which is equivalent to taking 335 cars off the roads each year. ” …

Via The University of Queensland: UQ goes solar

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth recently over the fact that almost half of all Americans pay no Federal income tax.  Conservatives trumpet this as evidence that we’re too focused on taxing the rich; liberals retort that the poor often pay heavy payroll taxes, and anyway, the rich make more of the income.

Who’s right?  To my mind, they both are.  Or perhaps, both wrong.

To start with, it isn’t true that everyone at the bottom end of the pay scale pays 12.4% payroll tax; relieving them of that tax burden is part of the point of the EITC.  And while the share of income held by the top earners has increased, so has the share of the federal tax burden that they bear; it’s now around 70%.  And before you start complaining about state and local taxes, they also bear a heavy share of those, particularly in high-income jurisdictions where they’re likely to live.  They are the net payers of property taxes (your family needs to be in a pretty pricey house before the town gets back in taxes what it gives you in services.)  Even sales taxes don’t necessarily hit the poor harder, because so many of the goods they buy are exempt or subsidized.  The real regressive action is in sin taxes, user fees, and Social Security, none of which are notably Republican projects.

On the other hand, the liberals have a point about fairness.  Warren Buffet should pay a higher percentage of his income in taxes, because losing 25% of his income is a much smaller burden on him than it is when his secretary loses 25% of hers.  Trying to get everyone to pay the same percentage smacks too much of “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges and to steal bread.”

I think the real problem with the current setup is the political economy of it.  A very large percentage of our electorate has nothing at stake when they vote for new spending.  Since that spending imposes real costs on other people, and the economy at large, this is a problem.  We don’t want to end up in a situation where 65% of the population is systematically voting to take the stuff possessed by the other 35%.

But that doesn’t mean we need to raise taxes on poor people; rather, it means they should have some skin in the game.  Simplify the tax code, and expand the EITC into a negative income tax which then continuously scales into a progressive income tax up to some maximum . . . and then make it clear that new spending means that all the marginal rates go up a little bit.  If you want a new project, you have to be willing to give up some of your EITC to pay for it.  Not as much, percentage-wise, as Warren Buffet might pay.  But no free programs.

This is something of a pipe dream, but it seems to me that this should be something liberals and conservatives can broadly agree on.  Liberals get a somewhat more generous welfare state–and conservatives get a natural check on further growth.

Bus line again exploits loophole to escape responsibility for bus accident

For the third time in almost as many months, SMART bus has used a Michigan law that puts form over substance to avoid responsibility for causing a bus accident that resulted in serious injuries.

By claiming its accident victims didn’t report their personal injuries (even though the bus line already knew about the injuries and crashes from multiple other sources), SMART bus has successfully argued that victims’ lawsuits should be thrown out of court. SMART bus contends these plaintiffs failed to comply with a Michigan law that requires accident victims to personally notify transportation authorities, such as SMART bus, about their injuries after a bus accident.

In one case, SMART bus used the law to get out of a lawsuit brought by a driver who was smashed by a SMART bus that refused to yield the right of way.

In a second case, SMART bus used the law to shirk its responsibility to a wheelchair-bound passenger whose hip and femur were fractured when a SMART bus negligently turned too sharply.

And, now, in Roberts v. Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART), the Michigan Court of Appeals has allowed SMART bus to use the same law to wriggle out of a lawsuit filed by passenger Loren Roberts, who was injured when the SMART bus he was riding started up too fast and caused him to fall to the floor and suffer serious personal injuries.

The law, MCL 124.419, says that any public transportation authority must have “written notice of any claim based upon injury to persons or property shall be served upon the [transportational] authority no later than 60 days from the occurrence through which such injury is sustained …”

SMART’s Most Illogical Extreme

Here, to complete the Alice in Wonderland tale that began in the first two cases, and taking this case to its most illogical extreme, Mr. Roberts actually did provide notice!  In fact, he called on the phone and gave a statement to SMART.

Not enough.  Not in Michigan and not with our law, that is illogically designed to punish in the most extreme way those people who actually don’t run to a lawyer. How else could any normal Michigan resident know about this law?  The sad thing is that most Michigan lawyers, even those who specialize in personal injury and handle a number of car accident cases, don’t even know about the fine print in our law that requires written notice within 60 days for any public bus system in the state.

And sadly, for the third time, it wasn’t enough for Mr. Roberts. The judges in Mr. Roberts’ case said his statements to the bus driver and to the SMART employee over the telephone didn’t amount to the type of notice required by the law. SMART “had notice of an occurrence involving plaintiff, but did not receive notice of a claim … made by the plaintiff,” the judges said.

The fact that Michigan’s bus accident “notice” law allows a wrongdoer like SMART bus to finagle such unfair and absurd results as the ones in Roberts and the other two cases is just plain “dumb.”  Again, the public policy behind this law could not be worse. It does nothing to protect Michigan residents or serve the administration of justice and fairness by throwing out cases on loopholes – when SMART already has notice.

Accordingly, changing the law to prevent similar miscarriages of justice in the future is not only the necessary and urgent thing to do. Or the just thing to do. It’s the SMART thing to do as well.

– Steven M. Gursten is recognized as one of the nation’s top experts in serious car and truck accident injury cases and automobile insurance no-fault litigation. Michigan Auto Law has received the largest reported jury verdict for an automobile accident case in Michigan in seven of the past 10 years, including 2009, according to published year-end verdicts and settlements reports.

– Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, by Jason McHuff

Related information:

Michigan Truck Accident Resource Center

Dealing with Your Insurance Company

Video Testimonials from Auto Accident Victims

Michigan Auto Law is the largest law firm exclusively handling car accident, truck accident and motorcycle accident cases throughout the state. Call (800) 777-0028 if you’ve been injured in an auto accident, and would like to speak to a lawyer.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro are both expected to hit Rogers this summer. We’re not denying that it could happen, as when we played with the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro at MWC they both felt ready, but given the ridiculous circumstances that have delayed their big brother device, the Xperia X10, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see these two somehow delayed as well. But maybe, just maybe with the Xperia X10 officially launching on Rogers on April 15th, these two will stay on track. Miracles can happen after all. [mobilesyrup]

Filed under: Spy Photos, Sedan, China, Buick, Beijing Motor Show

The next step in Buick‘s plan for Chinese world domination is a new small sedan based on the Opel Astra called the Buick Excelle. Following what’s likely to be its debut for the Chinese market later this month at the Beijing Motor Show, Buick plans to bring the compact sedan to the United States in 2011.

So, with introductions out of the way, let’s take a closer look at what will be the smallest car in Buick’s completely revised stable. Naturally, the expected toothy, chromed waterfall grille is present and accounted for, flanked on either side by rounded-off, rhomboid headlights. Note, too, the twin vestigial chrome portholes on each side of the mostly flat hood.

Judging from these images, the rest of the car looks much less interesting. The wheels appear small and the profile seems derivative, though not unattractive. Out back are large taillamps with extremely overstated chrome eyelash-like trim pieces. But that’s just our opinion. See for yourself in our image gallery below, courtesy of autohome.com.cn.

[Source: Autohome.com.cn via Carscoop]

Chinese-market Buick Excelle sedan caught without camo originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Obama’s space plan is bad for the United States’ future as a technological superpower. It’s actually bad for the entire world. That’s basically the summary of Neil Armstrong and 26 NASA legends’ open letter to President Obama.—JD More »

Bootup Labs, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based startup incubator, has been caught in the middle of a firestorm in the last day, after one of the entrepreneurs who was accepted into the group’s Y Combinator-style program wrote a blog post saying that he and his co-founder had their dreams dashed and were left penniless as a result of promises that Bootup Labs made and couldn’t keep.

The blog post hit Y Combinator’s Hacker News discussion board and drew a ton of comments, including some from Bootup founders Danny Robinson and Boris Mann. They also commented on entrepreneur Jamie Martin’s original blog post, saying he had distorted the events and was making the incubator look worse than it was. Mann has also written a blog post in response to the allegations. Meanwhile, Bootup released a statement saying that it has brought in venture investor Boris Wertz as a board member, and had received funding from both Wertz and Growthworks, a Canadian venture fund.

According to Jamie Martin’s version of events, he and his partner were accepted into the Bootup Labs program and were promised funding for their service (known as Status.ly), only to be told after they had moved across the country that there was no money and they would have to leave the program. He says they were attracted by the favorable terms that Bootup Labs was offering, compared with other startup incubators such as Y Combinator. Bootup reportedly said that startups could receive C$100,000 ($99,950) over an eight-month period in return for a 5-10 percent equity stake in the company, while other incubators were only offering between C$5,000 and C$15,000 per founder over period of 3-6 months (there are more details on Bootup’s approach here, including several responses from Bootup Labs).

A few weeks ago, however, Bootup co-founder Danny Robinson told the company they had no money to offer them, Martin claims. Four of the seven other companies in the incubator were also told that they would not be funded. Martin says in his post that while there were some good aspects to the experience, it also “screwed me up pretty bad financially for the next year or so. I have thousands of dollars worth of receipts I’m just going to have to count as a loss now.” He also says that he has some advice for other startups in a similar situation, which is:

If you’re a Startup, and you’ve been accepted into one of these incubators, be sure to get some sort of paperwork done where money is provided, or proof of income is shown, or something. No matter how nice the people seem, and how badly your heart wants your business to succeed, don’t get yourself into a similar grey-area/possibly unethical situation.

In his post about the incident, Boris Mann says he was “disappointed” by Martin’s description of events, but admits that he is sorry that things worked out the way they did. “I can say that I know I broke a personal commitment and that I feel like [sh**] about it and have already said my ’sorrys’ in person,” he writes. The Bootup Labs blog post, meanwhile, refers to “some hard choices” that the incubator had to make. In a nutshell, the group says it had to cut some of its member companies because funding did not come through as expected.

We had informed our 2010 cohort when they arrived that it was going to take a little while to close the fund because of some new canadian venture regulations that we had to abide by, and because one of our investors was unable to fund when we made a capital call. It was outside of our control, unintentional, and communicated immediately.

It took two months to recover but eventually realized that we were going to have a limited fund in the beginning of the year, and we had to make some hard choices. Either starve everyone with partial funding, or reduce the portfolio and fund them fully? We made the decision to cut the cohort to 3 companies, from 7.

It seems clear from both versions of events that Bootup Labs made promises to a number of the startups in its program — including signing term sheets with numbers attached, according to one source with knowledge of the program — even though it did not have the funds available. When it failed to get the funds in time, or to get as much as it required, it had to cut some of those companies. Bootup Labs obviously sees this as an unfortunate event, but one that was unavoidable and was communicated to the member companies as quickly as possible.

Some startups and entrepreneurs clearly think it goes a little further than that, however: They feel that Bootup should have been more forthcoming about its financing difficulties from the beginning, and not held out false hope to people like Jamie Martin. Either way, Bootup likely has some work to do to repair some of the damage from this affair. I’ve asked the founders for a comment and will update this post if I get one.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Erica Marshall

Dear Colleagues, Dear Energy Professional,

We have been informed through various wires that Austria-based power company OMV will invest EUR 600 million in a natural gas-powered combined cycle power plant in the city of Samsun, on Black Sea coast of Turkey. OMV acquired the stakes of Met Group and Lehman Brothers in local electricity generation company Borasco Elektrik, which will undertake the power plant investment. CEO of OMV, Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer details that construction works for the power plant with an installed capacity of 870 MW will start this month and the plant will become operational in 2012.

Borasco Elektrik, with headquarter in Istanbul, Turkey, was founded in October, 2007 as a joint venture / project company of OMV, MET-CAP and Lehman Brothers with the purpose of constructing a gas-fired power plant in Samsun Province, Terme County. In 2008 OMV Power International GmbH (OMV Gas & Power GmbH) acquired 60 % of the shares, taking over the rest % 100 shares in 2009.

In April 2008 Borasco was granted a 49 years generation license from the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority to produce and trade energy in Turkey.

The respective Power Plant in Samsun is planned with a capacity of 870 MW electricity, investment will be around EUR 600 million and the life-time of the thermal power plant is expected for 30 years. Borasco aims to fulfill demand in the highly growing but still undersupplied Turkish energy market.

Due to its strategic location next to the Blue Stream Pipeline the power plant will be able to enhance the security of supply for electrical power for the Turkish energy market.

Borasco, a subsidiary of Austrian power giant OMV, and Greek energy firm Metka announced plans to build a power plant in Samsun, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. The agreement includes construction work as well as supplying most of the equipment for the 870-megawatt power plant.

Metka quotes some 199.9 million euros and an option of US$172.3 million in the project, while its subsidiary in Turkey, Power Projects, quotes 142.4 million Euros with an option for US$10.8 million. Metka and Power Projects, the project contractors, aim to have the power plant up and running by the summer of 2012.

The contract covers the supply of the majority of equipment and construction work for an 870-megawatt natural-gas-fueled power plant, consisting of two single shaft GE-Frame-FB units with vertical gas pass HRSG and STs provided by General Electric.

The news follows Metka’s announcement in October 2009 of another power plant in Turkey. Along with German power giant RWE and Turcas, the Greek firm agreed to construct a similar thermal power plant near Denizli, in southwest Turkey. The budget for the project stands at 450 million Euros and an option of 40 million Euros.

We only get pleased to read investment, and sincerely feel that energy investors deserve all our support to complete those power plant investments. On the other hand, there is great risk in project finance of such investments due to public response. Those companies, who are ignorant of local workforce employment expectations, and neglecting local engineering contribution, neglecting world class environmental limitations, will surely deserve the highest level of local resistance in legal platforms. They may have too much of a headache during project execution; therefore, the project finance institutions should make their risk assessments carefully. We all expect that these energy investments will bring prosperity, employment and peace to the site. Maximized local manpower, as well as maximized local engineering/ fabrication/ site installation capabilities should be employed.

May God bless them with wisdom for all those who need. May God save you and forgive you for making any mistakes in your risk assessment. God bless you all.

Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst

This one goes out to the hardcore Trophy whores hunters out there an Italian gaming news blog has done some digging and they’ve listed down the ten games wherein you can get the easiest

Malas noticias para todos los seguidores de los deportivos de la marca nipona Mazda. Hace escasos minutos, han confirmado mediante un comunicado que el Mazda RX-8 dejará de comercializarse en Europa, lo que también afectará al mercado español.

Según se informa, la principal culpa por la que este modelo abandonará el mercado del viejo continente es su motor rotativo, el cuál genera demasiadas emisiones de CO2 y no cumple con la norma Euro 5 que entrará en vigor próximamente.

Supongo que muchos pensareis que la solución sería sustituir dicho motor, pero lamentablemente, el RX-8 no cuenta con las ventas suficientes para un cambio de esta magnitud. Para que os hagais una idea, durante el año 2009, se vendieron en España sólo 25 unidades.

Related posts:

1. Mazda 5 presente en el Salón de Ginebra
2. Mazda llamará a revisión a todos sus modelos
3. Mazda Kiyora Concept

Ford of Europe announced that it was the No.1 automaker in Europe for the month of March with a sales volume of 192,500. Total sales volume saw a 16.1 per cent increase versus March 2009, and was Ford’s tenth consecutive month-on-month increase in sales. In terms of first-quarter sales, Ford remains Europe’s No.2 best-seller year-to-date.

Market share was at a twelve-year high of 10.4 per cent and the company’s best share in its main 19 European markets since August 1998.

“Attaining the No.1 position in the European market for March and being No.2 year-to-date – despite the continuing aggressive discounting we have seen from some competitors – is a great testament to the hard work of the Ford team and especially our dealers across Europe who have done an outstanding job in supporting and satisfying their customers,” said Ingvar Sviggum, Vice President, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe.

Ford Fiesta sales were the strongest in the lineup at 68,800, the highest for any Ford model on record in a single month in Europe.

“Fiesta continues to be an outstanding performer for us with 140,400 sold in Europe during the first three months of the year, and close to 70,000 sold in March alone,” said Roelant de Waard, Vice President, Sales, Ford of Europe. “Globally, we’ve now sold over 750,000 Fiestas since the latest generation model was launched almost 18 months ago.”

Click through for Ford of Europe’s March and first-quarter highlights.

March Highlights

Ford Market Performance:

* Ford No.1 best-selling brand in Europe.
* Market leader in the UK, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands and Turkey. Also passenger car market leader for the month in Spain.
* Increased share in 10 of Ford’s main 19 European markets.
* In Britain, Ford strengthened its market lead for the month with 72,700 new registrations, up by 10,300 units or 16.4 per cent on March 2009 – the highest March registrations of any market.
* Spain’s March volume was up by 86 per cent versus the same month last year or 6,300 units to 13,600. Ford’s market share there increased by 1.5 ppts to 9.8 per cent, marking the highest share gain within the five largest markets in March.
* Ford was the leading import brand in the Czech Republic and France. In the Czech Republic, Ford sold 2,000 vehicles in March, up by 26 per cent, and posted a 10.8 per cent market share, 0.5 ppts higher versus March 2009 – the highest March registrations and share there since 1993.
* In France, Ford increased volume to 16,700, up by more than 3,200 units – 24 per cent higher than prior year. Share was at 5.9 per cent, up by 0.3 ppts – the strongest March share and registrations results there since 1999.
* Ford was also No.1 imported brand in Italy, where share was at 11.6 per cent, up 1.4 ppts on March 2009. Sales volume there soared to 33,400, up by 9,300 units or 39 per cent, achieving the best March registrations since 1993.
* In The Netherlands, Ford’s March registrations of 5,300 were 35 per cent over 2009, resulting in the highest March volume there since 2001. Share was at 10.3 per cent, up by 0.8 ppts, the best March share since 1996.
* Highest share gains were delivered in Denmark (up 3.4 ppts; market share at 12.4 per cent, the highest share since March 1998), and Hungary (up 2.1 ppts; share at 15.8 per cent; the best March share since 1993).

Model Performance:

* Fiesta (68,800), Focus (40,200), and Transit (16,600) were Ford of Europe’s three top-selling vehicles (19 main European markets).
* Fiesta sales at 68,800 were the highest for any Ford model on record in a single month in Europe, making the Fiesta Europe’s No.1 best-selling car overall in March, an achievement which external sources will confirm later this month.
* Fiesta and Focus occupy the No.1 and No.2 position respectively in the UK. Fiesta was also the best-selling foreign vehicle for the month in Italy.
* Only 18 months after its debut, more than 750,000 customers have purchased the new Fiesta around the world, as Ford continues to launch this global car in the U.S. and other key Asian Pacific markets in 2010.
* Ka continues its success: 15,400 units sold in March, up by 3,200 or more than 26 per cent – the best March for Ka since 2002, and leading its segment in Spain.
* Best ever monthly volume for Kuga, which totaled 9,100 registrations in March, up by 3,300 units on the same month 2009.
* C-MAX and S-MAX were the best-selling foreign vehicles in their segment in France.
* Retail sales accounted for 70 per cent of new Kuga, 70 per cent of Fiesta, 70 per cent of Fusion and 68 per cent of Ka sales in March 2010.

First Quarter Performance:

* Ford No.2 best-selling brand in Europe.
* Market leader in the UK, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland and Turkey.
* Ford’s share increased in 7 of its main 19 European markets.
* Britain’s year-to-date sales volume increased by 12,100 to 110,100, up by 12.4 per cent on the first quarter 2009.
* No.1 imported brand in France, with registrations at 40,100, up by 5,500 or more than 15.9 per cent on 2009 – the best March year-to-date volume since 1999.
* Italy’s share in the first three months of 2010 was at 10.6 per cent, up by 0.7 ppts on 2009, the highest share gain within Ford’s five largest markets and the highest quarterly share ever for Ford in Italy, whilst first quarter registrations there were at 77,900 – up by 19,300 units or 33 per cent higher on the first three months 2009.
* Highest ever first quarter share in the Czech Republic at 9.0 per cent, also leading import brand in the first three months of 2010.
* Scandinavian markets continue to perform well in the first quarter of 2010. Sweden had registrations of 4,400, up by 1,000 units, or an increase of 28.7 per cent, the best first quarter volume since 2007.
* The highest share gains of all 19 markets in the first quarter of 2010 were in Denmark (+0.6 ppts at 10.8 per cent share, the best first quarter share result since 1997), Italy (+0.7 ppts to 10.6 per cent, and Spain (+0.5 ppts to 9.2 per cent).

Model Performance:

* The three best-selling vehicles year-to-date 2010 were the new Fiesta (140,400), Focus (79,900) and Ka (31,600).
* In the first quarter of 2010, new Fiesta sales were up 29,700 on 2009, the best first quarter sales and share for this model since 1996. Fiesta also remained best-selling foreign vehicle in Italy and France and was leading its segment in Spain year-to-date 2010.
* 31,600 new Ford Ka vehicles have been delivered to Ford customers so far this year, up 8,300 units versus the first three months of 2009. Share and sales volume were the best since 2002.
* Ford segment-leading in the UK with Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo and Galaxy in the first quarter.
* C-MAX and S-MAX were the top-selling imported products in their segment in France.
* Kuga was leading its segment in the first three months of 2010 in Italy, while Ka gained the No.1 segment position in Spain during the first three months of 2010.
* Fiesta remained No.1 best-selling car in the UK year-to-date, ahead of the Focus in No.2 position, while Transit was the best-selling commercial vehicle in the first quarter of 2010.

– By: Omar Rana

In January 2009, I blogged on a remarkable study by a leading journalist documenting the media’s mistakes and biases during the 2008 Senate debate of the Lieberman-Warner climate bill.  I posted it again last May since the media repeated the exact same mistakes in the debate over the House bill.  I included it in my new book “Straight Up” — and am reposting it here — to set the table for the roll out in the next several days of the bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill by Senators Graham (R-SC), Kerry (D-MA), and Lieberman (I-CT).

One of the country’s leading journalists has written a searing critique of the media’s coverage of global warming, especially climate economics.

How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet? The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change is by Eric Pooley for Harvard’s prestigious Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Pooley has been managing editor of Fortune, national editor of Time, Time’s chief political correspondent, and Time’s White House correspondent, where he won the Gerald Ford Prize for Excellence in Reporting. Before that, he was senior editor of New York magazine.

In short, Pooley has earned the right to be heard. Journalists and senior editors need to pay heed to Pooley’s three tough conclusions abut how “damaging” the recent media of the climate debate has been:

1. The press misrepresented the economic debate over cap and trade. It failed to recognize the emerging consensus … that cap and trade would have a marginal effect on economic growth and gave doomsday forecasts coequal status with nonpartisan ones…. The press allowed opponents of climate action to replicate the false debate over climate science in the realm of climate economics.
2. The press failed to perform the basic service of making climate policy and its economic impact understandable to the reader and allowed opponents of climate action to set the terms of the cost debate. The argument centered on the short-term costs of taking action–i.e., higher electricity and gasoline prices–and sometimes assumed that doing nothing about climate change carried no cost.
3. Editors failed to devote sufficient resources to the climate story. In general, global warming is still being shoved into the “environment” pigeonhole, along with the spotted owls and delta smelt, when it is clearly to society’s detriment to think about the subject that way. It is time for editors to treat climate policy as a permanent, important beat: tracking a mobilization for the moral equivalent of war.

Precisely.

Pooley is one of the few major journalists in the country who understands that global warming is the story of the century — and if we don’t reverse our emissions path soon, it will likely be the story of the millennium, with irreversible impacts lasting for many, many centuries (see “Intro to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water“ and “NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe“).

Pooley told me, “I think this is the only story going forward.” That’s why he has been devoting most of his time to researching and writing a book on the politics and economics of climate change.

The first step for Pooley was an analysis of media coverage over the previous 15 months. In a long introduction to the different roles reporters can play, Pooley notes:

Being a referee is harder than being a stenographer because it requires grappling with the substance of an issue in a way that many time-pressed journalists aren’t willing or able to do.

He decided to examine media coverage surrounding the 2008 Senate debate over the climate bill put forward by John Warner (R-VA) and Joseph Lieberman (??-CT):

News coverage of the Lieberman-Warner debate included some shoddy, one-sided reporting and some strong work that took the time both to dive into the policy weeds–evaluating the economic assumptions used by the various players–and step back to portray those players as com-batants in a war for public opinion. But most of the reporting was bad in the painstakingly balanced way of so much daily journalism–two sides, no real meat.

He then explains his research:

My analysis of news articles published in national and regional newspapers, wire services, and newsmagazines between December 2007 and June 2008 suggests that for most reporters covering this story, the default role was that of stenographer–presenting a nominally balanced view of the debate without questioning the validity of the arguments, sometimes even ignoring evidence that one side was twisting truth. Database searches yielded a sample of 40 published news and analysis stories that explored the cost debate in some de-tail (see appendix). Of these, seven stories were one-sided. Twenty-four stories were works of journalistic stenography. And nine stories attempted, with varying degrees of success, to move past the binary debate, weigh the arguments, and reach conclusions about this thorny issue.

The bottom line:

The media’s collective decision to play the stenographer role actually helped opponents of climate action stifle progress.

He makes another interesting point, one I would not have expected from a journalist

Mainstream news organizations have accepted the conclusions of the IPCC but have not yet applied those conclusions to the economic debate. The terms of that debate have been defined by opponents of climate action who argue that reducing emissions would “cost too much.” So the battle has been fought over the short-term price of climate action and its impact on GDP, while overlooking an extremely important variable, the long-term costs of inaction and business as usual.

Although Pooley doesn’t make the point, the problem he identifies is compounded by the fact that the mainstream economic community also overestimates the cost of action and underestimates the cost of inaction, a central point of my ongoing series on voodoo economists (see, for instance, Part 3: MIT and NBER — the right wing deniers love your work. Ask yourself “why?” and Part 2: Robert Mendelsohn says global warming is “a good thing for Canada.”).

That means when the media goes out looking for a well-known climate economist to quote in an article, they typically end up with someone who doesn’t understand the scientific urgency and those who misunderstand the economics.

If you really want to understand the fact that even a very strong cap and trade bill “would have a marginal effect on economic growth,” the best place to go is the the International Energy Agency and IPCC and McKinsey (see “McKinsey 2008 Research in Review: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero“).

Pooley’s whole paper is a must read, especially for advocates of climate action. Yes, the media bears much culpability for the fact that, as Pooley says, “the tipping point for climate action has not yet been reached.” But so do scientists, environmentalists, and progressives. The general state of our messaging remains lousy (see, for instance, Part 4: The idiocy of crowds or, rather, the idiocy of (crowded) debates and Does the “Reality Campaign” need new Mad Men?

One clear message from this study is that the climate science activists need to do a better job of spelling out the cost of inaction. Until that cost is clear to the public, the media, and policymakers, the country will never be able to mobilize to do what is needed to preserve a livable climate.

Related Post:

• Intro to climate economics: Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost — one tenth of a penny on the dollar

The FDA is requiring Bayer Healthcare to update it’s marketing and advertisements for Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills to reflect new information about the risk of blood clots from Yaz and Yasmin that was recently added to the warning label. 

In an FDA letter to Bayer (PDF) approving new information the drug maker added about the relative risk of blood clots in women using Yasmin or Yaz compared to those using oral contraceptives that contain older progestins, the agency told Bayer that they must also promptly revise all promotional materials. The FDA indicates that the revisions must include “prominent disclosure of the important new safety information.”

Yaz and Yasmin are two similar birth control pills that are both manufactured by Bayer, containing drospirenone, a new “fourth” generation progestin. The drug maker faces a number of Yaz lawsuits and Yasmin lawsuits that allege the drug maker failed to adequately warn about the side effects of drospirenone, which could result in elevated potassium levels and lead to a condition known as hyperkalemia. In complaints, the newer type of progestin used in the birth control pills has been cited as the likely cause of an increased risk of blood clots and other serious side effects of Yaz and Yasmin.

A similar update to the Yasmin and Yaz warning label was made in Europe last month, to add information from studies that suggest the pills may carry a higher risk of blood clots than some other types of oral birth control that contain different type of progestin.

How Bayer advertises Yaz has been under close scrutiny by FDA since the company was cited for running deceptive ads that made unsubstantiated claims while drowning out information about the potential side effects with loud music. Early last year, Bayer was forced to run a $20 million corrective advertising campaign and is now required to submit any future Yaz advertisements to the FDA for approval before they are aired.