Canada Adopts Clean Car Standards
The Canadian government has just announced an agreement with automobile manufacturers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.3 million tons by 2010. In meeting these new standards, vehicles sold in Canada will get a roughly 25 percent boost in fuel efficiency thanks to existing cost-effective technologies -- such as more efficient engines, smarter transmissions, and better aerodynamics.

California and seven other U.S. states also have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, clean car laws. "With the addition of Canada," says the Sierra Club's Dan Becker, "one-third of the North American auto market will have to meet California's tougher emissions rules. The automakers will find it financially impossible to make one clean set of cars for eight states and Canada, and a dirty set for the rest. Eight plus one equals 50."

If that kind of math appeals to you, find out how to evolve your automotive lifestyle.

"Question. Stand. Speak. Act."
As Sierra Club Conservation Director Bruce Hamilton said in a recent speech, "The Sierra Club would be just another hiking club were it not for the democratic institutions we have in the United States."

But these institutions are under fire.

Hamilton talked about the attempts by the corporate interests and their political allies to limit the practice of democracy in America at a March gathering of the Sierra Club's National Advisory Committee. "This is not a Republican or a Democratic thing. This is not a Progressive or a Conservative thing," he said. "The allies of democracy and open government and people power come from all parties and both ends of the political spectrum." You can read Hamilton's speech in its entirety on our Website.

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