As the U.S. Congress debates the first substantial fuel-economy boost in decades for automakers, Toyota has joined Detroit in the fight to sustain the practices that have imperiled the planet and driven American car manufacturers to the brink of bankruptcy.

Why would the industry leader in fuel-efficient cars take such a reckless path amid growing awareness of global warming? Because there’s a lot more money to be made if Toyota can slow innovation in Detroit and sustain gas-guzzling.

UPDATE: guess all our good karma is coming back, this story has been running on ExxonMobil's Financial News page on Google all day!

Last week ExxonMobil chief spokesperson, Kenneth Cohen, was in London playing a bit of PR offense for the oil giant. Cohen went after Greenpeace for their recent report outlining the funding in 2006 that Exxon provided to 41 think tanks and associations.

These groups have been on the front lines of the war against the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing to humans as the cause of global warming.

Google announced today that it will offer $1 million in grants and a further $10 million in funding for the development of a car capable of 100 miles per gallon. 

The program is part of Google's philanthropic efforts under a program called RechargeIT. 

Well known culture jammers, the Yes Men, who practice what they call 'identity correction' by posing as representatives of well-known corporations and organizations and making outrageous comments on their behalf, pulled off their latest installation of genius at the Oil and Gas Exposition 2007 in Calgary.

Posing as members of the National Petroleum Council, they unveiled Vivoleum, an oil product derived from dead victims of global warming disasters.

We don't have any video from the event yet, but here's a photo slideshow we found on Flickr.  

ExxonMobil's chief spokesman, Kenneth Cohen recently stated that, "Exxon Mobil Corp. never in the past decade doubted the risk from climate change... [and] had simply firmed up, or "evolved," its understanding of the threat."

If by firming up the science, Cohen means spending an estimated $23 million on think tanks and associations that have spent the better part of the last decade attacking the scientific evidence for human-induced global warming, then we couldn't agree more.