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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.

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President Bush is trying hard to polish his image on global warming, but buried in his fancy talk about setting long-term goals for reducing emissions by mid- 2008, the U.S. president’s core message is still the same – don’t dare mess with economic growth.

Instead of binding limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, favored by the United Nations and many countries, he’s still pushing a voluntary approach on climate change and lobbying some of the world’s biggest polluters to rally behind him.

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It didn’t take the denialist shock troops long to pounce on recent disclosures about the cattle industry’s role in global warming. An all-too-familiar diatribe, penned in Colorado, appeared as a guest editorial today in a Vancouver newspaper. The author, like others of his ilk, has discarded scientific research to pitch his own delusion.

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UN leader Ban Ki-moon says global warming is the biggest struggle facing mankind, and that the Bush administration, a strong opponent of the Kyoto Protocol, has finally awakened to the seriousness of the issue.

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Japanese scientists have concluded beef production typically contributes more to climate change than cars do. The main source of greenhouse gas emissions is the methane released from an animal's digestive system.

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Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed a new international framework that would see worldwide carbon emissions cut in half by 2050.

Prime Minister Abe is getting a little unfair criticism for being short on details of what the final emission targets of his plan will look like. But Abe is right in his diplomatic obfuscation (for now), these are early days and a new international framework will have to take pains to ensure that it is embraced by the United States, who opted not to be part of the Kyoto Protocol.