Great sketch in yesterday’s Washington Post by Dana Milbank about the hypocrisy of America’s politicians when it comes to driving. Suddenly as the price of fuel reaches $3 a gallon, everyone is up in arms.

They preach that America has a problem with rising fuel costs and energy security. Although they moan about it, not up for discussion is their right to drive and drive cars most Europeans would think are the size of a truck or even a well-endowed tank.

As oil-price fever gripped Congress this week, both political parties have said they are ready to revoke oil and gas incentives that were passed as recently as eight months ago.

George W. Bush, who proclaimed America’s “oil addiction,” in his January State of the Union address, exhibited a classic symptom of addiction Tuesday: denial.

As the price of a gallon of gas heads for (and beyond) three dollars, Mr. Bush proposed a truly meaningless agenda, asking oil companies to invest some of their outrageous profits in alternative energy and pledging to stop adding to the national petroleum reserve, for now. (Mr. Bush can afford to wait until prices come down, unlike the rest of us.)

There are apparently three things we can be sure of in life: death, taxes, and that when the oil industry gets in trouble, environmentalists will get blamed and more money will be thrown at Big Oil.

Twenty years after Chernobyl the nuclear industry is enjoying a renaissance it could only have dreamed of a few years ago. The twin issues of climate change and energy security have driven it up the political agenda both in Europe and in the US.

BP's CEO, John Browne, has warned that fear was driving the price of crude to artificially high levels, with "untold consequences" for the global economy. He argued that turbulence in Iran, Iraq and Nigeria was leading to continual speculation about oil shortages and there were "all sorts of things that suggest it is getting worse".

The World Bank has unveiled a new project to promote the use of clean energy in developing countries, where it argues that up to 40 billion dollars a year is needed to cover the costs of adapting to projected climate change.

BP and Exxon both make top ten worst companies in 2005, according to Multinational Monitor.

Celebrated UK green activist and Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, today argues that “This is embarrassing, but I've become a fossil fuel supporter”. He argues: “I find myself at odds with almost everyone, by deciding, at the worst possible moment, that in one respect at least our battle against climate change depends on neither nuclear power nor renewables, but on a fossil fuel”.

With the melting of the ice after eight months, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant is set to enter a crucial offshore construction phase in the development of its $20bn [£11.2bn] oil and gas programme. Wildlife campaigners say the price of the pipeline could be the extinction of a species of whale.

Campaigners, including WWF, are demanding that Shell abandon its plans to begin the work, claiming the company has failed to persuade an independent panel of scientists that its activities will not harm a critically-endangered population of western grey whales. The cetaceans are due to arrive in their breeding grounds when work