Bloomberg: Rockefellers Dump Exxon Holdings That Made Family's Fortune

Descendants of John D. Rockefeller sold their Exxon Mobil Corp. stock and plan to dump all other fossil-fuel investments in the latest move against the industry that made their fortune.

The Rockefeller Family Fund concluded there’s “no sane rationale” for companies to explore for oil as governments contemplate cracking down on carbon emissions, according to a statement on the website of the New York-based philanthropic foundation Wednesday.

PV Magazine: Europe Slashed Investment in Renewables 50% in 2015

Overall trends across the globe for renewable energy technology investment were positive in 2015, with an increase of 4% worldwide. The same could not be said for Europe, where clean energy investment was just $58B, which represented a decrease of over 50% from 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

Europe had positioned itself as a global leader in renewables investment, representing 45% of global clean energy investment in 2010, and peaking in 2011 with an investment of $132B. However, 2015 saw a sharp reversal of investment. The BNEF attributed this to fear over the survival of the euro, mistakes by policymakers, and some lingering effects from the global financial crisis.

MIT Technology Review: The Race for the Ultra-Efficient Jet Engine of the Future

The commercial aviation industry emits 705 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. While that represents only about 2 percent of global carbon emissions, there is evidence that the greenhouse gases in jet fuel have a larger effect on the atmosphere because they are released at high altitude. Efforts to introduce biofuels to power jet engines have so far fallen short of their targets, and many in the industry believe the pathway to cleaner jets is through advances in engine technology rather than cleaner fuels.

That’s the idea behind the fierce competition to supply tomorrow’s aircraft with engines that are much lighter, quieter, and more energy-efficient than the conventional turbofan engines used on airliners today.

IBT: Hyundai Ioniq Is Challenging Toyota’s Dominance In Hybrid Car Sales

The annual New York International Auto Show isn't typically the venue where automakers make big announcements, preferring instead to save their most important new-vehicle unveils for the more popular expos in Geneva, Frankfurt, Detroit and Los Angeles. As in recent years, this year's 10-day New York show, starting Friday, will be dominated by sports cars and utility vehicles, including a concept version of the Lincoln Navigator sporting bizarre gull-wing doors and a muscly, 640-horsepower Chevrolet Camaro with a new 10-speed automatic transmission.

But nestled among the fleet of look-alike SUVs and refreshed versions of cars we’ve already seen are two new green car players: Toyota’s next-level Prius Prime plug-in hybrid, and Hyundai’s Ioniq (pronounced "eye-on-ick"), the South Korean automaker’s first dip into a market Toyota has dominated for nearly 20 years.

Washington Post: We'd Better Hope These Scientists Are Wrong About the Planet's Future

An influential group of scientists led by James Hansen, the former NASA scientist often credited with having drawn the first major attention to climate change in 1988 congressional testimony, has published a dire climate study that suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned.

The research invokes collapsing ice sheets, violent megastorms and even the hurling of boulders by giant waves in its quest to suggest that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would be far too much. Hansen has called it the most important work he has ever done.