The OP clearly has some common misconceptions about hybrids. Battery replacement/failure is a non-issue, and cab drivers have had the batteries last for 250k miles with no problems.
http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html
"In November of 2005, when asked about the price of a new Prius battery, Toyota spokeswoman Mona Richard said, "The service parts price for a new battery is $3000, but we have not had to sell a battery yet."
"Hybrids use NiMH batteries, not the environmentally problematic rechargeable nickel cadmium. "Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. Toyota and Honda say that they will recycle dead batteries and that disposal will pose no toxic hazards. Toyota puts a phone number on each battery, and they pay a $200 "bounty" for each battery to help ensure that it will be properly recycled."
As for the links, the change in EPA measurements is long overdue, especially with putting annual fuel costs on the label, that should have been done thirty years ago. Higher highway speeds are also a long overdue assumption. They should also stop exempting street legal vehicles such as the Ford F150 from measurements. The changes will reduce rated mileage for all vehicles, not just hybrids. In real life, many people do in fact get the rated mileage or better with the toyota prius, but driving habits are key, mileage drops dramatically as speed increases above 55mph. IRL the cars that get the best gas mileage are all hybrids. Thus if you believe there is a likelyhood of future price shocks to the gasoline supply, and you plan on keeping the same car for a while, a Prius is the best commute car you can get if you plan on doing a lot of driving around a major city with common traffic jams. To tabulate the true fuel cost you must take into account the probability of future fuel price increases, thus fuel costs for all vehicles will be higher than the label because the labeling will still assume constant prices. Hybrids also will have lower overall maintenance costs as the original brake pads can last far longer than a conventional vehicle.
The OP also has some misconceptions about global climate change, and has made a general attack upon the scientific method as well as confounding the ozone problem with global warming. These confusions have been addressed elsewhere and there is no need to reproduce them here. In summary, the greatest sources of uncertainty in current climate models lie in human behavior, anthropogenic global climate change is underway and accelerating, and the science behind these predictions are as solid as that behind gravity. The reason different models predict different temperature increases is that they assume people will do different things with respect to air pollution, but all credible models show a temperature increase of 1 degree Celcius or more over the next hundred years. Climate scientists don't disagree that global climate change is happening, but rather they disagree about how bad it will be. Current models are all excessively optimistic, as they fail to address the fact that oceanic photosynthetic life is less efficient in warmer waters, thus the oceans will be less productive and less effective as a carbon sink.
Here is some basic background reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/Fingerprints.html
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html
Of course with that out of the way, I don't live on the coast and am not a farmer, so to me the important thing is that laws are passed now preventing the federal government from providing flood relief to coastal areas in the future unless the funds come from taxing production of greenhouse gases. I will find it an amusing irony that Florida is underwater due to their own shortsightedness and ignorance. I just wish Florida was lower so that other coastal areas wouldn't have to suffer too.
MIT has developed an engine that increases efficiency by 30% by taking advantage of the higher compression ratios possible with ethanol/e85. They won't be available in production vehicles until 2010. I want one of those in a plug-in hybrid electric car. Plug in hybrids of this nature could bring complete independence fro foreign oil, and if greater support was made available for demand side management of electricity, they could increase demand for renewable energy from windmills. Unfortunately plug in hybrids will have to wait for the heat/safety problems with lithium batteries to be solved, because of patent issues with the NiMH batteries.
"The oil company Chevron controls key battery technologies and battery manufacturing facilities, through its subsidiary, Cobasys. According to the website ev1.org, during the development of the battery-electric vehicle (BEV) EV1, General Motors made a controlling investment in Ovonics's battery development and manufacturing, with particular interest in the patents and trade secrets controlling the manufacturing of large nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. This interest was subsequently sold to the oil company Texaco, which was acquired in its entirety by another oil company, Chevron. The "large format" NiMH batteries are no longer available to U.S. electric vehicle converters or lightweight BEV manufactures. The manufacturing unit, Cobasys, is currently declining to manufacture and market these batteries for battery electric automotive use in the US and has shut down (through patent control) Panasonic's large format battery importation to the US. The Cobasys web page concerning transportation applications addresses only large multi-passenger hybrid vehicles. In order to use NiMH batteries without violating Chevron's patents, hybrid automobile manufacturers are required to design vehicles which are at least 50% powered by gasoline; otherwise, they are limited to the use of "D" cell-sized NiMH ("small format") batteries."
I will buy a hybrid for my next car, but not until I can get a plug in flexible fuel version that gets better than 80mpg. (e85 is readily available and cheaper than gas in my area.) My current car will last until then.
Edit: This is my 2^8th+1 post! Breaking the 8bit barrier!