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20 Nov 09
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Split Carbon Costs of Deforestation Between Producers & Consumers to Slow Felling Forests It's probably no great secret to TreeHugger readers at this point that part of the reason carbon emissions in developing nations are rapidly rising is partially because manufacturing of goods for export to the developed world. In fact in China at least... |
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19 Nov 09
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Asia is Outspending the USA 3-to-1 in Clean-Tech Investments The Race for Clean-Tech is On
A new study by the Breakthrough Institute and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation shows that the U.S. could be left behind by Asia (specifically by China, South Korea and Japan) when it comes to investing in... |
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19 Nov 09
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Fake Snow in China, Kurt Vonnegut's Brother, Falling Cement and Other Weather-Mod Tales Flickr/kudumomo
Our story on China's earliest snowfall in decades got picked up by Green Patriot Radio, which interviewed me on the ins and outs of the country's extensive rainmaking program. Among the trivia I share:
- Rainmaking technology was... |
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18 Nov 09
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Readers, Send Us Photos of Your Favorite Heirloom or Antique! Antique fire engine. Credit: caitlinator / CC by 2.0
Is your Grandmother's China or charm bracelet your most valued possession? Is your ten-year old MacBook still serving its purpose? Did you rescue a Mad Men-era living room from Goodwill? Is the... |
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18 Nov 09
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US and China: Goodbye Clean Coal, Ni Hao, "21st Century Coal" Proposed GreenGen IGCC coal plant in Tianjin, China
The US-China duck pancake of climate cooperation, made this week by Presidents Obama and Hu, has left us with much to chew over. But the component that everyone was waiting for -- and that few could be... |
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18 Nov 09
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Barack Obama and Hu Jintao Announce US-China Electric Vehicles Initiative Photos: Public domain
Good Intentions, But Let's Wait for Real-World Results
The Chinese government and many Chinese businesses have been making pretty big bets on electric cars in the past few years. In fact, the richest man in China, Wang Chuanfu (in... |
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17 Nov 09
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Massive New US-China Clean Energy Plans Announced Photo via Wind Power Ninja
Obama's in China this week, and green issues are high on the agenda. As Daniel noted earlier, US and China struck a deal on renewable energy information sharing--some pretty good news on the heels of the more depressing... |
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17 Nov 09
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US and China Strike a Deal On Renewable Energy Information Sharing Photo via the Wall Street Journal
Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao made the wrong sort of news this past weekend when they dashed any hope of a binding treaty next month in Copenhagen. But today they made news for the right reasons, agreeing on a new... |
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16 Nov 09
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Chinese Traffic Cop's Funny Lecture on Helmet Safety (Video) Flickr/BeijingPatrol
When Beijing Policeman Tan, the star of his very own local news segment, stops a motorcyclist because his passenger isn't wearing his helmet, we get an earful on gender norms, hairstyles, and one of our favorite topics -- helmets!... |
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13 Nov 09
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Obama's Trip to China: What's on the Green Agenda? Photo via China Dialogue
Next week, Obama is taking off on his high-profile first trip to China. The meeting of the two biggest economies in the world on Chinese soil is fraught with symbolism and brimming with potential. The notoriously fickle and... |
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09 Nov 09
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China Wants to Take "a Leadership Role" On Climate: An Interview with WWF's Yang Fuqiang, Part 2 When it comes to China's efforts to curtail greenhouse gases, Dr. Yang Fuqiang, director of global climate solutions at the World Wildlife Fund, has an optimal vantage point. He began his career as a researcher at the National Development and Reform... |
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06 Nov 09
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China's New Disneyland Will Force 5,000 Families of Farmers Out of Their Homes Disneyland sure is a wondrous place--beloved characters, thrilling rides, an entire fantastic world where a child's imagination can run wild. It's fun for the whole family. Unless, that is, you happen to be one of the 5,000 families of poor farmers that... |
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05 Nov 09
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BYD Boss Wang Chuanfu Tops China's Rich List Thanks to Batteries & Electric Cars Money to Be Made Replacing Fossil Fuels
Wang Chuanfu (in Chinese: 王传福) founded BYD in 1995 at the tender age of 29. Now, 14 years later, BYD is the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phone batteries and has been working on electric cars for... |
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04 Nov 09
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China, U.S., and Climate: An Interview with Yang Fuqiang, WWF's Director of Global Climate Solutions On Climate Change, "China has to say, this is my problem, and my solution"
For more than two decades, Dr. Yang Fuqiang has been a participant in the energy and climate change discussion in and around China. His career began as a researcher at the National... |
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03 Nov 09
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China Cleaning Up Two Toxic Spills on Yangtze River, Drinking Water Source of Millions Should Shipping on the Yangtze be Made Safer and Cleaner?
Even when everything's going according to plan, cargo ships can be major sources of air pollution (see "Just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m... |
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03 Nov 09
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The Best of Fast Company: China Dominates Texas Wind Power, Plastic Made Out of Algae, and the Future of Trucking This week at Fast Company, we looked at China's entry into the Texas wind power industry, Cereplast's plastic made out of algae, the long-term future of trucking, and a proposal to build floating cities in the Netherlands.
T. Boone Pickens scrapped his... |
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02 Nov 09
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Beijing Blanketed by Freak Government-Made Snow Flickr/Claire Evans
When we awoke on Sunday, we were shocked to find Beijing draped in snow. It was a gorgeous white Halloween, and the earliest snowfall in a decade -- the result in part of an unusually strong cold front that had a few of us thinking of... |
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02 Nov 09
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China's Climate Red Phone Has Two Lines: U.S. and Developing World Who They Gonna Call?
Last week, before hundreds of students and others gathered to call for government action on climate change, Beijing officials were busy talking with its two biggest climate interlocutors: India and the United States.
They weren't... |
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02 Nov 09
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"Chinese" Wind Farm in Texas: Green Jobs FAIL? photo: Chrishna via flickr
The buzz around the green blogosphere today is another record-setting Chinese wind farm, with 240 turbines producing 648 megawatts. But this one isn't in Inner Mongolia -- it's in Texas.
This $1.5 billion wind farm -- a... |
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30 Oct 09
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The Week in Pictures: International Day of Climate Action, Green Halloween, and More (Slideshow) A lot happened this week in green: from readers in the Hollywood Hills to our writers in Times Square, the International Day of Climate Action brought global awareness for climate change; we found out Chinese fruit bats demonstrate unusual sexual... |
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28 Oct 09
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Chinese Fruit Bats Demonstrate Unusual Sexual Behavior Never Before Seen in Adult Animals Greater short-nosed fruit bat feeding on kapok, photo: Wikipedia.
New research published in the online journal PLoS ONE demonstrates for the first time that a non-human adult animal species regularly engages in oral sex behavior. While the behavior has... |
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27 Oct 09
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Tigers Given a Bit More Breathing Room in Nepal - Bardia National Park Expanded photo: Claudio Gennari via flickr.
China may be doing little to stop the illegal tiger trade, but Nepal has just taken some action to protect its tigers: WWF reports that the Bardia National Park has just been expanded by some 900 square kilometers (350... |
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27 Oct 09
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Illegal Logging Makes Indonesia World's Third Largest Emitter of Greenhouses Gases After U.S. and China...
Indonesia is made up of 17,508 islands, most of which were totally covered by forest until about 50 years ago when that number dropped to 80%. But now, illegal logging and the burning of forests are making the country the third... |
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27 Oct 09
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China Failing to Stop Gangster's Tiger Trade - Investigators Offered Many Leopard Skins Too Tiger skin in Lhasa, photo: EIA
The illegal trade in tiger and other big cat skins and body parts is big business for international crime syndicates, with tiger skins fetching up to more than $21,000 each. Now, an undercover mission by the Environmental... |
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26 Oct 09
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Why Are Children In China Saluting Cars? Du Bin for The New York Times
The The New York Times ran this photograph and says that it was all about traffic safety.
"Education officials promoted the saluting edict to reduce traffic accidents and teach children courtesy. Critics, who have posted... |
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26 Oct 09
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Nadav Kander is Winner of Prix Pictet Photography Prize 2009 Image from Prix Pictet: Chongqing IV (Sunday Picnic)
The Prix Pictet is the new global photography prize that focuses on sustainability. Sponsored by Pictet & Cie, a Swiss bank, and in its second year, this year's theme is the earth. Last year it was... |
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25 Oct 09
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With Words, Hip Hop and Hundreds of Bicycles, Beijing's Youth Call for Climate Action A series of talks in Beijing between the US and China over a climate deal was capped by a resounding call for action -- not from top officials but a more unusual constituent: young Beijingers.
The city's celebration of the 350.org International Day of... |
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22 Oct 09
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Edward Burtynsky's Devastating "Oil" (A Slideshow) A landscape photograph by Edward Burynsky can be as frozen as it is arresting. But stare at his portraits of China's Three Gorges Dam or the Alberta tar sands, and you can almost make out Earth in motion. In his massive prints, the built and natural... |
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22 Oct 09
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India and China Create Alternative Climate Treaty Image via Manasclerk
The two biggest polluters of the developing world have drafted an 'alternative' to the UN's climate treaty. It's an agreement to work together on climate issues, to reduce greenhouse gases and share clean technology. The deal could... |
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21 Oct 09
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How Beijing Cleans Its Air, and Fakes It Too As savvy moves by officials in China are pushing its state-run English-language news outlets to start sounding a bit more like their Western counterparts, did a New York Times article over the weekend about improvements to air quality in Beijing bear... |
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20 Oct 09
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Chinese Town's Response to Poisonous Lead Factory: Move the Town Increasingly, concern over environmental health in cities and towns across China has led to angry public protests that have halted construction on or closed a number of factories. But after outrage over lead poisoning in a town in central China,... |
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19 Oct 09
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Carbon Capture Is "Essential" for Developing World, And Still a Pipe Dream Proposed GreenGen IGCC coal plant in Tianjin, China
Unproven and Expensive
Here's a climate conundrum. Last week, the International Energy Agency said that to avoid climate catastrophe, 2,000 carbon capture and sequestration (so called "clean coal")... |
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16 Oct 09
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A Chinese Photographer's 'Infernal Landscapes' Photograph by Lu Guang via National Press Photographers Association.
Freelance photojournalist Lu Guang's unflinching images of AIDS victims in China's Henan province, honored in the World Press Photo contest for 2003, succes...Read the full story on... |
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15 Oct 09
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Multinationals Are Flaunting China's "Most Basic" Pollution Law Top multinational and Chinese companies are not reporting what pollutants they are releasing into China's air and water, as a new law requires, according to a report by Greenpeace.
Among the eighteen companies cited were eight of the world's top 500... |
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13 Oct 09
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World's First Drive-Through Museum Coming to China From the Just What We Needed Dept.
Combining China's growing enthusiasm for private museums with its increasing appetite for driving, the new Nanjing Automobile Museum is set to be the world's first drive-through museum.
Visitors drive their cars around... |
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10 Oct 09
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Best of Infrastructurist: Floating Trains, The World's Sexiest Bus Stop and 15 Hot New Careers In Infrastructure From The Infrastructurist, a round-up of some of the best recent posts:
Look Who's Building Floating Trains...
Trains that levitate on magnetic tracks have been the future of transportation for decades--but with one operating successfully in China now... |
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08 Oct 09
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Thousands of Homeowners Sick from Toxic Chinese Drywall Photo via Chinese Drywall Atty
During the housing boom, thousands of homes were built with cheap drywall imported from China. The drywall turned out to be contaminated with sulfur, and was powerful enough to corrode metal and make anyone living in the... |
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08 Oct 09
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Bangkok Showdown: China, Rich Countries Spar Over Climate Obligations Cutting Remarks
Yesterday, at a mock trial that found the U.S. and other wealthy nations responsible for climate change, China was all but absent.
But in the real world of climate negotiations, China was critical of developed countries' insistence that... |
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07 Oct 09
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Nuclear Power: Climate Fix or Folly? Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Can nuclear-generated electricity lead us off fossil fuels?
After years of sitting in the energy dustbin, nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance. Countries such as France, Germany, Japan and China are furiously building... |
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05 Oct 09
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Is China, Once Climate Scapegoat, Now Our "Sputnik"? Not two years ago China was often decried as the world's environmental waste land.
Suddenly however it's "the Sputnik of our day," as Tom Friedman wrote last week in one of two buzz-wordy columns praising green efforts in China that could put the rest... |
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05 Oct 09
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China Says US & Rich Nations Sabotaging Climate Treaty photo: UNFCCC
At UN climate talks in Bangkok -- the second to last talks before the COP15 summit in Copenhagen -- the Guardian reports that China's special representative on climate change has accused the United States other industrialized nations of... |
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29 Sep 09
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EU & US Look to Eliminate Import Tariffs on Green Goods - Try to Woo China Into Global Climate Deal photo: Douglas Cataylo via flickr.
Helping the flow of low-carbon technologies around the world, in particular from developed to developing countries, is really a key part of forging a global climate deal. Well, here's some good news on that front:... |
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29 Sep 09
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China Buys 80 Very High Speed Trains (236 mph) for $4 Billion Photo: Bombardier
What's the US Doing?
The Chinese Ministry of Railways has announced that it will buy 80 "very high speed trains" from Bombardier's Chinese joint ventre Bombardier Sifang to add to China's fast-growing network of high-speed rail. The... |
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28 Sep 09
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Compared to China & Brazil, the US is Climate Illiterate, Scientist Says Graphic from the Washington Post on how different nations ranked the importance government should place on climate change. Note the US on the left...
The following frankness doesn't happen often enough in the international climate change debate: Reuters... |
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24 Sep 09
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Industry Leaders Consider Why America has Fallen Behind at the National Climate Summit Recent announcements that China would be dramatically curbing carbon emissions and investing heavily in nuclear and renewable energy highlighted a central theme of the Council on Competitiveness' National Energy Summit: that the United States had fallen... |
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23 Sep 09
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Are China and U.S. Headed For a Copenhagen Deadlock? Even after President Obama's firm acknowledgment of American responsibility for climate change and Chinese President Hu's announcement of a carbon intensity target yesterday, the prospects for a deal on carbon emissions at Copenhagen in seventy days... |
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22 Sep 09
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China Will Cap Emissions Intensity: Your Move, U.S. With the world watching, China's president Hu Jintao offered his country's biggest climate change initiative yet at the UN this morning, saying China would establish emissions intensity targets --not absolute targets, but cuts in emissions per unit of... |
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22 Sep 09
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Oops! Montreal Protocol Solutions May Be Causing Global Warming Old refrigerators line sidewalk in Havana, Cuba - to be replaced by new ones from China. Could these guys be partly responsible for our climate change problem? Image via: Marco Traverso on Flickr. com
The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, had the very... |
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22 Sep 09
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China and the U.S. Could Fix Climate -- If Leaders Let Them: Duke Energy CEO at Climate Week NY°C Chinese and American companies are eager to find ways to cooperate and work with each others' country, provided their governments support them, Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, said at a Climate Week NY°C panel discussion on China-US energy issues today... |
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16 Sep 09
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China Says Keeping World Temp from Rising 2C is Unrealistic Photo via Fladoodle
A couple of months ago at the disappointing Major Economies Forum in Italy, one of the bright spots was that the world's most polluting nations nonetheless agreed to keep the temperatures from rising an average of 2 degrees Celsius... |
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