China

One billion cars clog traffic worldwide

India and Brazil are also helping to accelerate worldwide auto sales -- and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Honey laundering: tainted and counterfeit Chinese honey floods into the U.S.

A third of the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals, according to a blockbuster story in Food Safety News.

Trying to make China's planned cities livable

Two brothers, an architect and a developer, team up to make new Chinese cities more people-friendly, easing the transition from rural to urban living.

Critical List: A second leak in Shell's North Sea rig spurting oil; Chinese protest chemical factory

A second leak at the Shell oil platform in the North Sea is proving harder to stop than the first.

A Chinese protest against a chemical factory was one of the largest in three years -- at least 12,000 people -- and may herald a shift towards more public action in the country.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is exchanging ideas with leaders in Rio about greening their cities.

Why Washington state's coal fight matters

Activists in the Northwest are fighting plans to build a coal-export terminal in Washington state. The outcome of this battle could have lasting, substantial effects on China's energy habits and emissions.

Forget China; largest rare earth element deposit is under this Nebraska town

Perhaps you've heard that China has a worldwide monopoly on rare earth elements, without which the high-tech and cleantech world -- electric cars, computers, cell phones, wind turbines, smart meters, advanced batteries, the whole enchilada -- would grind to a shiny, clanking halt.

But now, instead of relying on Chinese imports to keep the rare-earth economy humming, we can destroy our OWN local environment! A small town in Nebraska has volunteered to be turned into a giant open-pit mine in the name of powering the post-fossil-fuel revolution.

Critical List: Wind turbines get bigger and better; tree-killing fungi are thriving

Wind turbines are becoming bigger, more efficient, and more powerful.

Drilling in the Arctic is not such a hot idea, as any spill will be tricky to clean up.

The Southeast is the only region in the country that hasn’t put renewable energy mandates in place.

China working on solar yaks

China is going to increase its solar capacity 10-fold in the next five years. Driving this solar great leap forward will be the "feed-in tariff" -- Chinese citizens who install solar panels will be paid 15 cents for every kilowatt-hour they produce. Germany uses the same strategy, and as a result it has more solar power than any other country in the world.

Critical List: China makes solar power cheap; U.K. fishing fleet wastes cod

China is making solar power cheap in order to drive solar growth.

Since 1963, U.K. fishing boats have tossed $1 billion worth of dead or dying cod overboard to keep within their quotas.

In Washington State, what The New York Times calls "the largest dam removal project in American history" will destroy two dams and help salmon regrow their population.