Flying lab to test Pacific skies for dust from Asia .

Vast plumes of fine-grained desert sand and pollution sweep constantly from Asia across the Pacific and over North America, darkening skies along the way and affecting the weather and global warming, but scientists don’t yet know to what extent.

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China’s ’sun king’ hails clean-energy. Physicist Shi Zhengrong spent the 1990s in an Australian lab studying solar power, a field he picked by chance. He expected to devote his life to science. [News Source]

NYC pledges 1 million new trees by 2017 (USA Today) One million new trees will join the urban landscape of New York City by the year 2017 to reduce air pollution, cool temperatures and help improve the city's long term sustainability, officials said Saturday. [News Source]

Businessman enjoys clean-energy boom. Physicist Shi Zhengrong spent the 1990s in an Australian lab studying solar power, a field he picked by chance. But excited by a trip home that showed him China's rapid development, he startled friends by abruptly moving his wife and two Australian-born sons to his homeland in 2001 to launch a solar equipment company. [News Source]

Fueling an empire. Sacramento's newest publicly traded corporation, having just relocated its headquarters from Fresno, needs to expand quickly before the market gets too crowded. [News Source]

Sold on biodiesel. Salvaging used vegetable oil from the school cafeteria, concocting biodiesel has become a regular production at the school since the club debuted in October. [News Source]

Ethanol may not reduce air pollution, study finds. Use of ethanol fuel, touted by its supporters to help reduce gasoline consumption and thereby lessen greenhouse gas emissions, may in fact increase the levels of dangerous air pollution. [News Source]

NYC hopes green plan will spread like smoking ban. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Friday raised the possibility of charging rush-hour motorists new fees as part of a traffic-jam-fighting strategy and using the extra money to improve mass transit. [News Source]

Mass. toughens climate rules on developers. In the latest of a series of green initiatives, Massachusetts will require private developers to reduce the greenhouse gases their large-scale projects will produce. [News Source]

NYC pledges 1 million new trees by 2017 (AP via Yahoo! News) One million new trees will join the urban landscape of New York City by the year 2017 to reduce air pollution, cool temperatures and help improve the city's long term sustainability, officials said Saturday. [News Source]

Shoppers, grab your carbon credit.

One day, your wallet might hold not just your credit, debit and department store loyalty cards. It might also hold a carbon card.

[News Source]