Impact of China’s car curb on smog is unclear. A test run of traffic restrictions in the Chinese capital for next year's Olympic Games succeeded in reducing severe traffic congestion, but its impact on the city's poor air quality remains unclear. [News Source]

Beijing to put 50,000 bicycles for rent. The Olympic city plans to put 50,000 bicycles for rent across the city ahead of the Games to curb pollution and ease congestion. [News Source]

Cars stay away but Beijing smog remains. Traffic flowed more smoothly but the sun was still shrouded by smog on Monday, the fourth and final day of Beijing's Olympic pollution prevention test. [News Source]

Rogers to pedal through smog barrier, but worried about heat . Canberra cyclist Michael Rogers has played down concerns Beijing's air pollution is too severe for athletes to compete in. [News Source]

Windmill idea generates worry over noise, blight. A proposed windmill near dozens of homes in a Chicago suburb could save the local school district millions of dollars in energy costs but city trustees said it would be a noisy eyesore that could lead to windmills sprouting like weeds across the west suburb. [News Source]

Many suburban schools plow down conservation path. Educators and teens spearhead efforts to burn fewer fossil fuels by switching to alternative energy sources and using less of them. [News Source]

‘Carbon offsets’ to get government push. The Environment Ministry will set up an expert panel this fall to promote "carbon offsets" under which money is provided to programs to reduce greenhouse gases in accordance with the amount of pollution produced by those providing the funds. [News Source]

Must we quit flying to save the planet? For the hundreds of climate-change activists who have camped out near Heathrow Airport for the past week, there is only one way to reduce the carbon footprint of aircraft: Stop flying so much. [News Source]

Shell’s rocky return. Shell is mounting an aggressive return to the polar ocean, staking hundreds of millions of dollars to lease vast offshore acreage, staff an Anchorage office and assemble a flotilla of drilling ships to sink more holes in the Beaufort Sea. [News Source]

China rolls out test of anti-smog plan. Beijing now has a bit more than 3 million registered vehicles, which pump out an estimated 1.3 million tons of pollutants every year. Local environmental officials cite this as the primary reason behind the city's ever-worsening air quality. [News Source]

U.S. castoffs resuming dirty career. Some townspeople in this 19th-century mill village on the Connecticut River celebrated when workers began tearing down a shuttered coal-fired power plant this year. But the demolition is hardly a victory against climate change. It's being rebuilt in Guatemala. [News Source]