China today announced its first-ever target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, just one day after U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States approximately 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. China said that it plans to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 by 40 percent to 45 percent compared to 2005.

Some news organizations are leaving out any mention of the tie to the GDP, and reporting that China intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020--but that's not what the Chinese have promised. The GDP reference is critically important, because China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. As its GDP increases, so will its output of greenhouse gas emissions.

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U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to attend the U.N.-sponsored international climate summit in Copenhagen next month (December 7-18), and he won't be going empty-handed.

When he arrives at the Copenhagen climate summit on December 9--the day before he's due in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize--Obama will commit the United States to a series of specific targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40 years.

The White House announced on Wednesday that Obama will tell the conference delegates from 192 nations that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions "in the range of" 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The other targets include a 30 percent reduction by 2025, 42 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050.

But there are a few problems with Obama's plan:

As part of your Thanksgiving celebration this year, why not offer thanks to the planet by having an eco-friendly Thanksgiving holiday that will be as good for the environment as it is for your friends and family?

There are a lot of things you can do--from choosing locally grown food for your table to reducing your energy consumption--that can make your Thanksgiving a little greener this year.

I've put together 10 tips to help you have an eco-friendly Thanksgiving that will impact the environment much less than it does your waistline.

The Greenland ice sheet is melting and losing mass at an accelerating rate, and has been doing so since the late 1990s, according to a new study reported in the journal Science and funded by the National Environment Research Council. Scientists who conducted used two different methods--satellite observations and a state-of-the-art regional atmospheric model--to independently confirm the results.

The Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to cause sea levels around the world to rise 7 meters (approximately 23 feet) if all the ice melts. Since 2000, the Greenland ice sheet has lost enough mass to cause an average global sea level increase of about half a millimeter per year--about 5 millimeters total over the past decade.

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