In the News is a Planet Change selection of the latest news on climate change, nature, our environment and the impacts of a changing planet. Continue reading to delve into all that we find interesting this week.

In an amazing discovery, a fossilized, 298-million-year-old forest has been found under a coal mine near Wuda, in Inner Mongolia, China. Like the Roman city of Pompeii, the 10,763-square-foot (1,000-square-meter) forest was preserved by ash from the eruption of an ancient volcano.

I was selected to participate in the first Renewable Energy Expedition to Antarctica.

A mountain stream’s gurgling and the soft voice of Kao Sisompou, a village forester from Lao People’s Democratic Republic, reverberated off the 300-year-old stone walls of the San Jose ruins. I was seated in the middle of a long nave in what had once been a majestic Spanish church in Antigua, Guatemala, and I reflected on the juxtaposition of setting and the speech’s subject. In a church that had been saved from destruction, I was party to a discussion of the world’s disappearing forests, which are in bad need of rescue.

China and Canada (not to mention the U.S.) are making headlines for their COP 17 positions, while many of their citizens have traveled to Durban to seek climate progress.

Could there be hope for progress in the second week of COP 17 climate negotiations? Discussion of a “road map” to future agreements draws discussion as the conference heads into the weekend.

The Nature Conservancy hosts Chinese scientists for a tour of coastal sites on Long Island Sound and Louisiana to share research and tools for preparing for sea-level rise.

The scientists from State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, part of East China Normal University in Shanghai, had worked with The Conservancy before to develop a management plan for Dongtan National Nature Reserve, a 60,000-acre wetland reserve on Chongming Island, the world’s largest alluvial island, situated in the delta of the Yangtze River.

Forests have come to stand as a near-universal symbol for nature and the environmental movement.

But in the environmental context, green really means one thing: forests. Forests have come to stand as a near-universal symbol for nature and the environmental movement. They even speak to the increasing percentage of the global population that lives in cities, who are far more dependent on forests than they perhaps realize.

This connection — between people and forests — underpins the second Asia Pacific Forestry Week that took place from Nov. 7-11 in Beijing (and is also the theme of the 2011 UN-declared International Year of Forests).

An ambitious plan to restore and replant trees in an arid, degraded zone of Inner Mongolia promises carbon storage, and more immediate benefits to local communities.

Stopping EPA from taking action would send a terrible signal to the rest of the world, signaling that the U.S. is backpedaling on climate change, even as China, Brazil and other countries are speeding ahead. This will adversely affect not only the United States’ standing in the world, but our economy.

The fire-climate story is more complex than a simplified relationship of higher temperatures equaling more fire.

Ifitweremyhome.com offers some surprising insights into how the United States uses energy and consumes oil in comparison to the rest of the world.

The real race between China and the U.S., the one that really counts, is not one over who develops which technology first. It’s over when, where, and how the two countries choose to work together to combat climate change. The world is watching.

The Nature Conservancy’s China program director Zhang Shuang comments on the carbon pollution and clean energy backdrop to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington, D.C.

In this video, Evan Girvertz, a senior scientist for The Nature Conservancy, describes how a reforestation project in Inner Mongolia, China will help surrounding communities adapt to climate change.

Here’s what’s happening at COP 16 on December 11, the morning of the Cancun Agreement.

Trust is regained in a dramatic early-morning climax at the UN climate change conference in mexico.