Environmental Issues and Protection

Promised Land Review: Gus Van Sant Directs a Screenplay by Matt Damon and John Krasinski

Could Fracking in Los Angeles Cause an Earthquake?

Could Fracking in Los Angeles Cause an Earthquake?

Conversations about fracking, the controversial technique for natural gas extraction (alternately known as "that thing that turns your tap water flammable") are typically confined to Pennsylvania, where the critically acclaimed documentary Gasland was set, or the state of New York, currently debatin ... More >>

How Green Was My Downtown

Starbucks has Venti Recycling Goals

If you've ever finished your drink in a Starbucks cafe, then looked around in vain for a recycling bin in which to deposit the empty cup, you're not alone. With less than 10% of Starbucks in Los Angeles County having customer recycling bins, a lot of our cups end up in landfills. There are 364 compa ... More >>

Are 1 Million L.A. County Residents Getting Fracked Over by Oil Company PXP?

Guess what? If you live anywhere near the 1,000-acre Inglewood oil field -- in Culver Crest, Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Vista, Ladera Heights, Windsor Hills, Village Green or anywhere around there -- your home is bordering the largest urban oil field in America. Cool, right? It's run by giant Texas oil ... More >>

Raw Milk Products Recalled Recall Upheld After Children Sickened in California

Flickr/grongarOrganic Pastures raw milk has been quarantined in California.​ The California Department of Food and Agriculture has upheld its recall of raw milk products, even though the dairy demanded the quarantine be lifted, saying tests show its milk is pathogen-free, according to the Asso ... More >>

California Environmental Protection Could be Watered Down Under Sneaky Law Awaiting Jerry Brown's Signature, Activists Say

Chris McCorkleDensity in downtown L.A.​Critics of over-development in L.A. are up in arms about a California law, which just needs the governor's signature to be finalized, that they argue would weaken the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and allow cities to use years- and decades-o ... More >>

EPA Orders $20 Million Worth of Groundwater Cleanup to Help Residents of San Gabriel Valley

​Tap water has a bad rap these days. And in many cases, for good reason. There's an awful lot of groundwater contamination out there. But for those folks living in the San Gabriel Valley who - God forbid - like being able to actually drink their tap water, there was a splash of good news today ... More >>

Beaches in L.A. Moving Inland: Rising Seas Via Global Warming Mean Drinking Water Problems

Kim Davies​Why go to the beach when the beach will come to you? Literally. Slowly: A fraction of an inch at a time. A new report says that by the mid point of this decade sea level will be a foot and a half higher. That, in our view, could be devastating to the way-too-close-to-the-beach deve ... More >>

L.A. Doctors Sue EPA Over Smog

Ben Amstutz via Flickr​A group of pissed off doctors in L.A. are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not doing its job to clamp down on smog. In November 1990, the South Coast Air Basin region, which stretches from Malibu to Laguna Niguel, was given the worst possible rating of "ex ... More >>

Ballona Wetlands May Be at Mercy of "Fishy" State Commission: Sierra Club, Ballona Institute Allege Wrongdoing

Ballona Wetlands: Please don't bulldoze me​In 2003, it felt like victory: after fighting 30 years to protect Ballona Wetlands near Marina Del Rey and Playa Del Rey, environmentalists saved 600 acres, halting plans by developers for thousands of apartments and big shopping centers. With taxpayer h ... More >>

Hydraulic 'Fracking' -- New Oil-Drilling Technique -- Could Create Jobs, Poison Tap Water in California

What's a little contamination in the name of the drill?​The nation was abuzz yesterday with highly unsustainable news of a fresh way to squeeze millions more barrels of oil from the deepest Earthstuffs of America the Beautiful: It's called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" among Big Oil exec ... More >>

No Fracking Way

The dirty cost of clean energy in GASLAND

California's 2010 Embrace of Green Tech

In killing Proposition 23, residents choose to pay more for energy, use less

Red State Blue State Smackdown: Red States to Sue California Over Global Warming Law

​The attorneys general of Alabama, Nebraska, Texas and North Dakota will sue California over its Global Warming Solutions Act, known as AB32, which requires 80 percent carbon emission reductions by 2050, California Watch reports. First, though, the potential litigants are awaiting the results ... More >>

El Ninos Getting Stronger, More Frequent, According to JPL In Pasadena

JPL​Get ready for the storm of the century: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena this week unleashed a study showing that El Ninos, those wet-weather generators for Southern California, are growing stronger and more frequent. There has been some speculation that the warm Pacific water ... More >>

Environmental Groups Fight Fast-Tracking For Possible NFL Stadium Near Staples Center In Downtown Los Angeles

​Nearly 70 environmental groups have been warning California legislators not to let the owner of Staples Center off the hook when it comes to providing an environmental impact report for an adjacent NFL stadium the company hopes to build. Leaders at the Sierra Club say they've heard rumors th ... More >>

L.A. Tops List Of American Cities With The Most Green Buildings

mccarthycook.comThe Trident Center in West L.A.​Los Angeles topped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of major American cities with the most energy efficient buildings, the EPA announced Tuesday. This marks the second year in a row L.A. was tops in green buildings. L.A. has the l ... More >>

The Plastic Bag Lives On In Manhattan Beach

​A state appellate panel dealt a setback today to Manhattan Beach and to other cities that have sought to ban plastic bags, ruling that the city should have done an environmental impact report before imposing its bag ban in 2008.In this case, the plastics industry -- under the name of The Save the ... More >>

Brazilian Cattle Exporter Signs Pact with Greenpeace After Deforestation Report

Yesterday the Brazilian beef exporter Bertin reported that it had signed a pact with Greenpeace to refuse to buy cattle from deforested parts of the Amazon. Greenpeace claims that the Brazilian Amazon cattle industry is the largest driver of deforestaton in the world, responsible for 14% of the wor ... More >>

Envirowimps: L.A.'s Big Green Groups Get Comfy

Activists leave the street-fighting to the little guys

I'll Believe It When I Breathe It

Residents question ports’ clean-air plan

Dirty Air Deals

Smog fighters are about to cave to Big Business — again

Water, Water, Nowhere

Letters

The Air That We Breathe

Just when it looked like we might win the war on smog, a new and more deadly form of air pollution stalks Los Angeles

Outing Polluters

Solving Smog

Our suggestions for ways out of this mess

History of Smog

Reforming the Environmentalists

How the Sierra Club and other groups can help clean the air

Clean Air vs. Cancer

A federal judge re-affirms California's authority to fight pollution

Lost in the Smog

Environmentalists say the energy industry helped write Clear Skies. Yeah? So what else is new?

Reason To Wheeze

The governor runs out of gas for major clean-air fight

The Great Wet Hope

Will Measure O remake Los Angeles? Only if voters know it exists

Arnold’s State Control

Top-heavy plan to reshape government likely to bottom out

The Invasion of the Elegant Trogons

Is Sierra Club’s anti-immigration insurgency for the birds?

Coughing Up a Plan

Clean-air strategy falls short

A Chokehold on the Future

Hopes for cleaner air disappear into the haze

Saving Dugongs

The U.S. military faces a battle of another kind in Japan

Port in a Storm

Dealing with the polluting ways of world trade

Ports of Cash

Out-of-court settlement could force shakeup at Port of Los Angeles

The Gods of Small Things

The Center for Biological Diversity cares as much about the unarmored threespine stickleback as it does a cathedral forest of trees, which is why it is reinventing the environmental movement and could be saving Southern California in the process.

Little Caesars

Forward Into the Past

California regulators jilt the electric car

It’s the Environment, Stupid

Earth Day founder wishes presidential hopefuls would talk more about global warming

Green Reprieve

Sierra Club dodges immigration-ballot bullet

Oh! My Darling

Meat processor offends neighbors here, nationwide

Zealots Target Sierra Club

Immigration activists working to usurp Club elections

Nature Boy

Adam Werbach’s audacious plan for the Sierra Club