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An environmental group opposed to a bottling plant near Mount Shasta filed a lawsuit accusing Crystal Geyser of pushing through an illegal plan to suck thousands of gallons of water a day from an aquifer that feeds the drought-diminished Sacramento River.

We're attempting to build a master bedroom and move the master bathroom on our 2100 sq/ft house in Campbell. Total addition is ~500 sq/ft. We went to submit the plans on Monday and were told we're in a "special study zone" so a more complete design scrutiny review is required which will take 60 days to complete and requires buy-in from all our neighbors. Besides this giant hiccup, they said we have to replace our energy-saving water heater that was installed in 2011, change our current low-flow toilets from 1.6 to 1.2 gals, redo our drainage for the new downspout...

It’s official: The Energy Department’s green energy loan program is expected to lose money despite media reports that such loans would net the government a profit. The Government Accountability Office says the DOE’s oft-touted $28 billion loan program will cost taxpayers $2.21 billion over the lifetime of the loans. Not only that, the costs to taxpayers for green loans has risen about $500 million as “the result of loan guarantee defaults” from companies like Solyndra and Abound Solar. The “credit subsidy cost of the loans and loan guarantees in its portfolio” is expected ”to be $2.21 billion, including $807 million...

After six minutes of discussion, the Huntington Beach City Council voted 6 to 1 on Monday night to allow stores to use plastic carryout bags, taking a step toward reversing a ban that was enacted in 2013.

A former UCLA researcher who filed an unlawful dismissal lawsuit in 2012 will be paid $140,000 and have his termination rescinded as part of a settlement reached with the University of California Board of Regents on Wednesday. Dr. James Enstrom’s lawsuit claimed UCLA officials wrongfully dismissed him from his position because of political motivations in response to his controversial research about certain air pollutants. UCLA has previously denied the allegations and said it is committed to protecting academic freedom. As part of the settlement, Enstrom will have access to university resources for his researchand will have the title of “retired...

I am deeply disappointed that Greenpeace engaged in an action at the sacred Nazca Lines in Peru. We have been hearing from many of you and I share your frustration and anger about this situation. The decision to engage in this activity shows a complete disregard for the culture of Peru and the importance of protecting sacred sites everywhere. There is no apology sufficient enough to make up for this serious lack of judgment. I know my international colleagues who engaged in this activity did not do so with malice, but that doesn’t mitigate the result. It is a shame...

The environmental activist group Greenpeace has apologized after damaging the Nazca Lines, an ancient Peruvian site. The group placed a series of yellow banners very close to the hummingbird geoglyph spelling out a message calling for environmental awareness. In doing so, the members of the group trespassed on the area and disturbed the otherwise-pristine grounds around the lines with a series of footprints. The area around the Nazca Lines is so protected that even the president of Peru cannot walk around there without express permission, and those who are permitted to enter the site have to wear specialized footwear...

Culture ministry says it will press charges against activists for damage to world heritage site as UN climate talks began in Lima Greenpeace has apologised to the people of Peru after the government accused the environmentalists of damaging ancient earth markings in the country’s coastal desert by leaving footprints in the ground during a publicity stunt meant to send a message to the UN climate talks delegates in Lima. A spokesman for Greenpeace said: “Without reservation Greenpeace apologises to the people of Peru for the offence caused by our recent activity laying a message of hope at the site of...

“What’s done cannot be undone.” Lady Macbeth Never in living memory has there been such a heartbreaking cultural calamity as that inflicted earlier this week by Greenpeace on the 2,000-year-old Nazca Lines in Peru. The only exception, perhaps, would be the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001. It is poetic therefore, in a morbid sort of way, that both acts of cultural sacrilege were committed by terrorist organizations. The Taliban, of course, are conventional terrorists whose heinous acts of violence have claimed countless lives across the globe. But Greenpeace, by its actions in Nazca, is just...

Castillo said no one, not even presidents and Cabinet ministers, is allowed without authorization where the activists trod, and those who do have permission must wear special shoes.The Nazca lines are huge figures depicting living creatures, stylized plants and imaginary figures scratched on the surface of the ground between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago. They are believed to have had ritual astronomical functions.

Greenpeace was so proud of their vandalism that they signed their name to it.Images BBCGreenPeace extremists have gone to great lengths to harass whaling vessels with rubber rafts and chain themselves to trees in the rain forest in order to protest what they consider to be the destruction of the planet, they don’t seem to mind personally destroying cultural treasures.Greenpeace Defaced Ancient Peruvian landmark:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvmpFm4xzAAGlobalPost.com reports that on Wednesday Greenpeace apologized to the Peruvian government for vandalizing and damaging one of the country’s cultural treasures in a campaign to fight Global Warming junk science: “Environmental group Greenpeace apologized Wednesday after Peru...

Peru has vowed to prosecute Greenpeace activists after they allegedly damaged the world-famous Nazca lines during an environmental publicity stunt. Activists from the group unfurled cloth letters spelling out a green energy slogan at the millennia-old site on Monday, adjacent to where the figure of a hummingbird is etched into the ground. Peru has said the activists damaged the ground by leaving footprints, which could last for thousands of years. “It’s a true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred,” Luis Jaime Castillo, the deputy culture minister, said. In a statement, the Peruvian culture ministry said: "After the...

The United Nations is holding climate talks in Lima, Peru, featuring delegates from 190 countries. To get their attention, the anti-science extremists of Greenpeace illegally entered a prohibited area adjacent to one of the most famous Nazca Lines. The activists trampled across the fragile, 1,500-year-old site to install large cloth letters reading: “Time for Change; The Future is Renewable.” To put it mildly, Peruvian officials are not amused.

When the stunt-planners at Greenpeace sent teams of activists to trespass this week at Peru's Nazca archeological site, they must have thought their bumper-sticker messaging would look good on a Facebook page next to the 2,000-year-old geodesic drawings. After all, the group is known for stringing banners from bridges and skyscrapers to draw attention to its environmental campaigns, and with U.N. climate talks taking place in Lima this week, the activists clearly wanted to make an impact. And so they have. The impact of their footprints on the fragile desert site, in fact, will last "hundreds or thousands of years,"...

The writing should be on the wall for this one, particularly since the Democrats have essentially lost coal country entirely, as Ed pointed out this weekend. Energy – and the millions of jobs associated with it – was featured on the campaign trail and proved a winning issue for Republicans. And now, as reported by The Hill, the new GOP majority in the Senate is gearing up to finally do more than just talk about it.

America is on the verge of energy independence. We now pump as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Investments in new technologies are paying off, buoying our economy with new jobs and lower energy prices. What's not to like? Well plenty, if you are an activist who takes your lead from an organization called 350.org that wants to end the use of oil, gas and coal. The "350" comes from the group's goal of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from its present level of 400 parts per million to 350. Its unclear what good such a...

Disciples of Gaia and the Deindustrialization of America Anyone who has followed the debate over climate change in recent years has probably noted the seemingly religious fervor with which the pro-alarmist crowd approaches the subject. Opposition to the environmentalist agenda of deindustrialization is not just viewed as wrong policy, but the rankest heresy. To deny that man-made global warming is going to destroy the Earth is tantamount to spitting upon the holy scriptures of the “green” faith. Opposition is not just misinformed or wrong-headed, but is actually sinful and evil, unholiness that cannot be allowed to continue by the Disciples...

Green groups are fearful of Republicans winning the Senate majority in November, predicting it could lead to a “whittling away” of environmental regulations at the hands of GOP leaders. While environmental groups are spending millions of dollars trying to save the Senate for Democrats, they acknowledge the possibility that they could be forced to play defense against an all-Republican Congress in 2015. “I think that the wholesale repeal of environmental legislation, repealing [Environmental Protection Agency] greenhouse gas authority, things like that, that’s unlikely to happen,” said Ben Schreiber, director of the climate program at Friends of the Earth. “It is...

The EPA and environmental groups are exceptionally close for a government agency and lobby groups, with a revolving door and pressure from the groups often shaping EPA’s policies, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group based on emails obtained in a yearslong battle with the agency. The report, which details what the Energy & Environment Legal Institute terms “collusion” between the Environmental Protection Agency and eco-friendly groups, is also a study in the way E&E; used open records laws to force transparency on a secretive agency. Chris Horner, the report’s author, said the emails show EPA officials...

Republicans are investigating what they call "improper influence" from a national green group on the Obama administration's signature Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate change regulation. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as well as Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, are demanding the EPA and the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) hand over documents on the organization's involvement in drafting the proposed carbon pollution rules. The investigation is based on a New York Times ' report that said the NRDC provided the blueprint used for the rules, and "heavily influenced the president's proposal." While...