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residents within and near the monument's footprint, say they've been kept in the dark about the effects of the designation, and fear that the new status will hamper growth and fire safety. (A)bout 150 people protested Monday in front of the Pasadena office of Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park). Many said they were unsure about its potential effects on private property rights, flood control and emergency services. And the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors recently approved a resolution opposing a monument designation in its region, where there has not been a public meeting held to discuss the issues.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa may have surprised most of the medical establishment – this is the first such outbreak in the region – but the risk had been steadily rising for at least a decade. The risk had grown so high, in fact, that this outbreak was almost inevitable and very possibly predictable. All that was needed was to see the danger was a bat’s eye view of the region. Once blanketed with forests, West Africa has been skinned alive over the last decade. Guinea’s rainforests have been reduced by 80%, while Liberia has sold logging rights to...

Land-use conflicts between Barnett Shale wells and homes continues to pose a “major impediment” to Denton’s future quality of life and economic development, gas well administrator Darren Groth told the City Council Tuesday. The Council agreed, voting unanimously Tuesday to approve a moratorium on gas wells applications and permits through Jan. 20. This moratorium is separate from the Nov. 4 referendum to ban hydraulic fracking in the city of Denton, a first for Texas. The four-and-a-half-month extension gives city staff time to iron out problems with the city ordinance to prevent a repeat of what happened in the Vintage neighborhood...

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Greenpeace International says it is sending a ship out to protest the arrival of a tanker that is bringing the first oil produced at a new Russian offshore platform in the Arctic circle to Rotterdam. The environmental group said Monday it has sent the "Rainbow Warrior III" to meet the Russian-flagged Mikhail Ulyanov. Greenpeace spokesman Arin de Hoog could not immediately say Monday when the two vessels are expected to meet and what form the protest will take. In September, 28 of the group's activists and two freelance journalists were arrested and charged with piracy after a...

Sierra Club San Diego Chapter suspended The Sierra Club’s national board voted Friday to suspend its San Diego chapter for four years, a step that leaders said was needed to curb “ongoing conflicts and divisions” among local activists. “We have one objective, having a healthy, effective, working Sierra Club chapter in San Diego,” Sierra Club President Dave Scott said after the vote, saying the board had received many complaints about strife within the chapter. The organization’s leaders have provided few details about the nature of that conflict, but San Diego members and former officials attributed it to the Sierra Club’s...

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are certain about one thing, even though they do not acknowledge that Bigfoot is real: It is just as unethical to kill a Sasquatch as it would be any other animal. In a report posted by the CBS Houston on Jan. 30, the animal rights activists reacted to the idea much as expected, because to members of their organization, shooting and killing a living creature, whether it be for food or sport, is an atrocity. PETA spokesperson Lindsay Rajt told The Houston Chronicle: “As an organization we do oppose hunting of...

The transformation of American liberalism over the past half-century is nowhere more apparent than in the disputes now roiling a relatively obscure section of upstate New York. In 1965, as part of his "war on poverty," President Lyndon Johnson created the Appalachian Regional Commission. Among the areas to be served by the commission were the Southern Tier counties of New York state, including Broome, Tioga and Chemung. The commission's central aim was to "Increase job opportunities and per capita income in Appalachia to reach parity with the nation." Like so many Great Society antipoverty programs, the effort largely failed. The...

Environmentalist billionaire Tom Steyer is testing his influence in the Virginia gubernatorial election in support of Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, with his political group preparing to spend a large amount of money in the race. Steyer is a San Francisco billionaire who used to work as a hedge fund manager, and is using his super PAC "NextGen Climate Action" to launch television ads to mobilize environmentalist voters to turn out in the gubernatorial race in support of McAuliffe in the Old Dominion, Politco reports. Steyer told Politico that he hopes to send a message to the country about the power...

With massive protests already planned, environmentalists see new signs Obama is going their way. Environmentalists are promising mass arrests and acts of civil disobedience if the Obama administration moves forward with a controversial pipeline project through the Midwest — even as Obama's political arm seeks to use the project in its latest fundraiser. Opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline, which would run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, said they have more than 50,000 recruits ready to be jailed as part of one of the largest broad-scale direct-action protests in their movement's history. "With our Keystone XL pledge of...

The federal government posted 61 new regulations in the Federal Register on Friday, including the Department of Interior’s 500-page document outlining a new rule to protect the southwestern willow flycatcher’s “critical habitat” in six states. That small insect-eating bird’s habitat covers 1,227 miles of streams and 208,973 acres in California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, on “federal, state, tribal and private lands.” …

ALLENTOWN, Pa.-The new movie "Promised Land" digs into the fierce national debate over fracking, the technique that's generated a boom in U.S. natural gas production while also stoking controversy over its possible impact on the environment and human health. Written by and starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski, the film comes at an opportune time for a big-screen exploration of the issues surrounding the shale gas revolution, with cheap natural gas transforming the nation's energy landscape and "fracking" now a household word. But viewers shouldn't necessarily expect a realistic treatment of drilling and fracking. It's not that kind of film...

Alessandra Ambrosio Lands in Hot Water with PETA for Dyeing Her Dog Pink The Victoria's Secret model came under fire from the animal rights group after stepping out with her pink and purple pooch in Malibu It looks like this Angel is barking up the wrong tree. Alessandra Ambrosio is used to turning heads every time she steps out on the street, but it seems the Victoria's Secret supermodel drew the wrong kind of attention when she took her dip-dyed pink and purple pooch for a walk in Malibu on Thursday. The brunette beauty and mom of two came under...

Monterey biologist accused of feeding whale SAN FRANCISCO ---- A marine biologist who runs popular whale-watching tours on California's Monterey Bay has been indicted for violating federal laws that protect marine mammals. Nancy Black, a marine scientist whose work has been featured on PBS, National Geographic and Animal Planet, was charged Wednesday with four violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Her attorneys countered the charges by arguing that her interactions with the creatures were legal scientific research. She was accused of feeding killer whales in 2005 during a research trip, and misleading investigators by editing video footage of her...

The idea is to eliminate these types of plastic bags and certain types of paper bags from our landfills. To do that, the city is considering charging customers for these types of bags for three years, then eventually banning them from many stores across the city... The city's draft ordinance includes an education campaign for the public throughout all of next year, For three years after, the proposal includes retailers charge customers without a Lone Star Card, a 25 cent surcharge for each plastic or paper bag.

Yesterday's global-warming debate between John Kerry and Newt Gingrich was, as the moderator put it, "advertised as a smack-down and a prizefight." But those labels were too modest for Kerry. "Welcome to our environmental version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates," the former Democratic presidential nominee told the crowd in the Russell Caucus Room. "We flipped a coin, and I picked Lincoln." But something funny happened on the way to 1858. Gingrich, a former Republican House speaker, refused to play Douglas to Kerry's Lincoln, instead positioning himself as a tree-hugging green. Before Kerry got a word in, Gingrich conceded that global warming...

<p>First she was buoyantly up in a "dangerous" People's Park tree protesting "Everything," but now she's at Highland Hospital with a broken back, ending an eight-day protest which was a protest-in-progress.</p> <p>Her last fall from the tree was her second. She fell in her second day in the tree and was caught in the arms of a friend before she hit the ground. "Moon Shadow," who was first up, last Monday, reportedly took a plunge when—out on a limb—he helped attach a protest banner.</p>

Following through on Al Gore's green authoritarianism to a level of oppression that Joseph Stalin never thought of brings us to the realm of Bolivia's socialist strongman Evo Morales, a colleague of Hugo Chavez and the Castro Bros. Thanks to the pernicious, insidious, and likeminded United Nations, his flaky pre-Columbian brand of eco-totalitarianism may be going global: Bolivia will this month [present] a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country. The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened. The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth,...

The Obama administration revoked a permit on Thursday for Arch Coal Inc's (ACI.N) proposed Spruce 1 mountaintop coal mine in West Virginia, effectively shutting one of the biggest in the United States. "The proposed Spruce No. 1 Mine would use destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and clean water on which they depend," said Peter Silvan, an assistant administrator for water, at the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's final ruling under the Clean Water Act came after a scientific study, a public hearing, and a review of more than 50,000 public comments, the agency...

The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced to rewrite its guide on climate change and admit that it is not known how much warmer the Earth will become. The Royal Society has updated its guide after 43 of its members complained that the previous version failed to take into account the opinion of climate change sceptics. Now the new guide, called ‘Climate change: a summary of the science’, admits that there are some ‘uncertainties’ regarding the science behind climate change. And it says that it impossible to know for sure how the Earth's climate will change in the future...