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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.

There’s a big holiday coming up and we wanted to make sure you were reminded far enough in advance to get a card. No… I’m not talking about Valentines Day. It’s Global Divestment Day! (Incidentally, Global Divestment Day, takes place on February 13th & 14th. Sounds like it should be Global Divestment Days to me, but what can you do?) This is apparently the day(s) when environmental activists push all of the colleges and universities to divest from fossil fuel companies because the money is evil or something. To spearhead these activities, the interested parties have tapped the talent and...

Why is it that both the Vatican and the Obama White House feel they can be so open and candid about their close collaboration? Is the Administration part of the Catholic Church or is the Church a mouthpiece for the Administration... or is Communism just a modern word for the Gospel, like Pope Francis says? Why do we keep hearing the same ugly messages wherever we look? In a bid to bolster the Obama administration's "moral" case for combating climate change, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency will meet senior Vatican officials Friday to enlist papal support for its...

He has been called the “superman pope”, and it would be hard to deny that Pope Francis has had a good December. Cited by President Barack Obama as a key player in the thawing relations between the US and Cuba, the Argentinian pontiff followed that by lecturing his cardinals on the need to clean up Vatican politics. But can Francis achieve a feat that has so far eluded secular powers and inspire decisive action on climate change? It looks as if he will give it a go.

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>