Climate & Environment

Top Headlines

Malibu, CA - May 31: The owners of the properties at 27910 Pacific Coast Highway, center, and 27920 Pacific Coast Highway, left, installed fences, driveways, dumpsters and landscaping along the highway to obscure the public easement to Escondido Beach on Wednesday, May 31, 2023 in Malibu, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

‘Hidden’ no more: Coastal Commission OKs new public path to Malibu beach

The move will restore a long-obscured access point to Escondido Beach from Pacific Coast Highway, the first new ‘vertical’ path to a beach in Malibu since 2015.

Canadian wildfire smoke spreads hazardous haze through northeastern U.S.
Wildfire smoke has given New York the world’s worst air quality. Californians have some tips
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More recreation, fewer wetlands: Backlash prompts San Diego to compromise on plans to transform Mission Bay
Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in atmosphere hit another peak and show no signs of slowing

Stratford, CA, Thursday, May 11, 2023 - Sunset over the Tulare Lake canal. Farmers fear the canal is inadequately built to hold off the inevitable surge of snowmelt charging the King's River. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Boiling Point: Where’s the urgency?

An irrigation canal that feeds rice fields in Knights Landing, California on August 3, 2021.

‘Improvised, spotty and belated’: Will California reform its oversight of water rights?

WATTS, CA - JUNE 16: An aerial view of Atlas Iron & Metal Co., which is a metal recycler that has piles of metal scrap and debris adjacent to newly-built Jordon Downs public housing, shown at top right of photo, and Jordan High School Tuesday, June 16, 2020 in Watts, CA. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Outcry over recycling plant next to Watts high school appears to gain traction

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 06: Portions of the Exide Technologies, lead-acid battery recycling plant located in Vernon are wrapped in white plastic even as a press conference with state and local elected leaders was held at Resurrection Church in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles to express their opposition to Exide's proposed bankruptcy settlement, specifically in regard to the option for Exide to fully abandon the facility in Vernon and its responsibility to clean the environmental damage it caused. Resurrection Church on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020 in Los Angeles, CA. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

California toxics agency to publish lead cleanup reports for homes surrounding Exide plant

Wildlife

Grazing goats prevent California wildfires. New salary rules may jeopardize the industry
Central Valley flooding offers birds bountiful water. Will it also poison them?
She helped save one of the world’s rarest creatures from extinction — and herself along the way

Wildfires & Drought

Water concerns prompt new limits on growth in Arizona
The debt-limit deal could help clean energy. But probably not much
Majority of Californians fear worsening weather swings due to climate change, poll finds

California Policy & Politics

Benedict Canyon hotel project can proceed, for now, after City Council deadlocks
A luxury resort in L.A.’s Benedict Canyon? Fierce debate heads to the City Council
Opinion: The Supreme Court says California can regulate pork. That’s big, even if you’re not a pig

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Special reports

California started this community science project to document urban nature — now it’s taking over the world
Wildfires are getting worse. Can scientists save California forests from going up in smoke?
Repowering the West
Tracking California’s water supplies
The Colorado River: Where the West quenches its thirst
How toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes
The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim
California finds widespread water contamination of ‘forever chemicals’
California is spending $32 million on a fire prevention strategy that doesn’t work in high winds
As California’s recycling industry struggles, companies and consumers are forced to adapt

More Climate and Environment News

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The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season is now underway. Here’s what to know
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What causes the May gray that stubbornly blocks the sun for days in Southern California?
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Glendale woman sues Delta Air Lines over claims of carbon neutrality
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Judge orders halt to Ballona Wetlands restoration project
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Opinion: How to dig your way out of climate grief
Climate & Environment

Supreme Court scales back clean water protections. What does it mean for California?
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Cracks emerging in Europe’s united front to battle climate change
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Audit finds California water agency not adequately considering climate change in forecasts
Climate & Environment

FBI investigating hazardous fallout from Bay Area refinery
World & Nation

Judge says fire retardant drops are polluting streams but allows them to continue

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Plants and Gardening

Flower power and diplomacy: Versailles perfume gardens transport public back in time
8 L.A. trees to love that aren’t jacarandas
‘Queer ecology’ gave him new perspective. Take his hikes to find it too
Plant by plant, flower by flower, he created his own Shangri-La in a Griffith Park nook
They created a ‘safe space’ in South L.A. But can this beloved plant shop survive ‘gentrification?’