Tomorrow night, cities all over the world will be participating in Earth Hour, when citizens are asked to turn out the lights and go unplugged for one hour to inspire awareness about global climate change and energy conservation. The annual event originated in Sydney, Australia, and is being championed in major metropolitan areas world-wide. But a quick check of the official participating cities list reveals that LA has opted to be in the dark for......

Photo by Skampy via Flickr For the second time in recent months, the federal government tells California that they ">cannot tell cars, and now, ships to lower their emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency argues that "unlike smog and diesel fumes, climate change is a global problem, not a state one," says the LA Times in their leading California section article today. And the EPA is right, it is a global problem. But time is......

Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Political Briefs and Dispatches from around California TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis gets to throw around his ideas and dreams for Los Angeles and Southern California on the KQED California Report's last of a 7-part series on climate change and California's water. We've heard them before here on LAist, but here he is in audio format in Monday's report: http://netzoo.net/audio/kathy.mp3"> Senator Hillary Clinton chimed......

Tribune Company CEO Dennis FitzSimons will be stepping down at the end of the year, letting Chicago businessman Sam Zell take over the company. The Tribune Company owns the Los Angeles Times. President Bush signed a huge Energy Bill yesterday, in hopes of "reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations of our country a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure."......

The Dodgers continued their off season wheeling and dealing, singing Japanese All-Star pitcher Hiroki Kuroda to a three-year deal believed to be worth $36 to $40 million. "This is a huge pickup for the Dodgers," said The Daily News' Tony Jackson, who may have been first to break the news. It's a lot of money, but winning the World Series does not come cheap. Just ask the Rockies. Two teens (age 18 and 19)......

So Merriam-Webster's word of the year is w00t. Sort of uninspiring, right? As in, aren't there thousands of other words that communicate so much more, mean so much more than the gamer battle-cry for "yes! i just killed your guy and i still have seven lives left!"?!?!? Surely there are more important things that happened in the word world than this, we kept thinking. Surely there were actual words that should have won. "Facebook" was......

Los Angeles is cleaning up after a wet weekend that drenched the southland and knocked out power to thousands. Want asthma? LAUSD is building seven new schools near freeways, despite scientific studies saying such construction could damage the children's lungs. Huell Howser is here. That's amazing! The city's neighborhood councils could be in for some major changes. Maybe now, you'll actually understand what they are. A Los Angeles man suspected of shooting his pregnant girlfriend......

If there's one thing I hate more than the MSM's obsessive coverage of the presidential campaigns, it's the gross fickleness and inanity inherent in the coverage itself. Given that the next president will need to tackle a whole host of weighty issues immediately upon taking office — global warming, the Iraq war, healthcare and the deficit, just to name a few — you might think the press would be busy providing in-depth and insightful......

Tod Brilliant is a self-made eco-celebrity and decided his top 10 list to share with LAist readers would be about the most critical websites that will help you learn to save our massively fucked planet. Now in his words: Surely you’ve heard of me, seen my billboards, listened to my interviews. I’m grateful to LAist for giving me yet another venue to promote my mission. My apologies if I’m approaching overexposed status. My team......

Truth be told, LAist hasn’t been dying to see a movie on opening night for a long, long time. But there is just something about global climate change as a result of a consumption-driven society that just gets us all in the mood – so we headed out to the ArcLight this week to see An Incovenient Truth. YOU MUST GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It will change your life, or at least the way......

A report released last month by the California Climate Change Center at UC Berkeley says that global warming presents California with valuable business opportunities. "Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California" says that "climate action in California can yield net gains for the state economy, increasing growth and creating jobs." In more simple terms, that spells ECONOMIC BENEFIT. If California is smart, our state could easily become "a leader in the new technologies and industries......

Will Arizona be a blue state, once Phoenix boasts scenic beach-front property?...