Environment

Urging the government to "lead by example," President Obama ordered federal agencies on Monday to set ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cut energy use, save water and recycle more. The order calls for a 30% cut in vehicle fuel use by 2020, a 50% increase in recycling by 2015 and the implementation of high-efficiency building codes. It also instructs agencies to set goals within 90 days to reduce the heat-trapping gases scientists blame for global warming. The measures echo a Los Angeles sustainability program launched under the direction of then-Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley, who now heads the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday ordered the county's lobbyists to oppose any legislation in Sacramento that would ease environmental and planning regulations in order to clear the way for a proposed 75,000-seat professional football stadium to be built in the city of Industry. Gloria Molina asked her fellow supervisors to take that stand after recent reports indicated that backers of the stadium were aggressively lobbying state legislators. The Times reported last week that aides to top lawmakers appeared receptive to issuing California Environmental Quality Act waivers for the stadium, in light of the tough economy.

More trees are dying in the West's forests as the region warms, a trend that could ultimately spell widespread change for mountain landscapes from the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies. Scientists who examined decades of tree mortality data from research plots around the West found the death rate had risen as average temperatures in the region increased by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit.

Radhika Bhalla dreamed of empowering women in her native India by designing an attractive, multipurpose bicycle cart made of inexpensive, easily obtained local materials. At present, many rural Indian women must haul heavy loads of firewood and flour bags by hand, on foot. Bhalla calculates that the new carts could save up to five hours of walking per day. That, in turn, could help win over husbands who traditionally don't like to see their womenfolk getting too mobile and independent.

The Environmental Protection Agency put hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold Tuesday to evaluate the projects' impact on streams and wetlands. The decision by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson targets a controversial practice that allows coal mining companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands. Between 150 and 200 applications for new or expanded surface coal mines, many of them mountaintop removal operations, are pending before the federal government.

For a few terrifying moments in the early morning hours of the recent Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, authorities in Los Angeles were concerned that terrorists had launched an attack in a downtown subway station. Several people had been overcome by a cloud of noxious gas, causing at least two of them to begin vomiting and a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy to experience a burning sensation in his eyes and lungs.

The Interior Department on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration plan to open parts of the Mountain West for oil shale development, announcing that it would first study the water, power and land-use issues that complicate one of the nation's most abundant but controversial untapped sources of energy. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled shale development leases on federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and launched a second round of leases in the region limited to research purposes.

There are days when renowned Russian ecological crusader Marina Rikhvanova feels like an endangered species. She has gotten used to a certain amount of ambient harassment -- the intelligence agents rifling through her files, the bank accounts abruptly blocked, the phone she believes is bugged. It comes with the territory. As Russian President- turned-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has rolled back democracy and downsized civil rights, activists of all stripes have struggled to operate.

If the auto industry thinks it has problems now, wait until Barack Obama takes the wheel. Not long after assuming the presidency, Obama is expected to grant a waiver allowing California and more than a dozen other states to enforce their own greenhouse-gas emission standards on autos.

If swimmers in Santa Monica Bay bump into trash or bacteria this summer, one culprit will be California's budget impasse. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of voter-approved projects have been halted because of the state's financial problems. That includes $12 million that the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission was counting on to prevent dirty storm water and filthy runoff from draining into the bay. "People expect to be able to enjoy the beach and not come home sick," said state Sen.