California

"California last week became the first state to integrate green building practices .... not everyone is thrilled about it."

"A $40 million federal stimulus project to drill up to 50 new wells in California moves forward despite drying aquifers and community complaints."

"California scientists have identified clusters of autism, largely in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, where children are twice as likely to have autism as children in surrounding areas. The 10 clusters were found mostly among children with highly educated parents, leading researchers to report that they probably can be explained by better access to medical experts who diagnose the disorder."

"A county board in central California approved the expansion of the largest toxic-waste dump in the West, despite concerns about an increase in birth defects in a nearby farming town."

A plan for the world's largest solar array in California promises clean energy -- but critics say green energy isn't always green.

"The protected areas would encompass 1 million acres containing wildlife, extinct volcanoes, sand dunes and ancient petroglyphs. The senator says the bill could be enacted in late 2010."

"Two degrees may be too much. That's the message from a delegation of ocean science and policy experts from Monterey's Center for Ocean Solutions and Stanford University, who traveled to Copenhagen to relay the staggering burdens of greenhouse gas emissions on the sea."

"In some hardscrabble East Bay neighborhoods, people die of heart disease and cancer at three times the rates found just a few miles away in more well-to-do communities. Children living near busy freeways in Oakland are hospitalized for asthma at 12 times the rate of young people in Lafayette's wooded housing tracts."