For years, the debate over climate change centered almost exclusively on science: Is global warming occurring, and if so, are humans causing it? But with the economy still struggling, the argument has shifted to one of dollars and cents.

Sometimes success is about seeing the potential of a hole in the ground. Well, it also takes a lot of meetings too; just ask the guys who turned the gravel pit on Power Inn Road into what is now Granite Regional Park.

Smaller landfills, fewer forest fires and more renewable energy — these are just a few perks California would get from increasing biomass energy, some experts say.

South of Mather Airport is a grassy field popular with nature lovers and school field trips, particularly in the spring when the vernal pools are in bloom.

Two years ago, I wrote in this column saying that Republican Congressman Dan Lungren might be in trouble in the November 2008 election. It seemed like a stretch at the time. Lungren had won re-election in 2006 with 59.5 percent of the vote against a weak Democrat, emergency room physician Bill Durston. However, a look at party registration trends showed that the district was trending Democratic. By 2008, the large registration edge enjoyed by Republicans this decade had all but disappeared.

When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he vowed that if elected he would take up George Bush’s failed 2007 effort to reform the nation’s immigration policy, secure U.S. borders and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented persons who had lived in America for years. Since then, however, issues such as health care reform have pushed immigration to the back burner.

Sometimes, a building’s security needs can pop up unexpectedly during the design process.

How many farmers can say they spent their childhood bowling at Camp David or playing football with the Kennedy clan on the White House lawn? It’s the path Craig McNamara, 60, has taken from Washington, D.C., to his 450-acre organic walnut farm, and, at times, it was torturous.

It’s no secret that city leaders have cut jobs, programs and services as quickly and responsibly as possible in response to economic malaise. But the numbers still fall short of filling growing budget gaps in jurisdictions across the region.

Donna Lucas’ political acumen has made her one of the most respected public affairs strategists in the nation and one of the most influential people in California state government.