Climate change activists who advocate alternative energy developments and defenders of the natural environment are increasingly finding themselves at odds, a conflict that is now playing out on two ridgetops near Dillon Beach, in northwestern Marin County.

Petaluma garage owner Chips Armstrong, one of the group trying to block the installation of the dual weather towers, explains that his opposition is based in part  on the sizable subsidies being given to wind power developers.

David Williard of Sage Renewables, believes that the mistakes made 30 years ago when the Altamont wind farm was first built still color the debate over wind power today, even though modern methods have eased most of those impacts.

The proposed locations for the two test towers are shown on the map below.

The number of plants and animals listed as threatened or endangered is almost constantly growing. But only rarely does a species that was thought to be extinct make a come-back to join the endangered list. This is the story of just such a recovery, in the coastal hills of the North Bay.

It's now been a little more than 17 years since Connors made that first surprising discovery, but he clearly remembers the surprise and concern that accompanied that moment.

 Finding that single specimen in the first place was an enormous stroke of good fortune, Connors readily admits, and the fact that it survived to bear seeds seems nothing short of miraculous. Because even after he surrounded it with an improvised wire cage to protect the clover from hungry herbivores, it still narrowly escaped two nearly fatal encounters with inattentive humans, just in a mater of days. Connors recalls thatfortunatley it was his practice to stop by and check on the plant every other morning that late summer.