ENVIRONMENT
Climate Change and Energy News
2025-11-29 “Global EV Sales Hit All Time Highs
“In the first half of 2025, global EV sales hit 9.1 million, a 28% increase over the same period in 2024. EVs now make up 23% of all new light-duty vehicle sales worldwide. September 2025 saw a record 2.1 million EVs sold globally — up 26% year-over-year.”
— source: Gasoline Phaseout News digital newsletter, 29 Nov. 2025, published by Coltura <coltura.org>
2025-09-12 Maxine Joselow, “E.P.A to Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters,” The New York Times, 12 Sep. 2025, Web. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
2025-09-08 Max Bearak, “‘China Is the Engine’ Driving Nations Away From Fossil Fuels, Report Says,” New York Times, 8 Sep. 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/climate/china-clean-energy-fossil-fuel-research.html
Summary: China is looking to corner the renewable energy market and end the fossil fuel era.
Habitat, Extinction, and Survival News
2025-08-17 Editorial board, “Restoring Bull Kelp is Critical in the Fight to Save Puget Sound,” Seattle Times, 17 Aug. 2025, Print, D3.
2025-08-16 Lynda V. Mapes, “Seattle writer Lynda V. Mapes thanks readers for decades of inspiration,” Seattle Times, 16 Aug. 2025, https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/lynda-mapes-goodbye-environment/
Lynda has done such a service to the people, wildlife, and habitat of Puget Sound by her coverage. Today’s career-overview article, written by an environmental journalist with decades of experience in the Pacific Northwest, informed me that “change is possible,” for it has occurred here in Puget Sound, but with the caveat that “there is also unfinished work.” Experienced, positive, real.
2025-08-03 Nice to read this along with other good news stories about successful intervention for salmon.
Isabella Breda (Seattle Times staff reporter), “Baker River sockeye storm back in record run—overcoming 2 dams,” Seattle Times, 3 Aug. 2025, Print, C1 & C2.
“Decades after hydropower operation nearly drove out salmon, intervention [a “complex series of concrete ponds, chutes—and even an elevator, a fish taxi and a hatchery] is helping fish to survive.
2025-08-03 David Gelles and Maxine Joselow, “INSIDE THE ‘RADICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL ROLE,” New York Times, 3 Aug. 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/climate/trump-epa-endangerment-finding-climate-change.html
From the article: “The E.P.A. said this week it would revoke its own ability to fight climate change. It’s the latest move in an extraordinary pivot away from science-based protections.”
God’s Nature
Humanity’s greatest environmental challenges on Earth . . . and what’s needed:
1. Climate Crisis . . . Climate Action
2. Biodiversity Loss . . . Habitat, Clean Environment, Species Preservation
3. Commodification of God’s Nature . . . Connection and Stewardship
2025-09-24 The following essay by Rainn Wilson’s comments on our need to connect spirituality with nature [Rainn Wilson, Opinion-Guest Essay, “ Rainn Wilson: What I Learned at a Fire Ceremony With King Charles,” New York Times, 24 Sep. 2025, Web.]
In the essay is a “20-5-3 rule,” written by the scientist Rachel Hopman-Droste, for spending time in nature. This I think will help me in my habits and planning. The 20-5-3 rule is “Go outside for 20 minutes three times a week, for example, a stroll or time in a park. Spend five hours per month in a semi-wild place such as a forest park, lake, or river. Spend three days once a year off the grid in a cabin, tent or on a boat without a cellphone.” MRM
A list of quotes by spiritual and environmental leaders through history is in The Green Bible. Interesting to see how our wonder at the miracle of God’s nature, though the details may be different, are similiar in different cultures and millennia.
SOCIAL ISSUES
Free Press
2025-09-24 Martin Baron (former executive editor of The Washington Post),Voices for the Free Press, “Global lessons for a press in peril,” The Seattle Times, 24 Sep. 2025.
Brief Summary: A review by a man of knowledge and experience of the times when our government was threatening our democracy and rule of law, and the role of the press in revealing those threats and so helping to correct them. Baron warns that now our press and our democracy are seriously threatened.
2025-08-29 Brier Dudley (Free Press Editor), “Too many Americans are losing faith in the role of journalists,” Seattle Times, 29 Aug. 2025, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/too-many-americans-are-losing-faith-in-the-role-of-journalists/
Dudley reviews a PEW Research Center survey, that was published 20 Aug. 2025 as ““How Americans View Journalists in the Digital Age.” As Dudley notes in many other Free Press articles, newspapers are closing around the country and many areas are becoming news deserts—without on-the-ground journalists reporting local events and politics.
2025-06-08 Alex Alben, Opinion, “THE DISINFO WARS“, Seattle Times, 8 June 2025, Print, D1 & D4.
A remarkable quote from this article: “Television commentators are no longer shamed or embarrassed . . . when a document they tout as genuine is established to be part of a false narrative.”
2025-06-06 Reed Anfinson (Swift County Monitor-News), “AS DEFINITION OF NEW EVOLVES, LOCAL NEWS REMAINS ESSENTIAL,” Seattle Times, 6 June 2025, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/as-definition-of-news-evolves-local-news-remains-essential/
2025-05-19 John Oliver, “Trump and the Press,” U-Tube,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JQr5W3970, 19 May 2025.
2025-05-18 A.G. Sulzberger (New York Times), “A FREE PEOPLE NEED A FREE PRESS,” Seattle Times, 18 May 2025, Print, D2 & D4, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-free-people-need-a-free-press/
A.G. Sulzberger is the publisher of The New York Times.
Health Care Costs
Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Governor of Arkansas), “MY STATE IS TAKING ON THE MIDDLEMEN WHO INFLATE DRUG PRICES,” New York Times, 10 June 2025, Huckabee Sanders about removing the middleman
Legislation, Politics, and Democracy
2025-11-16 The American Revolution. A film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt that airs on PBS.
As the “Cascade PBS Member News” Nov./Dec. 2025 writes, “‘From a small spark kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be extinguished,’ wrote Thomas Paine. Now Ken Burns’s much-anticipated film examines how the American Revolution ignited a movement for people around the world to imagine new and better futures for themselves, for their nations and for humanity. It opened the door to advance civil liberties and human rights and it asked questions that we are still trying to answer today.”
The American Revolution premieres November 16 (Sunday), at 8 p.m. on Cascade PBS.
2025-09-25 David Brooks (Opinion Columnist), “We Need to Think Straight About God and Politics,” The New York Times, 25 Sep. 2025, Web.
Brief Summary: Brooks surveys the role of religion in American politics in the past, and he writes of the different forms in which religion occurs in Americans’ discussions today.
2025-09-23 Thomas B. Edsall, Opinion-Guest Essay, “They Cheated Like Dogs, but We Got Them Back,” New York Times, 23 Sep. 2025, Web Brief Summary: A sobering article about the current assault on American democracy.
Now & Then & Etc 