In this month’s blog:

Climate Log: Holiday Gifts to the Environment–and to Us Humans!

Climate Log 2: The “Unstoppable Worldwide Rise of Renewables”

Garden Update: Fresh in the Freezer

Presents through Presence: Visiting with Family

The December 2025 Photo/Video Gallery: Gifts from our Lakeside Community

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Parks, wetlands, and light rail: three features of the plans in Toronto for redevelopment of an outdated airport (see below)

Climate Log: Holiday Gifts to the Environment–and to Us Humans!

The current U.S. federal administration (now a year old) keeps doubling down on the fossil fuels that are steadily killing us. But Americans across the country are inventing ways to make or remake our fragile environment to be more resilient. Below, we link to 3 of these many gifts to us. We also note a 4th gift, from our friends in Canada, who have large plans to repurpose developed land to achieve life-friendly goals of health, beauty, and love for all creatures.

Gifts One and Two: “Fifty States, Fifty Fixes”–We’ve cited in past entries a few of the many climate-friendly projects from this ongoing NY Times series, and here are two more, both from so-called “red states” (which, as polls keep showing, are picking up more tints of blue).

In South Dakota, an organization of cattle ranchers is teaching others how to use Native American methods of “controlled burns” to remove invasive species, such as the Eastern Red Cedar, so that native grasses and their pollinators can return.

As new companies in Texas are demonstrating, the many skills needed to dig for oil and gas are being adapted to make the state a hub of innovation in the production of clean geothermal power.

Gift Three: Big Plans in Toronto to Make an Outdated Airport an Environmental Miracle

CNN’s “Inside the Abandoned Airport Being Transformed into a $30 Billion Sustainable City” (by Nell Lewis, December 11) describes in glowing detail the history of this early airport and Toronto’s ambitious plans to redevelop the land over 30 years into one of the largest and most innovative sustainable sites in North America.  

 Gift Four: The Data Rescue Project  https://www.datarescueproject.org/

Even as the EPA and other branches of the current administration race to hide vital information from scientists, from the economic and financial communities, and from the entire voting population, the Data Rescue Project (among other similar organizations) is working tirelessly to save information and make it available to us. While this rescue effort began during the first Trump administration, when scientific research data, especially about climate change, began disappearing, the erasure has ramped up exponentially this year across all government departments. So the Data Rescue Project has also intensified.

The specific data saving initiative pictured above, regarding erasure of the GIS (Geographic Information System) in September and October, is reported on by Frank Donnelly, Head of the GIS and Data Services of the Brown University Library. The saved data are available at https://www.datalumos.org. Of course, even more rescuers are needed by the Data Rescue Project.

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Climate Log 2: The Best Gift to Us and the Environment?  The “Unstoppable Rise of Renewables” Worldwide

Solar Farm in Wisconsin (Getty Images)

Once we in the U.S. look beyond the choking fog of fossil-fuel hype in the current administration, we can see that the best gift to the worldwide environment is the phenomenal growth of solar (and wind) power since 2000. In its lead article this week, “Good Morning, Sunshine,” the journal Science announced its “Breakthrough of the Year”: the “seemingly unstoppable growth of renewable energy.”

Led by China’s truly astonishing build-out, an example being steadily adopted by nations around the world, solar and wind energy are far out-stripping fossil fuels in installation since 2000. Why? Because of solar and wind’s cost effectiveness and clean simplicity. Indeed, says Science, “Wind and solar have become the cheapest energy in much of the world.”

Of China’s dominance in these new technologies, Science writes:

“China’s solar power generation grew more than 20-fold over the past decade, and its solar and wind farms now have enough capacity to power the entire United States.”

Perhaps it’s no wonder, then, that the current U.S. administration–given its marriage to 19th century forms of enegy–has done its utmost to prohibit new solar and wind projects in this nation. Just this week (Dec. 22) the President “paused” 5 wind projects off the East Coast, 3 of these already under construction. The five would have reduced power costs for millions of people, provided clean energy, and created 10,000 jobs:

“Trump Halts Five Wind Farms Off the East Coast”

“The decision imperils billions of dollars of investments,” as Maxine Joselow and Lisa Friedman reported in the New York Times.

Too bad that we the people don’t have a say about such capricious, harmful decisions. Nevertheless, Americans will keep on trying to make the environment cleaner, greener, and more healthy in ways that this blog and the free press will celebrate.

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Garden Update: Fresh in the Freezer

Our November garden update gloried in the rapid growth of the six broccoli and six cauliflower we’d planted in October. Since the calendar turned to December, however, we’ve experienced an inch of snow on the 5th and almost two weeks of freezing temps, getting as low as 16 on a couple days.  Fed by a polar vortex which has kept much of North America in the deep freeze since late November, our weather is much colder now than at any time over the 3.5 years since we’ve been back from California. 

So it’s fun to visit the frosty garden every few days to see how the plants above ground are doing. We know, of course, that underground nature is taking its course, and, almost before we know it, it’ll be driving toward spring and shoots will poke through the soil: species that we will take joy in identifying, some of which people may call weeds, but which we will enjoy watching grow into their curious individuality.

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Presents Through Presence: The Gift of Family

In the season of giving, there is no greater gift for us than the opportunity to be with members of our far-flung family, who have traveled to Northern Virginia from Georgia and California to share meals, conversation, ideas, and lots of laughter. We are joyful, of course, to revel anew in how the younger ones have grown in learning and wisdom, and how their parents’ strengths have surpassed ours when we were their age.

And what is true of our visiting family is equally true of the family who live near us, and who welcome us into their homes. And it is also true of those family who live far away and whom we visit this holiday season via phone, text, email, or video. Is it not amazing how their wisdom, care, humor, and love come through to us regardless of the media? Truly blessed and fortunate are we.

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The December 2025 Photo/Video Gallery: Snow, Ice, and the Serendipity of Wild Life

Almost every trip around our lake presents surprises, like the Hawks, the Bluebird, the White-Throated Sparrow, and the Northern Flicker pictured this month, or the Bald Eagle and the friendly White-Tailed Deer I wrote about last month. Their allowing us to see them–they are so good at hiding!–is a real gift. I like to think that they feel somewhat safe in our presence, despite the risks they run by being visible. I hope that safety is not just our illusion.

 

Male Cardinal perches, chirps, and munches in Sweet Cherry tree, southeast bank, crisp 

December 22

Song Sparrow in Japanese Honeysuckle, southwest shore, calls to fellow across the lake on a sunny December 16

From the gazebo across the lake, I scan goose by goose the line spread out along the southeast cove, December 14

Mallard pair flies north toward woods from southeast cove, then west into trees, cold morning, December 9

First snowfall of the winter: five Mallards swim along the east shore as flakes fall, December 5

And so we move into the last week of this challenging 2025, as always with hope for a Happy New Year…