The Green Dispatch year in review

And a look forward to 2026

I don’t usually do year-end reviews, but 2025 was a more than interesting year. Trump 2.0 assaulted the environment as no one has ever done before. And there were interesting developments, good and bad, in a number of environmental areas. So here goes, a Green Dispatch look back at 2025.

SoCal wildfires

Almost a year has passed since wildfires scorched Pacific Palisades and other neighborhoods of Los Angeles. There was much misinformation, largely politically driven, on the causes of the fires. I was glad to publish this story that countered the misinformation and disinformation promulgated by the press during and after the fires. I have knowledge and first-hand experience regarding fire, as the capstone project for my master’s degree was on Southern California wildfire. I also work with the chaparral and coastal sage scrub plant communities that blanket the hills and valleys of Los Angeles and San Diego. Three weeks after the first story, I described more fully the unique wonders as well as the constant threats to California’s chaparral.

Green cities

Our cities hold a lot of promise in leading us to a greener future. A recently developed concept is the 15-minute city, a metropolis that offers its residents the ability to take care of all their needs—schools, grocery stores, shopping, even dental and medical care—within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. It seems like one of the simplest and best ideas possible, but folks have politicized the issue and formed an opposition. (And you guessed right. The opposition is from MAGA.)

I was pleased to report on some ideas that were largely overlooked by the press. For example, urban greenery, the trees and flowers along our streets and in our city parks, can provide migratory resting spots for birds as well as habitat for native bees. Cities can also, surprisingly, serve as habitat for endangered species. And even the balconies hanging from our apartments and condos can become places to grow food or install solar panels.

Climate change

Climate change dominated headlines across the globe in 2025, and it was the topic of many Green Dispatches.

The carbon footprint of tourism increased, even for ecotourism. Glaciers are melting, retreating, and disappearing from the globe, prompting the United Nations to have declared 2025 the Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. Climate change is even exacerbating things as mundane (and annoying) as household mildew.

The world’s oceans quietly passed a planetary boundary in 2025. The CO2 we pump into the air is making them more and more acidic. A local story that I originally wrote for a San Diego publication featured the practices fishermen and farmers are making to combat climate change as well as adapt to the challenges of fishing and farming in a warmer world.

Rising temperatures and rising seas are jeopardizing life on and the very existence of small islands, particularly in the Pacific. The increased number and increased strength of climate-driven hurricanes are also threatening the remaining stands of longleaf pines, an icon of the American South. And climate change has accelerated to such a degree that the trees of the Amazon forests are having a difficult time adapting to changes in temperature and precipitation. A warming world is also bringing malaria-spreading mosquitos to Canada and more floods and droughts to Africa, while making drinking water more scarce the world over.

Politics

Lots of other folks write about politics, so I feel that I should shy away from the topic. But it turns out I write about politics way more than I would have guessed. As I am originally from West Virginia, I was interested and wanted to write about the EPA granting the Mountain State, despite its poor environmental track record, the authority to oversee carbon sequestration within its borders.

What makes this move noticeably odd is that it occurred with the arrival of of the new Trump administration and an EPA helmed by Lee Zeldin. Both Trump and Zeldin dispute the human causes of climate change and seem to think carbon sequestration is unnecessary.

A remnant of the Clinton Administration, the Roadless Rule has kept earth moving equipment, backhoes and other large machinery out of thousands of acres of our nation’s forests. Trump and his allies have been seeking to quash the rule, allowing for more logging, clearcutting, and fossil fuel extraction.

The Trump administration drastically slashed USAID funds. Many of these dollars went to countries in Africa, where the cuts are anticipated to increase suffering and deaths from malaria.

The hardhanded tactics of the Trump administration are having a chilling effect on many nonprofits, who are self-censoring in an age of right-wing hyper-PC vigilance.

Fun stuff

In years past, I’ve written about the health and environmental benefits of cycling. In May, this advocacy became personal when I bought an electric bike. I’ve shared my fun and discoveries here and even launched a separate Substack in which a friend and I share our adventures with our electric bikes: Two Old Guys, Two Bikes, and A Lot Of Electrons.

The year ahead

I don’t have a crystal ball, and even if I had one, I probably wouldn’t know how to use it. When I was a kid, people predicted we would be working a four-day workweek and driving around in flying cars. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted the end of history, and pollsters predicted Hillary Clinton as the wining presidential candidate in 2016. This leaves me wary of other people making predictions, too.

So the most I’m going to predict are things within my control. The scrubbing of information from government websites makes my tasks here more difficult, but I will continue to search for new and interesting science on the environment and write about it. And as far as I know, I’ve written about all the endangered and threatened species that I work with, so I most likely will not be continuing with In Touch, one of my favorite series with the Green Dispatch.

Book reviews will continue, so if you’ve written a book on the environment or know of an interesting one, please let me know about it in the comments. And finally, I hope to include more Doing Good posts. There are a lot of really terrific people out there working for the environment, and more folks should know about it.

If you have any thoughts at all on the passing of the old year and hopes for the new one, please hit that comment button and share. I’d love to hear from you.