Our feature this month is a quick primer on climate change. Warnings about climate change are not new. The article Climate Change is Real distinguishes what is real from what is not. Barbara Lloyd McMichael writes about the health impacts on the firefighters who are working in hellish conditions to contain massive wildfires. In War and Peace, Annie Searle writes about the first stage of the Gaza Agreement, and the award of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. This month we also offer you three book reviews with environmental themes. Our special section is a roundup of essays about the wonder of trees. Dr. Peter Corning offers a fresh look at Evolution “On Purpose,” by examining the living organisms that determine the course of evolutionary history. –Patricia Vaccarino
Climate Change is Real Patricia Vaccarino The people who are in power would have you believe that climate change is a hoax, a con job, but they are intent on protecting their own financial interests. The crushing weight of the incontrovertible evidence of climate change proves it is a very real crisis.
Scorched Lungs! by Barbara Lloyd McMichael This year alone, more than 51,500 wildfires erupted across the United States. Even into October, over a dozen large fires along the West Coast are still classified as “uncontained” and thousands of wildland firefighters remain on the frontlines of those conflagrations, working in grueling conditions.
War and Peace by Annie Searle This past week saw the first stage of a Gaza Agreement agreed to by both Israel and Hamas (cease fire, hostage release, and prisoner exchange, as well as Israel moving back a border it occupies), and action should be realized this next week. Coincidentally, it was also the beginning of announcements of the 2025 Nobel prizes, perhaps the most highly prized global awards bestowed annually.
Environmental Lessons Abound at Historic House Museum by Barbara Lloyd McMichael House museums sometimes get a bad rap for preserving the past without providing relevant content or connections for current visitors, but the stately Hermitage Museum and Gardens in Norfolk, Virginia, has some surprises in store.
The Healing Powers of a Forest by Barbara Lloyd McMichael For starters, Tina Guldhammer Frei wants you to know that she is not a therapist: “My official title is ‘certified nature and forest therapy guide.’ In forest therapy, we say the forest is the therapist and the guide opens the doors.”
EVOLUTION ‘ON PURPOSE’: TELEONOMY IN LIVING SYSTEMS Co-edited by: Peter A. Corning, Stuart A, Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, and Richard Vane-Wright Essays in this collection grapple with topics ranging from the two-way “read-write” genome to cognition and decision-making in plants to the niche-construction activities of many organisms to the self-making evolution of humankind. As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes, “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”
The Wreck of Trees: A Work in Progress I am writing a new work of fiction that takes place on the North Coast of Oregon. The Mail Lady’s Confession is a journey into old-growth forest, to a world beyond the edge of the Pacific Ocean, where grief, compassion, and joy are interwoven and hidden in the rings on the trunks of old trees. - Patricia Vaccarino