By  Maxine Joselow , The New York Times. The New York Times. Excerpt: “Nobody wants a full blanket ban or zero exports of diesel,” [Energy Secretary Chris] Wright said. ...Asked why he did not see a brighter future for solar energy in the United States, Mr. Wright said, “Every day, actually, the sun goes down, it doesn’t produce power at all.” While it is true that solar panels can only produce power when the sun is shining, enormous batteries can store excess electricity generated during the day for use around the clock. Mr. Wright also defended the Energy Department’s cancellation of more than $7.5 billion in grants for clean energy projects in states that had voted for Democrats. He told Congress in June that politics had nothing to do with the decision. Federal officials later acknowledged in court documents that they had rescinded the funding “based solely” on political considerations....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/climate/chris-wright-trump-ener...

By Leonardo S. Miranda   et al, Science.  Editor's Summary: Restoring degraded ecosystems is increasingly recognized as necessary for maintaining biodiversity but may be less effective than avoiding degradation in the first place. Miranda et al . used counterfactual scenarios to compare the cost-effectiveness of different protection strategies in the Brazilian Amazon tropical forest, a globally important area for biodiversity and carbon storage that is threatened by deforestation and forest disturbances. Avoiding deforestation was most effective (and cost-effective) for carbon storage, whereas avoiding disturbances (fire and logging) had the most benefits for biodiversity. Restoration was least effective for both outcomes. Combining all three types of interventions was necessary to create net-positive outcomes, showing that restoration still has an important role to play. —Bianca Lopez.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx9928 . 

By Cynthia Silva , The New York Times.  For the first time ever, scientists recorded a sea turtle laying eggs on a beach on the U.S. West Coast. A fence was erected around the eggs of the olive ridley turtle.  Video at https://www.nytimes.com/video/science/earth/100000011167855/endangered-sea-turtle-california-beach.html .  See also CNN article Tropical sea turtles discovered nesting in California for the first time in recorded history , by Laura Paddison, Sept 25. 

By Dennis Clark , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Do forests cool the planet or warm it? It’s a deceptively simple question with no clear answer. The catch is that the same forest can push climate in opposite directions at once. Forests are widely viewed as climate change mitigators—and planting trees as a partial climate solution —because they absorb carbon dioxide. Yet that framing is incomplete . Trees also release reactive gases called biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) that can influence cloud formation, contribute to air pollution, and extend the atmospheric lifetime of methane, a greenhouse gas that can trap about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. Although largely invisible to the public, BVOC emissions are significant. They account for roughly 90% of the global mass of nonmethane volatile organic compounds entering the atmosphere [ Khan et al. , 2025]. In natural habitats, forest trees are the dominant sources of BVOCs. They’re responsible for the familiar scent of pin...

By Christian Schwägerl , YaleEnvironment360.  Excerpt: As researchers around the world begin work on the next U.N. climate assessment, fears are growing that the Trump administration could meddle with critical U.S. climate data. In response, scientists are preparing to transfer vast troves of that data to repositories in Germany. ...  Full article at https://e360.yale.edu/features/germany-us-climate-data . 

By Anna Conkling , Grist, and co-published with The Kyiv Independent .  Excerpt: On a spring day earlier this year, 10 men stood on the rooftop of a door manufacturing facility in the central Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva, surveying the rows of solar panels that surrounded them. Since Russia invaded in 2022, the town has endured repeated attacks, triggering mass power outages. For the factory, which supplies doors to homes and businesses, ...outages were particularly brutal in the winter, when limited power supplies led to rolling blackouts across the country. Some days, the employees burned discarded wood in a fireplace to keep the warehouse warm. ...Tired of relying on a grid that was being routinely bombarded by Russian missiles, Yaroslav, the facility’s owner, decided to switch to solar earlier this year. ...Volodymyr Hershtun, a service maintenance manager ...who led the project in Bila Tserkva, said ...“The enemy is trying to destroy energy infrastructure, and we are buildin...