Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland carries the committee's final report as he departs after the final public meeting of the U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 19, 2022.

The Jan. 6 House select committee is set to release its final report on the events leading up to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted Congress’ tallying of the 2020 Electoral College votes, a hallmark of American democracy and key aspect of the peaceful transition of power.

The report marks the culmination of the nine-member panel’s work over the past 18 months, during which it obtained thousands of documents; interviewed hundreds of witnesses, including senior Trump White House advisers and lawyers; and held 10 hearings. The committee provided a heavily footnoted account of former President Donald Trump’s strategy to challenge Joe Biden’s 2020 Electoral College win that will no doubt be studied by historians for decades to come. Its goal? To prevent any similar attacks on American democracy going forward. 

“Our greatest legacy, our most enduring legacy, would be one that is certified by time, which is that we never encounter anything like this again,” says Rep. Jamie Raskin, a constitutional lawyer and Democratic member of the committee.

An initial 161-page summary reflects the summer hearings’ tight focus on the strategy by Mr. Trump and his allies to challenge the 2020 election results. Many, including police officers who were on the front lines that day, have praised the committee for this narrow focus. It made for more compelling storytelling, they say, and an unequivocal stand for moral and political accountability. In its summary, the committee details Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in the courts, by pressuring state legislators and election officials, and finally by pursuing a strategy to disrupt the congressional proceedings on Jan. 6, overriding the objections of White House advisers and lawyers, as well as his own vice president. On Monday, the committee referred Mr. Trump to the Department of Justice for possible charges, including inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Sgt. Aquilino Gonnell, who testified at the first Jan. 6 hearing and has attended every subsequent hearing, says he believes the former president is guilty. 

“He left me and my fellow officers for more than three hours and at the Capitol fighting for our lives, 16 blocks away while he was watching TV,” says Sergeant Gonnell, whose career was cut short due to the injury and trauma he suffered as a result of the riot. He says he hopes the Justice Department will avail itself of the evidence amassed by the committee.

But some say it was an oversight not to also examine holes in the defense that left the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) unprepared to thwart the masses of rioters who broke into the citadel of American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021. Some were hoping to see more of that in the final report, but the initial summary gave little indication that it would delve into why Capitol Police did not share intelligence warnings they received and plan accordingly.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

A committee staffer gathers nameplates of members after the conclusion of the final public meeting of the U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Dec. 19, 2022.

“I was really disappointed that the Jan. 6 select committee didn’t dive into any of that and dissect the leadership failures of the USCP in any of their hearings,” says Gus Papathanasiou, a Capitol Police officer who chairs the USCP labor union.

Anything new since the hearings?

The contours of the initial summary largely mirror those of the summer hearings, with a few exceptions.

The main new material regards the nonbinding referrals of Mr. Trump and his lawyer John Eastman to the Justice Department for criminal charges, and a handful of GOP lawmakers to the House Ethics Committee for failing to comply with the committee’s subpoena requests.

“Ours is not a system of justice where the foot soldiers go to jail and the masters and ringleaders get a free pass,” said Representative Raskin, who detailed the committee’s justification for the referrals based on the gravity, centrality, and severity of Mr. Trump’s actions.

A key theme is that Mr. Trump knowingly peddled a lie to his followers for his own political benefit, raising roughly a quarter billion dollars while doing so. A side-by-side comparison details 18 instances between the election and Jan. 6 in which Mr. Trump’s inner circle would debunk a specific election fraud claim only for the president to repeat it days later. The summary also provides a detailed ticktock of the meetings leading up to Jan. 6, in which Mr. Trump grew increasingly frustrated with his inner circle and eventually turned on his vice president, who was overseeing the joint session of Congress that began just as Mr. Trump concluded his speech to supporters gathered near the National Mall.  

One notable omission was White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson’s secondhand account of the president, upon leaving the rally and being told he couldn’t join the protesters at the Capitol, lunging for the neck of one of his Secret Service agents. Her recounting of that episode was one of the most dramatic pieces of testimony this summer. The summary cited numerous sources saying the president was angry, but did not repeat the claim of physical aggression. 

Addressing criticisms

The committee devoted a section to establishing the credibility of witnesses central to its case, including Ms. Hutchinson. The committee also raised questions about the veracity and completeness of several others’ testimony, as well as concerns about efforts by the former president’s allies to pressure witnesses to withhold incriminating information, including with financial incentives.

Amid criticism that the hearings did not address Capitol security failures, the summary included a section on intelligence warnings received prior to Jan. 6 that made clear that protesters were targeting the Capitol, were planning to get inside to disrupt the proceedings, and were willing to use violence – even at the cost of losing their own lives. 

After Mr. Trump urged his followers in a Dec. 19 tweet to join a big protest on Jan. 6 – “Be there, will be wild!” – supporters described it online as a “1776 moment” that called for a patriotic stand against tyranny.

“We get our President or we die,” read one online thread quoted by the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia, in a Jan. 5 alert to law enforcement agencies.

The report credited intelligence agencies with detecting this planning and sharing it with the White House and the Secret Service, and also noted that Capitol Police had received at least some warnings. It did not, however, examine why those warnings were not more broadly shared and acted upon. Instead, the main fault it found with intelligence and law enforcement entities was not collecting intelligence on Mr. Trump’s plans for Jan. 6, which struck some as an odd twist.

“I read that and I was just absolutely flabbergasted because some components of these agencies did collect information, but broadly speaking, they did not act,” says Quinta Jurecic, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

The glossing over of systemic failures within intelligence and law enforcement detracts from the committee’s otherwise incredible work, she has written and reiterated in the interview. But, she adds, “it blows way past just not addressing it, in favor of – I would argue – contorting the facts and presenting the issue in a misleading manner in order to further point the finger at Trump.”

This redirect toward the president may reflect internal divisions within the committee, reported earlier this month by The Washington Post, over how much to focus on Mr. Trump to the exclusion of other issues. The committee’s release of the 161-page summary detailing the case against the former president may have been a compromise, putting the early attention on Mr. Trump with other aspects being included in the full report.

Lastly, the summary addressed criticisms that the committee was politically biased, detailing the process that led to the formation of a nine-person committee with only two Republicans – both vocal Trump critics. In early 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s conditions for a bipartisan commission, including equal representation for Democrats and Republicans, but he opposed it at the 11th hour and Senate Republicans blocked it. Speaker Pelosi then formed a House select committee under different terms, and rejected two of the five nominees put forward by Leader McCarthy, who then rescinded the other three.

The committee has touted its bipartisan cooperation. Listing the witnesses, the report notes that all but one who have a political affiliation are Republican. Still, many other Republicans say the lack of alternative perspectives undermined the committee’s credibility and kept it from investigating serious issues, including why Capitol Police weren’t properly equipped, trained, or informed of the intelligence warnings.

“Those are the issues that deserve a lot more attention,” says GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who would have been the top-ranking Republican on the Jan. 6 select committee if not vetoed by Speaker Pelosi.

Instead, he spearheaded a report on Capitol security that will outline recommendations to be implemented by House Republicans when they take control of the chamber next month, just ahead of the two-year anniversary of the Capitol attack.

Ms. Jurecic of Brookings says it’s unfortunate that the committee’s lack of attention to such issues allows Republicans to make political hay and undercut the credibility of the rest of the report. 

“It just seems like a huge unforced error,” she says, adding that she hopes to see more in the final report. 

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a post-election ceremony in which Israel's president gave him the mandate to form a new government, in Jerusalem, Nov. 13, 2022. Mr. Netanyahu has sought to assuage public concerns over his concessions to ultra-Orthodox members of his incoming coalition.

A new, far-right government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to officially take office, but already a public revolt is brewing.

It’s not against the coalition’s looming plans to seize more West Bank land or to undermine the independence of Israel’s judiciary, but rather the handover to religious extremists of key facets of the country’s education system.

Indeed, among the numerous flash-points this new government – expected to be sworn in next week – may exacerbate are fundamental questions surrounding Jewish values and civic identity in Israel, which was founded both as a liberal democracy and as a homeland for Jews.

Alluding to this month’s Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, termed the Festival of Lights, Israel’s largest parent association wrote as a protest rallying cry in early December: “We’ve come to expel darkness.”

In quick succession, hundreds of schools and dozens of municipalities across Israel signed on to the petition by the parent association rejecting any radical changes to the education curricula. Demonstrations were called, and in a move never before seen in Israeli politics, still-serving centrist Prime Minister Yair Lapid joined in protests against the government that is set to replace him.

This is “the most extreme and the most insane government in the country’s history,” Mr. Lapid told protesters in Tel Aviv, a bastion of liberalism and secularism, “but we aren’t going to surrender, we are here to stay.”

The Nov. 1 general election returned a clear parliamentary majority for Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party and its right-wing allies, which include Jewish ultra-Orthodox and far-right ultranationalist factions. According to coalition agreements already signed, Mr. Netanyahu has given his more radical partners unprecedented powers over the national police, government policy in the occupied territories, most issues of religion and state, and integral parts of the education system.

“Traditional values” and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric

No one individual serves as more of a focal point for Israel’s current debate over identity and values than Avi Maoz, whose extreme religious-nationalist Noam party ran on a campaign of “traditional” family values and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

Despite Noam securing a solitary seat in parliament, Mr. Netanyahu granted Mr. Maoz a deputy ministerial post with control over all external curricula allowed in mainstream secular schools in the vast state-run education system. Additional responsibilities include a new amorphous “Jewish Identity Authority.”

Mr. Maoz was the “darkness” alluded to by the parent association and demonstrators this month, who all vowed to resist, in their words, any education that allowed or preached “the denial of the rights of others based on religion, ethnicity, or gender.”

Their concerns appear justified.

Maya Alleruzzo/AP

Israeli lawmaker Avi Maoz speaks on the phone as members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, prepare to vote, in Jerusalem, Dec. 13, 2022. Mr. Maoz, whose religious-nationalist party ran on a campaign of “traditional” family values and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, was given a key deputy ministerial education post in the incoming government and responsibility for a new, amorphous “Jewish identity authority.”

Mr. Maoz recently promised to cancel the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem, calling it a “march of abomination and prostitution,” and has in the past supported so-called “conversion therapy” treatments and eliminating sex reassignment surgeries. He has also said a woman’s role in life is to raise a family and have as many children as possible, and certainly not to serve in the military.

Pedagogically, Mr. Maoz has vowed to remove the influence of what he has termed foreign-funded “radical, progressive, left-wing NGOs” who “want to make the State of Israel into a country like any other country.”

In a speech to parliament Dec. 7, Mr. Maoz slapped back at his critics, promising to strengthen the Jewish identity of both Israel and Israelis.

“Anyone trying to harm real Judaism is what is dark,” he said. “Anyone trying to manufacture a new and supposedly liberal religion is what is dark.”

Concerns even in Likud strongholds

For the vast secular Israeli mainstream – which is still a strong plurality at 45% of adults in the country, according to official government figures – such talk is anathema to their personal and civic identities.

“I’m totally horrified by it all – not just Avi Maoz specifically but also the ultra-Orthodox parties and the entire direction of the new government,” says Ariel Levy, a father of two in north Tel Aviv.

“I don’t deny that there’s a Jewish nation, and obviously religion is part of that identity, and there should be space for religious schools. But for me and my children living in Tel Aviv I want to see more math and science and English literature, and as little religious study as possible. With this new government I see things becoming more illiberal and less open.”

The concerns emanating from Tel Aviv were to be expected. The city’s mayor, Ron Huldai, went so far as to tell a television interviewer in early December that the country was shifting “from a democracy to a theocracy.” A massive 12-story re-creation of Israel’s Declaration of Independence was hung on the side of Tel Aviv City Hall, with the message being that its values of full equality and protections should be heeded.

Yet beyond Tel Aviv, even in traditional Likud party strongholds, some local officials have also voiced their concern about Mr. Maoz’s program.

The mayor of the southern city of Ashdod, himself a Likud member, issued a statement promising to uphold his education system’s “cultural, social, and religious diversity … with tolerance, mutual respect, and full equality of opportunity” for every student.

Ariel Schalit/AP/File

Participants march in the annual gay pride parade in Jerusalem, June 3, 2021. Avi Maoz, a religious-nationalist partner in the incoming government who is a focal point for Israel’s current debate over identity and values, has promised to cancel the parade, calling it a “march of abomination and prostitution.”

How much pressure on teachers?

Educators themselves appear wary about Mr. Maoz’s intentions, yet skeptical regarding his ability to institute wholesale changes to the system.

Nir, a father of two and high school teacher in the central city of Rishon Le’Tzion (where Likud won a third of the vote last month), says Israeli society has become less secular in recent decades and more religiously traditional, if not wholly Orthodox. As such, he did not see a major problem increasing the hours devoted to Jewish identity or Torah studies – but not, he stressed, at the expense of subjects like English, math, or science.

“The agenda of Maoz and the others [future government members] is clear, they don’t hide it. They’re missionaries who view secular society as an ‘empty vessel’ and Israeli secular identity as flimsy and weak,” says Nir, who asked to withhold his last name.

“But how exactly will a minister or clerk in Jerusalem dictate to us what to teach or what topics are brought up in a classroom by the students themselves? At the end of the day, it comes down to one teacher standing in front of a class.”

Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, has already tried to assuage the public’s concerns, not just with regard to Avi Maoz’s agenda but the entire litany of concessions and powers that may be granted to his other ultra-Orthodox partners.

The potential changes floated so far include amending the Law of Return, which allows foreigners of Jewish descent to immigrate to Israel, on the grounds that many of them are not genuinely Jewish. Some future government ministers have demanded revoking official recognition of Reform or Conservative Jewish conversion processes, an issue of particular importance to American Jewry. There reportedly have even been calls to halt soccer matches and electricity generation on the Sabbath and increase the number of gender-segregated beaches.

“Let me reassure you … there is and will be electricity on the Sabbath. There are and will be beaches for everyone. We will uphold the [religious] status quo,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a Knesset speech Dec. 15. “Everyone will live in keeping with their beliefs, there will not be a halachic [Jewish law] state here.”

The price of power

For Mr. Netanyahu’s many secular supporters, the religious agenda promoted by his allies is perhaps not ideal, but understood as simply the price for regaining power.

“Sadly these are our partners, and I mean sadly,” says Yael Katzir, a secular mother in southern Israel who, despite the contours of the incoming government, does not regret voting Likud.

“I’m less scared of the ultra-Orthodox than I am of the Israeli left and their partners, the Arab-Israelis, who want to erase us,” she says, meaning Jewish Israelis writ large. “I’m not religious, but we shouldn’t be afraid of our traditions. At the end of the day, we’re Jews.”

Ms. Katzir highlights the fact that Mr. Netanyahu was going to be prime minister, and the Likud was historically a secular party committed to personal freedoms and economic liberalism, albeit right-wing and nationalist. “I don’t think anyone will let [Avi Maoz] get to a situation where he can implement all these plans,” she adds.

Analysts are less sanguine, pointing out that Mr. Netanyahu needs his more extreme partners to potentially halt his ongoing corruption trial, so the balance of power inside the next Israeli government remains to be seen.

As Nir, the more skeptical high school teacher, points out: “If they do push it too far, there will be a genuine civil revolt.”

In a room heaped with presents, Dariia Achkasova reaches behind a pile of cardboard boxes and pulls out a stack of Christmas letters. They’re mostly just A4 sheets of paper decorated with drawings – a St. Nicholas here, a cat there. She flips through them, choosing some at random to read aloud.

“I’m three years old. I come from Bakhmut. Please give me a radio-controlled car as a present.”

“I’m already 12. I’m kind of a grown-up boy, but I want a stuffed toy because when I was a child they used to protect me.”

“Dear St. Nicholas, I really want peace to come finally,” reads Ms. Achkasova. “We want to go back home.”

Ms. Achkasova sets the letters down on cardboard boxes stacked waist-high. Filling the room are toys – Lego sets, stuffed animals, soccer balls, beanbags, Harry Potter books, and goodness knows what else – scattered as though every parent in Svitlovodsk, a small city in central Ukraine, were running late for the holidays and had chosen this same small room in an office building to get organized.

The cheerfully chaotic scene is the work of St. Nicholas’ Reindeer, a volunteer group that for the last seven years has distributed Christmas gifts to children near Ukraine’s front lines. The letters come in the thousands from children living in war-torn areas. The Reindeer’s job (there are four of them working today) is to process letters, match the requests with donors, sort presents, and prepare them for Christmas delivery.

Over the past seven years the group has sent gifts to almost 5,000 children. It has gotten 1,630 letters and counting this year alone. Many come from previously peaceful areas that have become war zones since the Russian invasion.

“We are working with kids who are very often traumatized by war,” says Inna Achkasova, Dariia’s mother and one of the group’s founding members. “We want children to enter another frame of mind, to think about what they actually want and to start dreaming. That takes their attention off the war.”

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

The Reindeer keep a collection of letters sent by children in the Donbas region to St. Nicholas, Dec. 2, 2022. Since the war began, some children have started asking for the gift of peace.

You can tell them by their antlers

The idea was born in the fall of 2014, after Russian-supported separatists seized parts of eastern Ukraine in the Donbas region. The elder Ms. Achkasova and a friend, Yevheniia Levinstein, heard from colleagues filming a documentary about fighting in the Donbas.

They told the women that while adults in the conflict zone could get by with what they had, children’s needs were more often neglected.

“We had the idea of inviting letters from children with their Christmas wishes,” says Ms. Achkasova. “It was a group idea,” she jokes, “from the North Pole.” (St. Nicholas is the Ukrainian Santa Claus, whose name derives from the saint.)

Drawing on volunteers in the Donbas, and visiting the area themselves, the Reindeer started collecting letters. They expected to receive 200 to 300. They got 1,200.

From there, the program snowballed. The network grew to 40 villages and the number of letters received tripled as the years went by. There have never been more than 10 Reindeer, and “we were overwhelmed,” says Ms. Levinstein, wearing Crocs and furry reindeer antlers.

They start accepting letters in November, from children under age 12, and begin deliveries in mid-December, around St. Nicholas Day. Many families in Ukraine celebrate Christmas on Jan. 6, following the Ukrainian Orthodox Church calendar. Most exchange gifts, though, on New Year’s Day itself, in a holdover from Soviet times.

The Reindeer collect all the letters and post photos of them on their social media channels. Donors – whom the Reindeer call “wizards” because they make magic happen – then choose the letter (or letters) they want to respond to and send the appropriate presents to the Reindeer clearinghouse in Svitlovodsk.

The local post office has designated a special place for Reindeer deliveries. All the volunteers need to do is show up in their reindeer antlers, says Maksym Slodzek, a member of the team, and the post office workers hand over the parcels.

After the presents are sorted and wrapped, which can be difficult because they sometimes arrive without any identifying information, the Reindeer arrange them in stacks grouped by destination along a wall.

They are then posted to their intended recipients, though the Reindeer make occasional drop-offs themselves. They keep an album containing photos of children opening their gifts, often astonished that St. Nicholas has answered their letter.

“It’s really inspiring when you realize that the child received the present that they actually wanted,” says Ms. Levinstein. “Many children don’t expect that.”

War makes “everything different”

The Reindeer were still making their final deliveries of the season when full-scale war broke out last February. One day, while they were distributing beanbags in the Donbas, shells began exploding around them. “We felt like the war was following us everywhere,” says Ms. Achkasova.

The war has disrupted their work. The database with contact details for volunteers is out of date, since more than half of them have left their homes or are now living beyond reach, under Russian occupation. A lot of children are also on the move, making them hard to reach.

“Literally everything is different,” says Ms. Levinstein.

But they are undeterred. One day earlier this month, the Reindeer’s office was nearly full – with only a quarter of the presents they expect to gather this year, the younger Ms. Achkasova explains. The building is letting them use another room for overflow. “It’s kind of anarchy,” says Mr. Slodzek.

Over the years, other groups have started programs similar to theirs, which they welcome. Part of their mission, they say, is to engage Ukraine’s civil society. So the more the merrier.

After the invasion, the Reindeer didn’t know whether their program would survive. There were higher priorities for aid, they thought, and people would rather donate to the military. At a certain point, they were ready to move on. It turned out their donors weren’t.

“At the moment when we were hesitating, we started receiving letters and messages” from donors, says Ms. Levinstein. “They really wanted to help.”

Without their normal volunteer lists, the Reindeer needed parents to step up, soliciting letters and organizing parcel deliveries themselves. They have met the need.

“That,” says Ms. Levinstein, “is what we see as the real miracle.”

Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this article.

The Christmas tree in your home was grown with a purpose. It was planted and nurtured until it had matured enough for sale. It was then cut down and hauled to town, where families scowled over it in search of the perfect sapling for this year’s holiday season celebration. 

Then comes the decorating, the gifts beneath its boughs, and joyous moments near its gentle light.

But when the ornaments leave the branches, its purpose ends there. Like torn gift-wrapping paper, the tree then departs for the final leg of its journey, which in some cases is a landfill. 

Louisiana takes a different path. For more than 20 years, the City of New Orleans, Louisiana National Guard, and the state’s Wildlife and Fisheries Department have partnered to extend the function of expired holiday trees by dumping thousands into coastal marshlands. Once there, the trees help bind the disappearing shore as they slowly decompose into sediment. Every little bit helps, coastal officials say. In nearly a century, Louisiana has lost roughly 2,000 square-miles of marshland as a result of human engineering and environmental degradation such as oil spills. 

The most festive time of year – the winter holidays – is also the most consumptive. Americans generate about 25% more trash than usual between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. That considerable increase equates to about 25 million tons of additional waste during the holidays, according to estimates cited by Stanford University and the University of Colorado. That’s why efforts like the one here in Louisiana are important – mitigating a significant problem and perhaps engaging the public in positive ways.   

“When I say it’s marginal, it’s in terms of the wetland functions we get out of it,” says John Nyman, a wetland wildlife ecologist at Louisiana State University, who’s observed the tree recycling program’s effects in recent years. “What turns out to be more important is the connection it allows people to have to our coast.” 

Most waste still heads to landfills or incinerators

Even marginal steps toward waste reduction or more responsible disposal can make a difference, as more people follow them. 

There are over 20,000 local governments across the U.S. Many are involved in their own means of creating paths for residents to recycle waste. (Some communities grind up old Christmas trees into mulch, for instance.) Through those local efforts, overall rates of recycling and reuse have risen to roughly 32% of the more than 292 million tons of U.S. municipal solid waste produced as of 2018. Half of all waste goes to landfills, and another 12% is burned for energy. 

For companies like Hallmark, winter holidays are the peak sales season. The company estimates that more than 1.3 billion cards are sent annually in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Many of those then make their way into the trash bin. Often, that waste begins a journey into communities where its environmental effects will fall heaviest on poor residents and disproportionately on African Americans or other racial minorities. A study by the New School found that 80% of incinerators in the U.S. are located near low-income communities. 

“What we purchase, how we act, and what we do has implications that are felt globally,” says Cody Marshall, chief optimization officer at the Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the circular recycling economy. “I think we’re able to see that impact and how we help each other.”

Helping each other – in particular, coastal Louisianans – has been the basis of the state’s tree recycling program. The effort predates Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which exacerbated coastal erosion, as well as human-made catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

Michael DeMocker/The Times-Picayune/AP/File

A Waste Management employee loads up a discarded Christmas tree on Jan. 12, 2006, in Terrytown, Louisiana, as Jefferson Parish gears up for this year's Christmas Tree Project. The trees were to be used in one of 34 shoreline restoration and erosion control projects in Lafitte-area wetlands.

It’s part of a larger sustainability push in New Orleans, a city that has been struggling with dysfunction in its waste collection.  

New Orleans officials hope the tree recycling program helped set the tone for later efforts. They’re currently in the process of adding to their slate of sustainability goals, starting with a social media campaign to spread the word not to use artificial decorations like tinsel on trees. 

It could harm our coast, says Cheryn Robles, New Orleans environmental affairs administrator. By contrast, she says the tree recycling project is tangibly helping. “You’ll see where the marsh has grown,” she says, referring to online photos of the results. 

“People are driving the conversation” 

Among the prior complexities that have hindered local recycling efforts is funding – a barometer that’s starting to shift when it comes to federal assistance.

In November, the Environmental Protection Agency announced $100 million in grants for recycling infrastructure, recycling education, and outreach projects across the nation. The grants are funded by the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s investment of $375 million in waste prevention. 

It represents the EPA’s largest investment in recycling infrastructure in roughly three decades. 

“People are driving the conversation,” says Mr. Marshall. “It’s been fantastic to see, whether it’s how people are voting, how people are buying – it’s clear consumers want sustainable products.”

That desire can also be a connecting force. 

Programs like tree recycling are “an annual reminder about our problem,” Professor Nyman says of the state’s disappearing coastline. “It’s an annual reminder there are things we can do to help out.”

The city of Blanco sits on the edge of darkness, and it’s trying to stay there.

Nestled in the rural Hill Country of Central Texas, the 1,700-person town is growing – but locals are wary of losing the longtime neighbor they all share: the neighbor that lives overhead. 

“For our citizens it’s really important to keep our small-town charm,” says Rachel Lumpee, the city’s mayor. “And part of that charm is being able to see the Milky Way.” 

Blanco is confronting a challenge both new and ancient. Darkness and light have been antagonists for most of human history, and light pollution is a relatively new, widespread, and underappreciated environmental hazard. One-third of humanity can’t see the Milky Way, a 2016 study found, including nearly 80% of North Americans. By 2050 over two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in urban areas, the United Nations projects. Light pollution has been found to have a range of negative effects on humans, wildlife, and even plant life. 

As the world urbanizes, dark skies are becoming increasingly vulnerable – and treasured. And for years, the Hill Country region has been leading the way in preserving and expanding them. Grassroots activism and technological innovation have resulted in vast swaths of Central and West Texas protecting views of the stars as they would air and water – and in a way that shouldn’t conflict with development, advocates say. 

“Out of all the different kinds of pollution we have in this world, [light pollution] is the quickest one to fix,” says Dawn Davies, night sky program manager at the Hill Country Alliance, a regional conservation nonprofit. 

The fix can be as simple as changing a lightbulb, and the benefits could be immense: from clear views of distant planets and galaxies, to an escape from frenetic modern life, to inspiring future generations through the wonders of the cosmos.

The night sky “inspires people; it touches them on a very deep level,” adds Ms. Davies. And “there’s so many people that ... don’t know that they’re missing, and don’t know what they’re lacking.”

A solvable problem

When he retired from the U.S. Army, Wayne Gosnell and his wife could have lived anywhere. It was the night sky that drew them to Blanco. It reminds Mr. Gosnell of his place in the universe, he says, and of his childhood in West Texas. 

“It would always knock my socks off when I went out,” he adds. 

He started protecting dark skies in Blanco 15 years ago, by setting up light meters around town. It’s becoming increasingly important work, as the Hill Country – flanked to the east and south by the cities of Austin and San Antonio – has become one of the fastest-growing areas of the country.

F. Falchi et al./NASA

The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness shows where light pollution is concentrated around the globe as of 2016.

With development comes light pollution, a steady glow that disrupts the natural rhythms of plants and animals – including humans. It contributes to the deaths of millions of migratory birds every year, studies have found, and it’s a fast-growing threat to firefly populations around the world.

The Texas Hill Country is leading the way with one of the most protected night skies in the world. The region is home to five of the world’s 38 “Dark Sky Communities” recognized by the International Dark-Sky Association. In April, following a yearslong effort – including a 295-page application – spearheaded by Mr. Gosnell, Blanco became the fifth.

“Of all of the forms of pollution that mankind has foisted on this Earth, light pollution is the easiest and the cheapest to fix,” says Mr. Gosnell, “and we can do it in our own lifetime.” 

Can darkness be a “win-win”?

Earlier this year, as Blanco was receiving its dark sky recognition, far West Texas was celebrating as well. The Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve – certified this spring – spans over 15,000 square miles of southwest Texas and northeast Mexico. 

“It’s the largest area in the world where the night sky is protected,” says Stephen Hummel, with the University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory. “I’m quite proud of it.”

Mr. Hummel coordinates the Dark Skies Initiative at the observatory, which basically means his job is to ensure the skies around the observatory stay dark. In West Texas, that work involves a lot of cooperation with the oil and gas industry. 

He has worked with it to incorporate intentional lighting designs. Simple changes such as focusing lights downward, installing timers, and using less intense bulbs can reduce spillover – and lower energy bills. The energy company Apache signed on as an official supporter of the initiative. 

“A lot of people assume we’re just asking people to turn their lights off and live in darkness, and that’s just not the truth,” says Mr. Hummel. 

“To an oil and gas company, it does make sense for them to adopt a night sky-friendly lighting strategy,” he adds. “It saves them money, it’s better for workplace safety, [and] it’s better for the health of their workers.” 

In many ways, protecting night skies is that simple – like directing light intentionally, opting for softer orange light instead of harsh white light, and using light only when you need it – and it’s giving dark sky protectors around Texas hope that light pollution can be significantly reduced without restricting development. The Big Bend area illustrates that “win-win” scenario, Mr. Hummel says, by having the world’s largest dark sky reserve near one of its largest energy-producing areas.

In Blanco, Mayor Lumpee is hoping for the same thing. Blanco is still a small town, but the Hill Country is booming. “I don’t think there’s any avoiding new people coming in, or new businesses coming in,” she says. “The important thing is to do it healthily.” 

If places like Blanco can grow while preserving their dark skies, it will open up to future generations the wonders of the heavens. “Imagine living somewhere where, during daytime, the vast majority of what you could see is obscured in fog,” says Ms. Davies at the Hill Country Alliance. 

“If you can only see two or three bright stars, you’re missing out on seeing where we are in the cosmos.”

Reuters

Afghan schoolgirls arrive at a hospital to visit students who were injured in a car bomb blast outside a school in Kabul in May 2021. Education for girls has been interrupted since the Taliban returned to power.

Step by step since they returned to power in Afghanistan 16 months ago, the Taliban have sought to erase women from public view. Yesterday they banned female students from attending public and private universities, effectively ending education for girls beyond the sixth grade.

That may turn out to have been a step too far. Male university students refused to take their exams. Professors resigned. Social media buzzed with hashtags supporting education for girls. In Jalalabad and Kabul, university students – men and women – staged open protests today despite the risk of violent reprisal. “How can we sit idly by as millions of girls are denied their human rights,” Afghan journalist Lina Rozbih tweeted. 

What was meant as a sign of strength has instead exposed a weakness – amplifying a remarkable turn in the relationship between Islam and political power. In the world’s two most repressive theocratic states, Iran and Afghanistan, women’s rights have become a battle cry for democratic renewal. That points to a transformation at work within both societies – a rejection of religion as justification for condemnation and harm, and its restoration as a wellspring of equality, joy, and unfettered individuality.

The voices of reform are becoming a chorus. “Education is obligatory for both men and women, without any discrimination,” the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, said last month, appealing in a rare public break with senior Taliban leaders for a reopening of secondary schools for girls. “No one can offer a justification based on sharia [Islamic law] for opposing this.”

“Now, it’s people who know they have no way out of the country who are taking to the streets,” a female teacher in Kabul, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told The New Humanitarian. “They know they have nowhere else to go, and so they are demanding their basic rights under Islam.”

“Islam is what guarantees women their rights to participate within society and their rights to education,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in September. “So we expect, not only in Afghanistan but across the world, for women to not only be guaranteed these rights but also for these rights to be protected.”

The Taliban’s increasingly restrictive rule may be a response to their lack of credibility. No country has recognized their government. The United Nations estimates that 90% of the population is food insecure. Increasing violence and terrorist activity have scared off even the most avid foreign investors like China. Skirmishes along the borders with Pakistan and Iran are escalating.

Perhaps most threatening to their rule is a persistent defiance among Afghans themselves. Across the country, fathers and tribal elders have implored the Taliban to reopen schools for girls. In cities like Kabul, decrees banning females from classrooms and public places of entertainment have driven women to start schools and gyms underground. “Our generation fought for equality,” Laila Ahmad, who runs a clandestine exercise class in her basement in Kabul, told The Japan Times today. “We will not give up and remain silent. Even though we can’t play music, we still dance.” 

For the hardened men of cloth in Afghanistan, as in Iran, stifling the human spirit is a hard problem.