These 90-degree days are making me miss snow. I posted a short video you can watch here of our hike up Blue Mountain in the winter, and some on Twitter agreed with me. I know by March I will be eager for spring birdsong and blossoms. But even those things are changing. In my backyard I’m noticing the impacts of our warming temperatures. My tomatoes are not changing from green to red, which Cornell Cooperative Extension says could be because of the high heat. “When temperatures exceed 85 to 90 F, the ripening process slows significantly or even stops. At these temperatures, lycopene and carotene, pigments responsible for giving the fruit their typical orange to red appearance cannot be produced. As a result, the fruit can stay in a mature green phase for quite some time,” the article states. Is anyone else having this trouble?

This brings me to some climate change news from the New York Power Authority. The state’s public power organization recently released a 2021 report showing its progress toward the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s requirements. You can read the full report here. Some of the highlights mentioned in a release include:

• 88 percent of electricity generated from renewable hydropower.
• $207 million invested in Smart Path, Smart Path Connect and Central East Energy Connect transmission projects to bring more renewables to areas of high electricity demand.
• $61 million invested in that year in modernizing infrastructure to support the Next Generation Niagara $1.1 billion investment and $460 million Lewiston Pump-Generating Plant modernization projects.
• $246-plus million invested in capital work for energy efficiency projects at customer facilities.
• 426,505 jobs created/maintained through our economic development electric power programs.

In case you missed it, forest rangers had a wild week with rescues recently. In a report from Aug. 2, rangers found a murder suspect in Tupper Lake, rescued a group of children and an adult man found in a Herkimer County ditch, assisted with a helicopter evacuation of a person experiencing chest pains in Essex County and got a stranded boat free on Lake George. Read the full report here.

Editor’s note: This first appeared in Gwen’s weekly “Adirondack Report” newsletter. Click here to sign up.