As public concern about climate change grows, journalists face tough challenges in telling the story well, argues one climate communications expert. But as the climate beat takes on increased urgency, new means are becoming available to better report it, including localized content, explainers and workshops. Tap into these expanding climate resources. Plus, tips on climate “talk.”
Despite warnings that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would be dismantled under the Trump administration, it remains very much alive, thanks to the realities of politics and litigation. Yet its staffing, enforcement and science advisory roles remain under the gun. In the latest of our Backgrounders for the “2020 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment,” we read the tea leaves on the future of the EPA.
"When patients participate in health studies, their medical and genetic details are typically kept anonymous to protect them. A controversial Trump administration plan to limit the scientific studies used in policymaking could put that anonymity in jeopardy, a new study warns."
"The past decade was the hottest on record, government researchers announced on Wednesday, the latest sign of global warming’s grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second-warmest year ever, they said, just shy of the record set in 2016."
"Fiddling While Oz Burns: Rupert Murdoch’s younger son and his wife issued a rare public rebuke of the family’s media empire and its promotion of climate-change skeptics during Australia’s bushfire crisis."
"Environmentalists are accusing the Trump administration of committing another act of “climate censorship” after a U.S. Forest Service administrator allegedly directed agency employees to remove references to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from plans to open national forests and grasslands in Texas to new rounds of oil and natural gas drilling."
"A climate research organization will offer access to a risk model that predicts the probability of flooding for homes across the United States, giving the public a look at the data institutional investors use to gauge risk."
"Multiple Australian state police agencies have found limited evidence to suggest the major destructive wildfires in their states were ignited by arsonists, contradicting the international onslaught of misinformation suggesting otherwise."
"On Sept. 15, 2018, at precisely 6:02 a.m., a Delta II rocket lifted off in a cloud of fire and smoke from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast."
"Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unionized employees have drafted a bill of rights, asking the agency to recognize the need for scientific integrity, research into climate science and the ability to enforce environmental laws without political interference."
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