One quick look at her resume alerts you that Heidi Cullen isn’t your “normal” journalist who took college courses, let’s be honest here, in large part to avoid dicey courses dealing with things like statistics, coefficients, and math generally. Cullen, in fact, is perhaps even more comfortable with issues involving engineering and paleoclimatology than she […]
Posted inFeature Article, Policy & Politics
Newsweek’s ‘Hoax’ Cover Story Raises Ire of Deniers, … and also Criticism from Within
“Hoax” is a potent accusation, a four-letter grenade of a word. In the public discussion of anthropogenic climate change, prominent conservatives such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and radio commentator Rush Limbaugh have used it to convey profound suspicion about the motives of those who say manmade global warming is happening and worthy of action.
Posted inClimate Science, Feature Article
Tamino’s ‘Open Mind’
“Saying something brilliant simply.” The phrase comes from former WNET-TV/Nature documentary film producer and writer Gianna Savoie, now a freelance documentary producer. It’s a rare gift to express complex scientific concepts in simple terms. Perhaps more than any other prominent climate blogger, the pseudonymous Tamino delves into many of the day’s common climate change sophisms […]
Posted inFood & Agriculture
Carbon Footprint Labeling on Foods?
Are all those health and nutrition beat reporters starting to get envious about the growing amount of column inches and air minutes going to climate change? They need to fret more. There’s plenty to go around the news room. And around and around and around.
Posted inWeather Extremes
NOAA Release Draws Unusual Attention … But Why?
Climate change watchers were quick to pounce when NOAA on August 28 put out a release with the headline “Greenhouse Gases Likely Drove Near-Record U.S. Warmth in 2006.”
Posted inClimate Science
Climate Skeptic Pat Michaels … Life After U.Va. and ‘State Climatologist’ Role
Climate change skeptic par excellence Patrick J. Michaels never has been known as the shy and retiring type. And that isn’t likely to change just because he’s now resigned from the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, where he had been associated for nearly three decades.
Posted inEnergy, Jobs & Economy
Mortgages for Energy Efficiency
A recent Wall Street Journal feature offers valuable insights for reporters looking for a climate change connection to their housing and mortgage beats. Lenders are “pitching mortgage products that offer homebuyers bigger loans or discounts if they are making energy-efficient improvements,” Sara Schaefer Muñoz reported. She reported on a Citigroup program offering $1,000 off closing […]
Posted inOceans
Climate Change, Overfishing Sited in ‘Red Listing’ of Ocean Corals
Climate change is one of two principal factors (the other is overfishing) being sited in the first-ever listing of ocean corals in the annual report of wildlife going extinct from the IUCN (World Conservation Union). The group’s 2007 “Red List,” released in September, lists two corals ñ Floreana coral (Tubastraea floreana) and Wellington’s solitary coral […]
Posted inJobs & Economy
On the Business Beat? Cover Climate Change
Here’s a peg. The University of Rhode Island is moving toward a graduate program offering studies in climate and oceanography along with business administration. With plans to offer the two-year dual degree program starting in the fall of 2008, URI officials say it would be the first of its kind in the world. They say […]
Posted inClimate Science
Feeding on the Beast of Climate Change: Science, Impacts, ‘Solutions’ Focus of SEJ Convention
Climate change issues were front-and-center at the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) 17th annual conference at Stanford University September 5-9.
Posted inFeature Article
Editor and Publisher Columnist Outing: Sack ‘Objectivity’ in Climate Change Reporting
A long-time columnist for Editor and Publisher, a standard in the newspaper industry for those it’s named after, has raised a fuss with a provocative column urging newspapers to “abandon their old way of doing things” – specifically “balance” – when it comes to reporting on global climate change. Given “overwhelming” scientific evidence that humans […]
Posted inFeature Article
Giving objectivity a bad name
Two really smart critics have cited the journalistic tradition of objectivity as the reason mainstream media have missed or underplayed some big stories. Steve Outing, writing in Editor & Publisher, says objectivity has gotten in the way of informing the public about the real dangers of climate change. Giving the global warming deniers the same […]