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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]