I have an idealistic streak that is increasingly tempered by real world events. So on Sunday I admired the enthusiasm of the hundreds of thousands of people who marched through the streets of Manhattan to sound their concern about climate change and other environmental issues. I tried not to let this article ruin the good…Continue Reading…
I am teaching two journalism classes this semester, with climate change being a main focus these past few weeks. We had an obvious news peg in Sunday’s big climate march and the gathering of world leaders this week in NYC. Students in both classes have received climate change 101 lessons from me–where the body of…Continue Reading…
I’m betting you’ve heard or seen the big news, as reported on the front page of today’s New York Times: The United States and allies launched airstrikes against Sunni militants in Syria early Tuesday, unleashing a torrent of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs from the air and sea on the militants’ de facto capital of…Continue Reading…
Everything you need to know about today’s climate march, in tweets. Climate change march rolls through NYC and other events in 150 countries http://t.co/q5Y0uA7KiR @npr #climatechange #climatemarch — KQEDscience (@KQEDscience) September 21, 2014 The NYC turnout was huge. .@foxnews on #PeoplesClimate : “March attracts more than 310,000 people” http://t.co/gwXpSOIEn6 — Eli Kintisch (@elikint) September…Continue Reading…
When I was interviewing Robert Kennedy Jr. for my recent Washington Post magazine profile, there was one charge leveled against him that he deeply resented. “I am not anti-science,” he insisted on numerous occasions, and my suggestion a year ago that he was anti-science perturbed him more than anything. After all, Kennedy, like many greens, embraces…Continue Reading…
Climate concerned advocates received some welcome news yesterday: A new study finds that when they understand climate basics, some conservatives are more likely to accept that climate change is happening I continue to be amazed at how much time and resources are spent justifying attempts to win over the most ideologically entrenched demographic in the climate…Continue Reading…
Nearly a decade ago, I wrote a profile of Richard Cizik for Audubon magazine. He was, at the time, a prominent lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals and a member of good standing among social and political conservatives. But Cizik’s views on a number of hot-button issues were evolving. In 2008 he was forced to…Continue Reading…
Earlier in the year, Roger Pielke Jr. was named as a contributing writer for Nate Silver’s newly re-launched FiveThirtyEight site. Shortly after that, Pielke, a climate policy scholar and political scientist at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, published an article at FiveThirtyEight headlined, “Disasters Cost More Than Ever–But Not Because of Climate Change.” Critics pounced immediately in…Continue Reading…
This week the New York Times published a profile of longtime climate skeptic John Christy. I found the piece perplexing because it contained no obvious hook or peg, as we say in journalism. There were no newsy events in Christy’s life that might have prompted a story about him in a prestige media outlet: No…Continue Reading…
In 2013, Jeff Goodell wrote a long piece in Rolling Stone explaining how rising seas would eventually drown the city of Miami, Florida. The money quote: “Miami, as we know it today, is doomed,” says Harold Wanless, the chairman of the department of geological sciences at the University of Miami. “It’s not a question of if….Continue Reading…