Climate Change

 By BILL DAWSON

"All news, all the time" was the slogan of a once all-news radio station of my acquaintance. A quick Google search reveals that the phrase and several variations are still around.

Given the recent rise to prominence of the climate issue, even veteran reporters familiar with the often-surprising meanders of the environment beat's path may have wondered if "all climate news, all the time" could be the beat's future.

 By CATHERINE COONEY

You can feel it the minute you step inside: the cool concrete flooring, oversized windows, neutral colors and low lighting provide a sense of open space and cleanliness. The modern-styled architecture seems out of place in Washington, D.C., especially on a hot, smoggy, July afternoon. I'm in Lake Tahoe, I thought, as I walked into the school building where my daughter's summer camp was held.

 By BUD WARD

It was all climate change, all the time – 24/7 as they say. SEJ's 17th annual conference, at Stanford University Sept. 5- 9, was a veritable smorgasbord, an unending feast, for those on the climate change beat. But only for those who actually wanted that particular diet, you understand. Dozens of ostensibly unrelated environmental issues – as well as the delicious "tools of the trade" sessions on new media and like – were addressed at the conference.

 By CHRIS BOWMAN

The Society of Environmental Journalists broke major ground at this year's national conference in attracting 18 news executives to day-long dialogues with experts on global warming, one of the biggest and most difficult-to-tell stories of our time.

by Mark Bowen,
Dutton, 336 pages, $25.95

Reviewed by Craig Pittman

On June 23, 1988, a scientist named Jim Hansen spent five minutes talking to a Senate committee. Hansen said he was 99 percent sure the Earth was getting warmer because of the greenhouse effect, and he predicted that 1988 would turn out to be one of the warmest years on record.

Althoughhe spoke inanIowa-bredmonotone, Hansen's testimony electrified the committee hearing.When he tried to leave,Hansen was surrounded by reporters.

By BILL KOVARIK

In 2006, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth dominated The New York Times best seller list. But in 2007, Glenn Beck's swaggering rebuttal, An Inconvenient Book, topped the same list with the idea that climate change is "the greatest scam in history."

While Beck's book has little chance of outselling Gore's book over the long run, the paradox illustrates a larger problem in the environmental publishing industry: serious science is a hard sell.

 By BUD  WARD

The hard truth of the matter is that few of the reporters most likely to read this column will be in a good position to ask the presidential election front runners or nominees penetrating questions about environmental policy.

Few of them may have the opportunity, even briefly along a rope line, to probe a candidate's familiarity with "cap and trade" versus carbon taxes, wetlands restoration versus coastal development, nuclear energy versus coal versus biofuels versus conservation.

    
      An Interview With Beth Daley of  The Boston Globe

   By BILL DAWSON

Beth Daley began her Journalistic career 19 year ago at the Newburyport Daily News in
northern Massachusetts.  In 1994, she joined The Boston Globe, where she has covered breaking news
and features and was the education reporter before moving to the environment beat in 2001.