When it comes to telling environment and energy stories, especially about place and scale, data visualizations can turn an average story into a standout. Reporter’s Toolbox takes a look at some recent examples of inspiring data-mapping projects that provide insight into everything from auto emissions and floods to vanishing rivers and whipping winds.
As U.S. coal’s comedown continues, our latest Issue Backgrounder takes a close look at the factors behind the industry’s decline and finds a combination of economics, competition and shifting global markets, along with aging technology, politics and environmental pushback. What’s in store for coal in 2020?
"If the timber industry in Alaska is looking to harvest more trees, the Trump administration's proposal to open roadless areas in Tongass National Forest to logging might not be the way to get there."
"The Trump administration Tuesday proposed allowing logging on more than half of Alaska’s 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest, the largest intact temperate rainforest in North America."
"Alaska’s Bristol Bay is a rare pristine salmon fishery. Can it survive a rapidly changing climate—and a massive, Trump-backed mine?"
"A federal judge ordered a preliminary injunction Monday halting the sale of nearly 1,200 acres of old-growth trees in the Tongass National Forest."
"The Trump administration on Thursday said it would seek to open up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, picking the most aggressive development option for an area long closed to drilling."
"This past summer, high water temperatures contributed to the deaths of more than 100,000 salmon."
A new rule expands hunting and fishing in National Wildlife Refuges and fish hatcheries, and that means potential impacts on critically important public policy around fish and wildlife conservation. The latest TipSheet offers up story ideas and resources for local coverage of the story.
"President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago, according to three people briefed on the issue, after privately discussing the matter with the state’s governor aboard Air Force One."
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