Health

As global warming worsens heat-related illnesses, U.S. government agencies have refined a data tool whose greatest value may be to warn people about the extreme heat events that can send them to the emergency room or worse. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox explores the improved HeatRisk site and how its combination of climate and medical considerations refocuses attention on the vulnerable.

New federal regulations governing a group of “forever chemicals” under the Safe Drinking Water Act — a rule years in the making — have important implications for local drinking water supplies and, per the latest TipSheet, local environment reporting. A look at the problem with PFAS, the complicated route to its regulation and more than a dozen story ideas and reporting resources.

A dozen European news partners collaborated last year to gather a massive set of water, soil and organism samples that pointed to more than 17,000 PFAS-contaminated sites in the region, many known to authorities but kept from the public. The award-winning project was led by Le Monde’s Stéphane Horel, who spoke with SEJournal for the latest Inside Story Q&A.

Fast fashion’s lack of sustainability has long been the subject of news media coverage. But now the realities of climate change mean that fashion reporting must be reimagined to include the lived environmental and human rights realities of workers making what we wear, writes contributor Yessenia Funes in the new Voices of Environmental Justice column. Ideas and resources for getting past simplistic fashion industry narratives.

It just wouldn’t be the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference recap without the waggish tales of SEJ’s resident wit, David Helvarg, who once again this year skewers the lot of us, sparing not a jot of our five days in Philadelphia. Read on and prepare to snicker.

Top-flight regional reporting (and data analysis) that explored inequities between Black and white communities around Baltimore, Maryland, yielded journalist Scott Dance a wide range of stories — and a first-place prize in the most recent awards from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Dance, now on the climate desk for The Washington Post shares insights from the beat in the new Inside Story.

Animal agriculture is a massive industry with a vast environmental footprint, so there are plenty of reporting opportunities for journalists on the “eat beat.” In the second of two parts, following last week’s examination of diet-related greenhouse gas emissions, food-and-climate journalist Jenny Splitter serves up a variety of story ideas and information sources, plus some thoughts on solutions journalism.