"The EPA’s science advisers on Tuesday debated toning down the language of a draft report to agency chief Andrew Wheeler that finds flaws in the EPA’s proposed “secret science” rule."
As part of our “2020 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment” to help reporters track the stories coming their way this year, SEJournal Online looks ahead to major developments on the beat — from Washington, D.C. to the Arctic, from public lands to fossil fuels. We also explore pending news on transportation, agriculture, nukes, federal funding, freedom of information and even algae. Also under our gaze, key facets of the climate story. Read our overview analysis and then dive deep into the full offering of special Backgrounders, TipSheets and WatchDogs.
As public concern about climate change grows, journalists face tough challenges in telling the story well, argues one climate communications expert. But as the climate beat takes on increased urgency, new means are becoming available to better report it, including localized content, explainers and workshops. Tap into these expanding climate resources. Plus, tips on climate “talk.”
Despite warnings that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would be dismantled under the Trump administration, it remains very much alive, thanks to the realities of politics and litigation. Yet its staffing, enforcement and science advisory roles remain under the gun. In the latest of our Backgrounders for the “2020 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment,” we read the tea leaves on the future of the EPA.
"When patients participate in health studies, their medical and genetic details are typically kept anonymous to protect them. A controversial Trump administration plan to limit the scientific studies used in policymaking could put that anonymity in jeopardy, a new study warns."
"The past decade was the hottest on record, government researchers announced on Wednesday, the latest sign of global warming’s grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second-warmest year ever, they said, just shy of the record set in 2016."
"Fiddling While Oz Burns: Rupert Murdoch’s younger son and his wife issued a rare public rebuke of the family’s media empire and its promotion of climate-change skeptics during Australia’s bushfire crisis."
"Environmentalists are accusing the Trump administration of committing another act of “climate censorship” after a U.S. Forest Service administrator allegedly directed agency employees to remove references to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from plans to open national forests and grasslands in Texas to new rounds of oil and natural gas drilling."
"A climate research organization will offer access to a risk model that predicts the probability of flooding for homes across the United States, giving the public a look at the data institutional investors use to gauge risk."
"Multiple Australian state police agencies have found limited evidence to suggest the major destructive wildfires in their states were ignited by arsonists, contradicting the international onslaught of misinformation suggesting otherwise."
