"Soaring gas prices have Americans bracing for an expensive Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer when vacation-related travel typically spikes."
A growing number of U.S. dams are in poor condition — with potentially lethal results. But the latest WatchDog Opinion argues that equally troubling is that that information is kept secret from the public and journalists in a national database.
As drought continues to afflict the southwestern United States, New Mexico PBS correspondent and producer Laura Paskus writes that environmental journalists must bring home its impact on local communities, while translating the science, making the connection with climate change and holding public officials accountable. Plus, reporting resources and a reminder that the story is too big for any one journalist.
A new data tool that captures information on 1.5 million-plus active U.S. oil and gas production facilities can be a powerful tool for journalists looking to report on potential pollutants, especially when overlaid with local census data, school locations and the like. Reporter’s Toolbox takes a closer look at the new Oil & Gas Threat Map, shares caveats and offers story ideas.
During this webinar, panelists from Global Forest Watch, Planet and Mongabay will introduce technologies to track forest changes in near-real-time; show how the data can be used by journalists; and answer questions from participants. 6:00-7:15 p.m. ET.
"This year, one of the last fugitives of the Earth Liberation Front pleaded guilty to arson — at a moment when climate activists are again flirting with radical ideas."
"As summer temperatures continue to rise, important biocrust-forming organisms in the American Southwest may be lost."
"Biological soil crusts, or biocrusts, are communities of living organisms at the soil surface and are known as the “living skin” of dryland ecosystems. They cement soil grains together, thereby protecting dryland soils from erosion. Biocrusts also add critical nutrients to the soil by converting nitrogen in the atmosphere to ammonia, which serves as a kind of fertilizer for plants and microbes.
"Subsistence is vitally important to villages, as it is to the economy of all of rural Alaska. It's also deeply ingrained in Indigenous way of life". "When fish numbers are low, who gets to continue to harvest fish in rural Alaska? Federal agencies say only local, rural residents. The state of Alaska says all Alaskans."
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that nine suspected cases of monkeypox have been detected in seven states as of Wednesday, as global health authorities confront an unprecedented spread of the virus."
"A narrow gravel road takes visitors zig-zagging up a mountain, alongside a creek, and, if they're lucky, they'll see buffalo roaming freely on the terrain. The bison range sits on more than 18,000 acres of undeveloped land in northwest Montana — land taken by the U.S. Government without the consent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes."
