California

From TV Meteorologists, More Straight Talk About Climate Change

Reporters covering floods, fires and other weather-driven disasters sometimes hesitate to link these extreme events to climate change. But TV meteorologists increasingly see an opportunity — and a responsibility — to help local audiences better understand the connections. Their unique relationship with viewers makes it easier to get past partisan divisions, while innovative tools are providing new ways to communicate information.

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State Farm Stops New Home Insurance Sales In Calif. Amid Wildfire Risks

"State Farm said it would stop selling new insurance policies to homeowners in California, exacerbating troubles for thousands in the wildfire-prone state, who are already feeling the heat with coverage getting costlier or harder to come by."

Source: Reuters, 05/31/2023

Heat Warning — Expect Extreme Temps To Be Local Story This Summer

Some areas of the United States are hot and getting hotter, thanks to climate change and now the coming El Niño. But some areas have little history with extreme temperatures — and those places are among the ones to watch this summer for local and regional reporting. Plus, who are the most vulnerable in your community when it comes to heat waves?

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On the Front Lines, When Wildfires Turn Personal

Forest fires have grown increasingly dangerous in a warming climate, a subject freelance journalist Jane Braxton Little has covered extensively in recent years. But her reporting turned personal when the rampaging Dixie Fire destroyed her small California town. As she explains in the new Inside Story Q&A, the wildfire disaster gave her a perspective no reporter would wish for.

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July 28, 2023

DEADLINE: IJNR Klamath River Institute

The Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources invites applications until July 28 for an expenses-paid Institute for journalists, Sep 17-23, 2023 (tentative), to explore the Klamath River Basin from southern Oregon to northern California, and investigate the impact of the removal of four dams beginning later this year.

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Tribe Was Barred From Cultural Burning — Then A Fire Hit Their Community

"The land near Yosemite National Park had been tended by Irene Vasquez’s family for decades. They took care of their seven acres by setting small fires to thin vegetation and help some plants to grow. But the steep, chaparral-studded slopes surrounding the property hadn’t seen fire since Vasquez and fellow members of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation were barred from practicing cultural burning on a wider scale some 100 years before."

Source: LA Times, 05/08/2023

"West Oakland Faces A Test: Undoing Decades Of Environmental Injustice"

"Highway and city planners saddled a once-proud Black community with freeways and diesel fumes, while more affluent white neighborhoods were spared the traffic and toxics."

Source: Washington Post, 05/08/2023

Tribe Signs Pact To Work With California To Save Endangered Salmon

"A California tribe has signed agreements with state and federal agencies to work together on efforts to return endangered Chinook salmon to their traditional spawning areas upstream of Shasta Dam, a deal that could advance the long-standing goal of tribal leaders to reintroduce fish that were transplanted from California to New Zealand more than a century ago and still thrive there."

Source: LA Times, 05/05/2023

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