Reporting on environmental stories often leads to the state legislature, where key material can be frustratingly hard to access. Whether that’s because the state is deliberately hiding information, has poor systems for sharing it or isn’t even tracking it, there are ways to get what you need. Four seasoned environment reporters offer tips, tricks and commiseration.
If you’re harboring serious doubts about the climate future but want to be prepared to cover it, the latest Reporter’s Toolbox offers up a seasonably ghoulish list of a dozen and a half great visualization sources to help tell the story. And lest it leave you spooked, remember, as the saying goes, everything will be OK in the end. And if it's not OK, it's not the end.
"When it comes to packing on the pounds to survive an Alaska winter, this year’s undisputed champ is Grazer."
"Even after a mail carrier’s recent death, the company continues to violate its own rules."
"The coming surge in photovoltaic panel waste is tiny compared to other categories, and most health concerns about solar equipment are unfounded."
"Natural disasters now cost the U.S. insurance industry $100 billion a year. What happens when no one wants to pick up the tab?"
"This story is the first in a four-part Grist series examining how climate change is destabilizing the global insurance market. It is published in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
"Two newly created national wildlife refuges in Tennessee and Wyoming will help protect habitats for threatened and endangered species such as toads, bats, shrimp and salamanders, federal officials say."
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