Reporters Toolbox

Dangerous storm surge that often follows hurricanes can be the focus of life-saving journalism. Reporter’s Toolbox helps environmental journalists get ahead of storm surge with a key resource — a powerful government database and related maps showing surge hazards. Together with real-time advisories and a better understanding of what causes storm surge, Toolbox helps you better cover this danger.

Telling the local climate change story may mean you’ll have to dip a wading-boot-clad toe into the nearest stream, virtually at least. A decline there of a bellwether species, freshwater trout, could signal climate change-driven changes in critical water temperatures. To help guide your investigation, Reporter’s Toolbox spotlights a government database that taps into a massive network of monitoring stations. 

A massive database of databases maintained by EPA tracks more than 800,000 chemicals. And while CompTox is highly technical, it’s the source for important developments that environmental journalists need to know about, among them exploring whole classes of toxic chemicals, and understanding how big data and AI is transforming their regulation. Plus, alternate sources of chemical data for your reporting needs.

When a local hazmat emergency erupts, will you be ready to safely cover it? A well-proven government software suite with a series of power tools will help, and the latest Reporter’s Toolbox guides you through it so you can get ahead of the emergency. Read on to get familiar with CAMEO.

The power and water fiasco that followed a deep freeze in Texas was a predictable debacle and, thus, a warning signal to journalists covering disasters and climate-driven weather extremes. To help, the latest Reporter’s Toolbox provides a rundown of data sources about power grids, from local, regional and national entities, and recommends you start tracking the numbers and be prepared.

Spring may be weeks away, but gardeners are already browsing the seed catalogs, and that makes it a good time for environmental journalists to apprise them of how climate change will affect their backyard patches. Reporter’s Toolbox talks “hardiness zones” and explains why one of the usual repositories of government information may fall short. That plus, story sources to, well, cultivate.

Large migratory species have been traveling across the North American continent for thousands of years. But the land has been dramatically affected, altering how these big game move about. A new data mapping site for scientists can now help environmental journalists track Western wildlife herds and their health as well. The latest from Reporter’s Toolbox.

Respiratory risks are high on the public health agenda these days amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So when Reporter’s Toolbox noticed some exemplary reporting on how West Coast wildfires were polluting the air, it took a look under the hood to see how other environmental journalists might use the same data sets for localized stories.

Amid the frenzy of Election 2020 comes a quieter development: The emergence of Big Climate money. Green groups and climate-focused fundraisers are now starting to take their place as major players alongside Big Oil as campaign contributors. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox suggests databases and other resources to help track climate (and other election) money.

Keeping tabs on the increasingly frequent closing of U.S. coal-fired electric power plants is an important way to follow developments on the larger climate change beat. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox points to several mapping databases that help make the job far easier — whether watching the industry in the United States or abroad.