"The world has gained a new weapon in the war on malaria, among the oldest known and deadliest of infectious diseases: the first vaccine shown to help prevent the disease. By one estimate, it will save tens of thousands of children each year."
It sometimes feels like journalists lurch from one catastrophe (or hurricane, flood, wildfire, heat wave) to the next. But that can mean missing the bigger story: Disasters, increasingly linked to climate extremes, are often interlocking events, in which one system failure causes the next and the next. The latest Backgrounder explores three case studies, and how news media can focus attention on steps toward resilience.
Two outstanding features — one on air pollution from a local coke plant in Pennsylvania, another on deaths from a shellfish toxin in Alaska, and both focused on public health, neglected communities and environmental justice — are the subject of the new Inside Story Q&A. Society of Environmental Journalists’ award-winners Nancy Averett and Zoya Teirstein share their reporting insights and advice.
"COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did — approximately 675,000."
Twenty years after the attacks on 9/11, the war on terror has left many risks in the built environment under a cloak of secrecy. For WatchDog Opinion, keeping vital information about such preventable hazards under wraps from the public and journalists is not just wrong, but bad policy. Here’s why. Plus, a rundown for environment reporters of where exactly this secrecy reigns.
In a few weeks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will officially release the latest year’s Toxics Release Inventory. But as Reporter’s Toolbox explains, you can get ahead of the data — and possibly generate some scoops. That’s because EPA quietly releases incomplete preliminary data months earlier. Top tips on making sense of the early data, along with nine smart story leads.
Longtime energy and environment journalist Elizabeth McGowan traveled to southeast Kentucky to shine a light on efforts to diversify Appalachia’s longtime coal-based economy. In FEJ StoryLog, McGowan shares how her on-the-ground reporting approach, funded in part by the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism, yielded not only a powerful story, but insights into overcoming its challenges.
"Amid deadly heat waves and new evidence showing that wildfire smoke may contribute to premature births, the Biden administration is creating a new federal office to address the health consequences of climate change and their disproportionate effects on poor communities."
"Scientists are now increasingly looking at animal vaccines as a means of saving wild populations of threatened species."
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