We've updated our "Topics on the Beat" pages with new links and an improved design. The resource aims to help reporters with quick introductions to key coverage areas, offering top SEJournal stories and the latest EJToday headlines. Visit our full set of Topics on the Beat on biodiversity, climate, disasters and hurricanes, energy, environmental justice, water & oceans, wildfire, agriculture and the food system.
"On Monday, the film director and explorer James Cameron became the first human to reach the world’s deepest abyss on his own, the Challenger Deep, which lies 62 miles southwest of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. The dive had been attempted only once before, in 1960, when Don Walsh, a retired United States Navy captain, and Jacques Piccard, a Swiss engineer, reached the spot in the Navy submersible Trieste."
"Intense rainfalls are getting bigger and more frequent, causing local governments, engineers and landowners to rethink whether sewer systems and other drainage features are up to their tasks."
"The cost of damage to the world's oceans from climate change could reach $2 trillion a year by 2100 if measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions are not stepped up, a study by marine experts said on Wednesday."
"Fresh water supplies are unlikely to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing political instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food markets, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment released on Thursday."
"For centuries, the daredevils known as submariners have slipped beneath the waves in vehicles made for horizontal travel. Their craft are basically underwater ships. Even submersibles, small vessels that dive unusually deep, follow the horizontal plan. Until now."
The Coast Guard defines "security zones" to protect certain sensitive facilities in its bailiwick. It does sometimes grant permission for boats to transit these zones. We suggest journalists interested in such maritime investigations contact their local Coast Guard district or station first.
"Though U.S. EPA has prevailed in one of its longest-running enforcement matters, there's some debate over whether the payoff was worth all the effort."
"Shell Oil plans to explore for petroleum off Alaska's north coast this summer. The native people of Alaska have a big stake in both oil revenue and environmental protection. That conflict has played out in recent trips by Inupiats to Washington, D.C., to argue their case."
