Climate Desk's Tim McDonnell relates his experience of the global climate change summit in Paris — and what it means for environmental journalists.

In this excerpt from the latest issue of SEJournal (Fall), Bobby Magill's special report offers coverage basics and questions to ask when you are reporting on the spread of shale oil and gas development.

After Katrina, Louisiana may have hit the national spotlight for a time, but coastal communities elsewhere around the country will have to find their own answers to the question “Why does anyone still live there in harm’s way?” — even as more and more people move toward the coast and the water moves ever closer to them.

In the effort to help all coastal communities face with the realities that the Gulf of Mexico is their neighbor and sea level rise is inching up relentlessly, lessons can be learned from Louisiana as it works to adapt and to mitigate flood risk.

This special report on climate change adaptation will help environmental journalists better understand and cover this growing topic. Top-notch beat reporters share how to best get at the nuts and bolts of adaptation in coastal communities and agricultural ones, a leading communications thinker shares insights into the “message” of adaptation, and we provide snapshots of a few of the many noteworthy adaptation projects, as well as the special challenges faced in one developing nation.

John Platt, author of Scientific American's Extinction Countdown blog, offers up a great list of things that may help environmental journalists illuminate some of the issues in question as the Act prepares for its second 40 years. Photo: A California condor outfitted with tracking tags, courtesy USFWS.

More than one observer has compared covering energy to the folk tale about the blind men who try to describe an elephant, and end up shouting at each other because they’ve each grasped a different part of the beast and believe their portion represents the whole thing. Freelancer Jennifer Weeks reports.

Francesca Lyman asks "What does Hurricane Sandy tell us about coping with human health and consequences of climate change?"

Bud Ward, editor of The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media, writes about the ways for these two disciplines to get along and learn from each other — while preserving their own independence and remaining loyal to their underlying principles.