Everything from the social media’s importance to the need for a detailed disaster plan — Robert A. Thomas, professor and director of the Center for Environmental Communication, School of Mass Communication at Loyola University in New Orleans, outlines 17 take-away lessons for journalists.

Reporters new to the climate change issue and those having to immerse themselves into it while also grappling with a range of other important environmental (and, given the nature of today’s newsrooms, also non-environmental) issues might try these "must see" resources and websites.

Rae Tyson reports there may well be a connection between odor-resistant socks and an emerging health and environmental concern.

For journalists covering major energy- and environment-related stories and natural disasters, the visually gushing BP Gulf of Mexico oil leak easily supplanted climate change and other national stories in the steadily shrinking news hole. Yet there are striking parallels between the sudden and in-your-face Gulf BP spill and the incremental and nonlinear climate change issue.

Did the American media fall short on stories about stolen/leaked scientists' emails and IPCC report errors? To gauge expert opinion on that question, SEJournal surveyed four close observers and analysts of the way that climate issues are covered.

SEJ has long called climate change the story of the century. Geoengineering is the new twist in this story and will be a key element — for good or bad — in decades to come.

Freelance journalist Naomi Lubick offers tips from journalists who travel internationally to do their reporting. They all suggested that before you set off on your voyage, you have to be prepared — mentally, technically and physically.

The media may play a role in misleading the public, especially when journalists attempt a "false balance" in stories, giving equal treatment to climate science skeptics who question the validity of climate science studies.

The digital age of environmental journalism has brought with it an ugly underbelly characterized by increasingly bitter personal exchanges and accusations and a sucking-up of countless hours of productive reporting time and effort. How reporters handle these distractions may shape how well the American public understands, or doesn't understand, the climate challenge they and future generations will face.

For purely journalistic reasons, reporters could periodically write about those things they had decided not to cover: Their rationale and providing links, even, for those wanting to know more. They can thereby open the doors to their own internal news decision-making, let the public see in, all in the interest of their better understanding the news-making process.