Emissions of the global warming gas methane are widely tracked through satellite sensors, despite some unexpected bumps in the data-gathering effort. But a big challenge is how to interpret and use the resulting insights in your coverage. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox points out several important methane datasets and offers useful insights into how to turn them into stories.
Is the United States in the midst of a “nuclear renaissance”? This two-part Issue Backgrounder explores that question, beginning in Part 1 with a look at the government’s part in developing nuclear power, including through subsidies, as well as why the new reactors built earlier in the 2000s didn’t really make the case for the industry’s rebirth.
The population of Siberian tigers, the second-largest subspecies in the world, took a turn for the worse after the fall of the Soviet Union. But an international team of biologists in remote Russia has been working to try to save the big cats. “Tigers Between Empires” traces that effort, in a new BookShelf review from contributing editor Jennifer Weeks.
"Blue Hill is the nation’s oldest continually operating weather observatory, according to executive director Alex Evans. Since 1885, staff and volunteers have relied on many of the same instruments, including mercury and alcohol thermometers, hygrometers that use human hair to measure moisture in the air, and that glass sphere on the roof tracking the hours of bright sunshine."
"The world’s maritime nations preserved a plan to adopt the first global carbon fee on shipping, as they agreed to keep working on it in the fall and adjourned their meeting Friday. However, they also agreed to continue discussing alternative proposals and entertain new ones, which could change the plan substantially."
"People in Costa Rica and other Latin American, Asian and African countries are increasingly buying electric vehicles to avoid spiking fuel prices."
