CLIMATE EXPERTS
It’s easy to follow the news on climate change—the challenge and its solutions—and get answers from experts. For example, check out MIT’s 2024 Climate Science, Risk, and Solutions, an interactive digital home base with quizzes, interactive graphics, and videos; written by Dr. Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of Atmospheric Science.
Here are a number of reliable resources aimed at a mainstream audience. Have a look at the excellent dailies from Carbon Brief (US focus here), Bloomberg Green, Heatmap, and Axios Generate. FT’s “Climate Capital”; anything from the New York Times Climate desk; Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert and others at The New Yorker. Do not miss the new ShiftKey podcast with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins; or Genevieve Guenther’s End Climate Silence newsletter. New Yorker Editor David Remnick hosts incisive podcasts, often touching on climate, including Talking to Conservatives about Climate Change (31 min., 18 Aug 2023) in which he does just that. Impressed by Shannon Osaka and her colleagues at The Washington Post, ditto Zoe Schlanger and colleagues at The Atlantic. The Wall Street Journal does a great job on energy and climate business news; unfortunately we cannot recommend WSJ editorial and opinion commentary. See NASA’s terrific new Climate Change portal. SciLine is another free, easy-to-digest resource based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society; here’s their climate section, and follow them on LinkedIn for 1:1 experts’ Zoom office hours on topics from controlled burning to pollinators to the environmental impacts of “orphaned” oil and gas wells.
In March, 2024, the International Energy Agency (IEA) launched the Clean Energy Market Monitor, a “timely, high-level overview of clean energy technology deployment. Project Drawdown is highly recommended for presenting science-backed solutions, beautifully designed and easy to navigate. For example, the Roadmap video series, which “points to which climate actions governments, businesses, investors, philanthropists, community organizations, and others should prioritize to make the most of our efforts to stop climate change.” Stanford University’s new Understand Energy Learning Hub website can help anyone find answers on more than 30 energy topics.
Local impacts vary widely in the US. Follow the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces a heavily vetted National Climate Assessment every five years, clearly delineated by zone.
Obsessed with how much this all costs? Follow the monthly updates on billion-dollar disasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For updates on the $400+ billion being deployed via the Dept. of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (i.e. Inflation Reduction Act monies, aka IRA), follow Jigar Shah on LinkedIn via his frequent posts and occasional newsletter, Accelerating Climate Wealth. This massive policy injects funding for “real, private sector-led, government-enabled, evidence-based solutions to urgent problems of clean energy deployment… DOE’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff initiative provides new, unique market-based insights for just that purpose.” The IRA and policies at state and local levels are supercharging clean-energy investments; keep up via Sophie Purdom’s Climate Tech VC; “Accelerating Climate Wealth,” Department of Energy banker Jigar Shah’s LinkedIn newsletter; the Zero podcast from Bloomberg’s Akshat Rathi; Cipher News from Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Anything from Ceres, eg August 2023 Benchmark Analysis of U.S. Banks re: Climate Goals and Climate Lobbying Practices. GreenBiz offers several worthwhile newsletters.
At The New York Times, Ezra Klein often illuminates clean-energy topics; his post-IRA interview with Princeton’s Jesse Jenkins (“The Single Best Guide to Decarbonization I've Heard,” 9/20/22) is a top-rated masterclass on the energy transition, very listenable. Rewiring America, Canary Media, Pique (“the opposite of doomscrolling”), Latitude Media are all worth a look.
Also strongly recommend Covering Climate Now’s “Essentials” resource hub, Climate Change Reporting 101, “10 Climate Change Myths Debunked,” and content shared via Instagram. CCN hosts first-rate trainings and briefings for journalists. NOAA is a rich resource on a wide range of relevant topics; here’s their explainer on whether offshore wind turbines harm marine life, like whales? (Answer: No.)
Recommend anything from RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute), eg June 2023 report “The Renewable Revolution: It’s exponential, global, and this decade.” Ditto the Guardian. Anything from Zach Labe, a postdoctoral researcher working at NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program at Princeton University. Or the monthly Temperature Updates produced at Berkeley Earth by Robert Rohde et al. Reports from the UN’s IPCC. Check out Skeptical Science for expert rebuttals to climate disinformation (albeit presented in an inexpert graphic design, but the content is bulletproof). Don’t miss MIT’s open courseware offerings. Check out Project Drawdown’s video “Climate 101” here. Also, one5c, for a positive vibe on individual actions.
Thinking it’s time to support a non-profit, like EDF or your local Land Trust? or join an activist group? Excellent choices abound, including Joel Bach’s Inside the Movement “ITM” newsletter. Bach established himself as a super-reliable resource on the Years of Living Dangerously project. Another movie producer, Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up) is behind Yellow Dot Studios. Warm up with this 90-second video from UK-based Climate Science Breakthrough. (Must I be on Twitter, er X, in order to follow climate scientists, you may well ask? The answer is Yes for now, but keeping a close eye on disinformation flow under this platform’s new ownership.)
For talented reporters you might not know, check out the 2023 award winners from The Society of Environmental Journalists and Covering Climate Now.
Angry? Tune in to Emily Atkin’s Heated.
Suggestions below include interactive data on maps, e.g., “How Much Hotter is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born?” and high-resolution data visualizations from Climate Central. How much $ does extreme weather cost in the US? Consult the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s deeply configurable running tally of billion-dollar extreme-weather events in the US since 1980, updated quarterly.
NEWS OUTLETS
Planet, a collection of pieces from The Atlantic
Canary Media: climate tech and clean energy
NEWSLETTERS & PODCASTS
Also from McKibben, a new email format called “The Crucial Years”
HEATED: “accountability journalism for the climate crisis,” by Emily Atkin
Volts, with David Roberts
ACADEMIC & NGOs
MeCCO, detailed monthly summaries of climate coverage in the media
VIDEOS
Subscribe to Climate Central’s weekly package of user-friendly data and camera-ready images. The Feb. 19, 2020 package is about National and Global Emissions Sources
Axios Generate
Subscribe, and you’ll know the energy-biz news before everyone else does. Ben Geman and Amy Harder are the stars here; cf. Harder’s “Energy and climate glossary for Trump (and everyone)”. Axios has other newsletters, see them all here. Also recommended: Andrew Freedman’s Science.
Receive a daily or weekly brief of top climate reporting. Led by Leo Hickman, Carbon Brief is a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy: “We specialise in clear, data-driven articles and graphics to help improve the understanding of climate change, both in terms of the science and the policy response.”
ceres
Essential for people in business, investors, policy makers, and the rest of us who want to understand — and become active in — progress on global sustainability. “Through powerful networks and advocacy, Ceres tackles the world’s biggest sustainability challenges, including climate change, water scarcity and pollution, and human rights abuses.” Follow @ceresnews.
climate central | climate matters
Subscribe to Climate Matters weekly Wednesday updates, and you join 700+ TV meteorologists who receive camera-ready content that’s utterly relevant, often seasonal, often customizable by location — and thoroughly referenced. Climate Central is the team of experts that produces this invaluable resource and more, such as a new interactive wind and solar forecasting tool; and a robust component about sea-level rise. More at https://www.climatecentral.org/.
Nexus Hot News is a morning shot of global climate impacts, innovation, market activity, analysis, and news. Subscribe here. Categories include Top Stories and Denier Round-Up. Follow @ClimateNexus on Twitter and Instagram. Its offspring @ClimateSignals, is currently in beta: http://www.climatesignals.org
EDF
The Environmental Defense Fund is a top organization that works with business, scientists, and activists to make change happen. Their EDF Biz newsletter has info on companies leading the way on decarbonization — and those who should be doing more. Between the newsletter and EDF’s podcast, you’ll know about sustainability leadership from Starbucks, AT&T, Kickstarter, Allbirds, McDonalds, Mars, Amazon, Disney, with more produced regularly. Follow on Twitter @EDFBiz, and check out EDF’s stellar grassroots group, Mom’s Clean Air Force.
What’s this 18-year-old beaming about? Meet Fionn Ferreira, whose magnetic invention removes 87% of plastic pollution from water. He’s one of Edie’s “six best green innovations of the week.” Every day, Edie gives you a climate news rundown; Fridays bring this fascinating feature. Edie is especially appealing if you like your news served with a British accent.
GMU’s center engages in three broad activities: “we conduct unbiased communication research; we help government agencies, civic organizations, professional associations, and companies apply social science research to improve their public engagement initiatives; and we train students and professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to improve public engagement with climate change.” Several important partnerships accelerate the climate conversation. Founding Director Ed Maibach is a key proponent of the five important facts to know about Climate Change.
GREEN BIZ
If you’d like to focus on Transportation, Technologies & Trends, Energy, and the new Circular Economy,. now you can via Green Biz’s slate of newsletters. Targeted for business leaders, useful for just about anyone. Subscribe here.
“A Pulitzer Prize-winning, non-profit, non-partisan news organization dedicated to covering climate change, energy and the environment.” Michael Northrop directs the Sustainable Development grantmaking program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York City, where he focuses on energy and climate change. He provided the seed grant that got InsideClimate News started in 2007.
THE NATION
“You can’t solve a problem by ignoring it.” Editor-in-Chief Katrina van den Heuvel has published the likes of Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Chris Hayes, Mark Hertsgaard over decades of long-form coverage; now she and Columbia Journalism Review Editor Kyle Pope launch a collaborative mainstream-media movement for commercial climate change coverage. More in “Covering Climate Change in a 1.5° World.” #CoveringClimateNow
(Illustration by Doug Chayka)
…our response to climate change … consists, largely, of steps yet to be taken, technologies yet to be developed, and laws yet to be passed. The gulf between what we need to do and what we are actually doing widened further this past week with the newest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It tells, Carolyn Kormann writes, a “nightmarish tale,” showing that the effects of climate change will likely arrive sooner, and be worse, than expected.” David Remnick, Editor in Chief, The New Yorker, October 14, 2018.
Follow @NYTClimate for the latest news, much of it in dazzling digital format, with interactive features like “How Much Hotter is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born?,” “Why Half a Degree of Global Warming is a Big Deal,” and helpful primers such as “Climate Change Is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions,” and “Nine Key Questions About the Green New Deal.” Subscribe to the Climate: Fwd newsletter.
And don’t miss one-off sparks of innovation, e.g. Editor Hannah Fairfield’s insider recap of a collaboration between the Climate desk and the NYTFood team: “Every time I bought groceries I wondered what the best choice was from an environmental perspective: Should I buy greens in a plastic bag or a plastic tub? Was canned tuna bad? Was salmon bad? Beef was probably bad — but what about beef from the farmers’ market?”
Drawdown is that point in time when the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere begins to decline on a year-to-year basis.
“We gathered a qualified and diverse group of researchers from around the world to identify, research, and model the 100 most substantive, existing solutions to address climate change. What was uncovered is a path forward that can roll back global greenhouse gas emissions within thirty years. The research revealed that humanity has the means and techniques at hand. Nothing new needs to be invented, yet many more solutions are coming due to purposeful human ingenuity. The solutions we modeled are in place and in action. Humanity’s task is to accelerate the knowledge and growth of what is possible as soon as possible.”
ROLLING STONE
Rolling Stone? We’ve been subscribing for years, because tucked into each and every issue of RS is at least one stunning piece of climate reporting. Find Bill McKibben, Barack Obama, Jeff Goodell, and AOC here — sometimes before the rest of the world does.
Photo: Members of the Sunrise Movement, Brooklyn, April 2019. From left: Aracely Jiminez-Hudis, Morissa Zuckerman, Victoria Fernandez, Howie Stanger, Sara Blazevic and Nicole Catania.
Photo: Caroline Tompkins for Rolling Stone
YALE ENVIRONMENT 360
Yale Environment 360 is an online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting, and debate on global environmental issues. We feature original articles by scientists, journalists, environmentalists, academics, policy makers, and business people, as well as multimedia content and a daily digest of major environmental news.
Yale Environment 360 is published at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. We receive funding from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation.
Subscribe to newsletter, follow @YaleE360 and Facebook.
Yale Program ON CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION
Anthony Leiserowitz and his team conduct exhaustive surveys of US public opinion and feed it to you in accessible language — and stunning interactive maps. You’ll see this data quoted everywhere. Follow their well-designed messaging via Twitter @YaleClimateComm and Instagram @climate.change.communication; subscribe to the daily weekly digest; listen to daily 90-second radio show, Yale Climate Connections. Personal favorite: Climate Notes.
Also, check out Yale Environment 360.