A fter Superstorm Sandy swamped the nation’s media capital in October, some shops, such as the Daily News and American Media, even had to relocate long-term. In the aftermath came the stories about climate change—seawalls, wetlands, whether we can afford to keep developing coastal property, and so on. Two major reports due out in 2013 should ensure that climate change stays in the headlines: The quadrennial US National Climate Assessment lands in June, followed by the fifth update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority. The challenge for journalists will be to find a way to communicate the important, but decidedly unsexy, news in these reports in a way that sparks action.
The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.