The Observatory
Everything You Wanted to Know About Climate Change
Some key Web sites for journalists
By Cristine Russell Tue 8 Jul 2008 09:00 AM
Climate Journalism:
BBC: The network’s climate-change portal, offering international news, opinion and explanation from around the BBC.
Climate Connections: A collaboration between National Public Radio and National Geographic, providing anecdotal yet powerful examples of the causes and consequences of global warming — includes links to NPR stories and podcasts as well as National Geographic articles.
ClimateWire: An in-depth daily climate news service covering the politics, business, and science of climate change, edited by veteran Wall Street Journal reporter John J. Fialka. The catch: you can scan the headlines, but need to buy a subscription to read the stories, and it is geared toward institutional subscribers.
CNN: The network’s climate-change topic page, providing links to CNN video reports as well as articles from TIME, Fortune, and Money magazines.
The Christian Science Monitor: The newspaper’s global-warming Web page, offering links to original stories and videos in addition to a global-warming “toolbox” and other climate-related links.
The Daily Climate: A daily climate-change news aggregator with mainstream newspaper and news magazine stories from around the world. This foundation-funded site is published by Environmental Health Services.
Dot Earth: A blog by New York Times reporter Andrew C. Revkin delivering a thoughtful examination of sustainability issues with a focus on climate change. The tagline, “Nine billion people. One planet,” summarizes the tension between a burgeoning population and finite natural resources, and the site draws a lot of reader commentary.
Nature: A Web site produced by one of the world’s preeminent scientific journals, providing original news articles, commentary, and analysis, in addition to the latest peer-reviewed climate-change research.
New Scientist: This lively international weekly magazine boasts a content-rich site collecting all of their reporting on climate change, as well as a helpful “Expert Guide” summarizing facts on the issue.
Real Climate: Commentary on climate science and news by working climate scientists. Described by Scientific American as “a focused, objective blog written by scientists for a brainy community that likes its climate commentary served hot.”
SciDev.net: A reliable source of information about what is happening on climate and energy in developing countries, from Africa to China. The director, David Dickson, is a respected British science journalist who has worked at Nature, Science, and New Scientist magazines.
Scientific American: Comprehensive online coverage of science from the venerable weekly publication, with plenty of climate-related news, features, forums and blogs to choose from.
The Washington Post: The paper’s “Green” Web site, with abundant climate news, analysis, commentary, videos, photos, and related resources covering all aspects of global warming, from science, to politics, economics, to lifestyle.
Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media: A very useful resource for journalists edited by longtime environmental reporter Bud Ward, the site seeks to foster dialogue among scientists, journalists, policy-makers and the public.
Climate Resources:
AAAS: The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Press Room Web site for climate change, featuring links to numerous scientific resources. AAAS also publishes Science magazine, which presents the latest research on climate change.
Climate Science Watch: A non-profit resource aggregator sponsored by the Government Accountability Project, which seeks to be a watchdog on federal government science and policy.
Columbia University - Climate: The university’s climate-change Web site, aggregating news and information about the school’s diverse climate programs, projects, and research.
Earth Institute of Columbia University: The Earth Institute’s Climate & Society Web page with links to interdisciplinary resources dedicated to global warming.
EPA: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Web page on climate change with numerous links to resources.
Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs: Research and analysis of international climate change policy, including contributions by leading Harvard experts such as John P. Holdren.
Pew Center on Global Climate Change: An authoritative, non-partisan resource compiling scientific research and articulate summaries of local-to-global technologies and policies to combat climate change. It includes an e-newsletter sign-up to get updates on U.S. legislation.
Stephen H. Schneider: Stanford climatologist Schneider has been talking to journalists for thirty years about climate change. In his “Mediarology” section, he turns the tables and gives advice to journalists covering this issue.
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: It may seem like the IPCC has been covered ad nauseam since winning the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, but the reports posted here provide such a thorough examination of the science and the data that they should be studied by anyone covering climate-related issues.
U.S. Climate Change Science Program: Overseen by White House science and environmental policy offices, this site collects the findings of thirteen federal agencies and is a go-to point for any government data and reports on climate change.
U.S. Conference of Mayors: Click past the dull green home page, and you’ll find helpful summaries of climate protection “best practices” in U.S. cities. While climate change is clearly a global issue, the tension between “green” localities and a disinterested federal government has prompted a patchwork of local initiatives.
World Bank: The World Bank’s climate-change Web site, featuring numerous links to resources documenting the intersection of finance and global warming.
World Environmental Organization: In case you haven’t seen enough Web sites, this page links you to 100 interesting sites covering climate change issues.
Related Science Journalism:
Framing Science: American University communications professor Matthew C. Nisbet blogs here about the “intersections between science, media and politics.” Nisbet has a well-earned reputation for leading research and commentary on media and public opinion about climate change.
Knight Science Journalism Tracker: Veteran science journalist Charles Petit blogs daily on the latest science and environmental news on this site sponsored by MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program. He compares print and broadcast on a given story, including press releases and links to the coverage.
Society of Environmental Journalists: This professional journalists’ organization has a terrific guide to climate change, which provides links and summaries of everything a reporter would want to know to cover the issue.
LIST COMPILED BY Cristine Russell, Valerie Smith Boyd, and Curtis Brainard
CJR
