Anybody in or around Washington, D.C. on Monday should check out the fourth annual Grantham Prize Seminar on the State of Environmental Journalism. The event, which is free and open to the public, features an impressive list of speakers from Robert Semple, who writes about environmental issues for The New York Times’s editorial board, to Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Participants will discuss investigations into environmental toxicity, energy, and more.
The guests of honor are this year’s prize winners, USA Today’s Blake Morrison and Brad Heath, for their special report, “The Smokestack Effect,” which found that the air outside thousands of schools across the country could be at least twice as toxic as the air in nearby neighborhoods, and sometimes ten times higher. (This week, an Associated Press investigation likewise revealed that drinking water at thousands of schools across the country contains unsafe levels of lead, pesticides and dozens of other toxins.) The Grantham Prize Seminar begins at 4:30 at The Newseum.
Curtis Brainard writes on science and environment reporting. Follow him on Twitter @cbrainard.