Last week, many cheered a landmark global agreement that promises to tackle global warming. Some prominent greens dissented, but experts are cautiously optimistic and clear-eyed about the difficult challenges ahead. Now that much of the world is officially united on the need to reduce greenhouse gases, one of the biggest fights going forward will be about what source…Continue Reading…
The time has come for me to say goodbye to this blog. I started Collide-a-Scape in early 2009, when I was halfway through a year-long fellowship at the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism. I knew I was about to embark on a new chapter in my professional life (from full-time magazine editor to…Continue Reading…
If you follow climate and environmental discourse as closely as I do, then you know that the recent New Yorker piece by the acclaimed novelist Jonathan Franzen has triggered 1) applause, 2) denunciation, 3) head-scratching. The self-proclaimed eco-pragmatists at The Breakthrough Institute are cheering. One of the best essays on climate change and conservation I have…Continue Reading…
In 2013, a psychology professor reviewing Malcolm Gladwell’s latest best-selling book was critical of the author’s modus operandi: He excels at telling just-so stories and cherry-picking science to back them. That charge had been percolating for a while, but people were suddenly paying more attention to it, including science journalists. After the WSJ review triggered a larger debate on…Continue Reading…
In the Guardian, Mark Lynas writes about the “need to recapture the climate debate from the political extremes.” Good luck with that! I’m afraid this proverbial horse has left the barn. Of course, you should still read the piece, because it’s a necessary reminder of the real dynamics that shape the public discourse on climate change. As…Continue Reading…
In 2009, the New York Times launched “a new, crack environmental reporting unit that will pull in eight specialized reporters from the Science, National, Metro, Foreign, and Business desks in a bid for richer, more prominent coverage,” as the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) detailed. It seemed like a smart, innovative approach: Environmental issues have become increasingly…Continue Reading…
The Carbon Brief, a UK website created in 2011, is a destination for many seeking non-partisan information and analysis on climate change related news and research. I like the neutral tone of the articles and the comprehensive perspective it offers on controversial issues, such as the state of the science on polar bears and, in a similar vein, the growing…Continue Reading…
This week a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) received widespread media coverage. The paper’s takeaway was tweeted by all those reporting on it. The drought that sparked Syria’s civil war has been linked to climate change. My story: http://t.co/UOTb50ye0B pic.twitter.com/nIcPD6rb9J — Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) March 2, 2015 New study,…Continue Reading…
A succession of stories in recent weeks involving scientists and open records requests have anguished many who cherish two ideals: academic freedom and transparency. I imagine that journalists have also been grappling with a tension between those two ideals. (I know I have.) More on that in a minute. First a recap. Two weeks ago, I reported…Continue Reading…
Last month, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, Nature published a Q & A with an anthropologist who studies the murderous motivations of Islamic extremists. He discussed socio-cultural factors and an allure to a radical ideology. That may help explain Islamic attacks against “infidels” in Europe and the United States, but then what’s driving suicide bombers in…Continue Reading…