A media nudge group has announced its favourite journalistic pieces of the year, many of which connect climate change to groups the political left classifies as oppressed.Covering Climate Now, a group founded in 2019 by Columbia University, the Guardian, the Nation, and a New York City FM channel, exists to shape and inform climate change media coverage. It now claims 500 member journalists and outlets with a combined audience of two billion people.CCNow’s final email of 2023, released December 14, allowed staff to highlight their favourite coverage of the year. To lead off, CCNow engagement fellow Amanda Braitman placed “historical responsibility for climate change” on colonialism.“To me, you really can’t talk about climate change without acknowledging the role of colonialism in its origins. This Carbon Brief analysis does just that. It calculates total historical emissions by country taking colonial rule into account,” Braitman explained.“[T]he UK’s share of emissions doubles, while India’s share declines. Looking at colonial rule like this provides a vital intervention to the prevailing narrative about the crisis and how we can go about solving it.”Managing director Judy Doctoroff chose the five-part series Warming Signs by the national environmental correspondent for CBS News. David Schechter traveled to the world’s fastest-warming community in Svalbard, Norway, to interview scientists on how global warming is changing our climate.Doctoroff also thought CBS News and stations also excelled at “local climate impact stories” on rising sea levels, increasingly unpredictable winter weather, and how to respond.Local television engagement manager Elena González thought NBC national climate reporter Chase Cain did a masterful job using a sponge and “the power of TV” to connect storms in New York to climate change, “checking all the right boxes for good reporting: connecting climate change to extreme weather and fossil fuels and giving scientific context.”Co-founder and executive director Mark Hertsgaard complained, “Too much climate coverage has inaccurately channelled the view that the 1.5-degree-Celsius target is hopelessly out of reach.” In contrast, The Guardian’s environmental editor Damian Carrington used the sixth report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to make a “map of climate optimism.” Carrington outlined 40 actions that “require no new technology” to cut emissions in half by 2030.Meanwhile, executive director Anna Hiatt tied climate change to mental health deaths.”A forensic examination of 33-year-old Stephan Goodwin’s last days in Arizona’s extreme heat starkly illustrates how people with schizophrenia are at increased risk for heat-related injury and death. Affecting less than 1% of the population, recent research found that 8% of those who died in a 2021 heatwave in Canada had a schizophrenia diagnosis,” she warned.“The Washington Post reports that it’s ‘potentially the most dangerous preexisting condition in a rapidly warming world.’ Goodwin’s story is part of ‘The Human Limit’ series, which takes a critical look at how climate change threatens health.”Digital editor Karin Kamp liked a Zoya Teirstein piece for Grist which explained “how climate change is making us sick.” Climate change has been blamed for the migration of 20 million people annually, plus animals, algae, bacteria, and fungi.“New diseases are popping up and old ones are making a comeback. The northeastern US, where I live, is seeing a ‘massive proliferation’ of ticks that carry Lyme disease. It’s all projected to get worse, giving us another reason to act on climate change and report on it with the seriousness it deserves,” Kamp wrote.Engagement manager Maya L. Kapoor liked how The Marshall Project and Grist used a long-form comic to report on how Tulare Lake flooding in California revealed “prisoner vulnerability, a huge climate justice issue.”“Two points were gut punches: that California sees prisoners as resources during an emergency, and that prison planning treats prisoners as hazards, rather than as the ones facing hazard,” Kapoor wrote.Under the subheading “Apocalypse Urbanism: Cities for an Uninhabitable World,” Project coordinator Natalie Li liked an article exploring whether “zero carbon, climate-friendly” desert cities for “global city planning” provided “futuristic utopias.”“In this article for The Architectural Review, anthropologist Gökçe Günel unpacks the hyper-exploitative, settler colonialist, and ultimately status quo–reproducing downside of these desert utopias,” Li explained.Another CCNow engagement director, Mekdela Maskai, liked Naomi Klein’s newest book Doppleganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. Here Klein investigated Naomi Wolf to critique the increasing polarization that has shaped dominant narratives about major global issues. Maskai called Wolf a “feminist turned right-wing conspiracist,” adding, “Klein explores the fun-house version of reality that is the ‘mirror world’...[amidst] unfolding crises and collapsing trust in political institutions and news media.”Executive director of strategic initiatives Kyle Pope picked Margaret Renkl for her “spiritual approach” to climate change in opinion pieces for The New York Times.“You look for reasons to feel that it’s possible that everything will be OK, especially in response to the climate and extinction crises,” Renkl wrote. “There’s a line between grief and joy. If I can occupy that exact space, that’s my goal.”Under the subtitle “The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes,” audience engagement editor Theresa Riley picked Steven Johnson’s article for The New York Times. It covers Thomas Midgley Jr. who invented leaded gasoline and “the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons” which eroded the ozone layer. Riley warned new technologies could have “unanticipated consequences,” including those alleged to solve climate change.Training director Santiago Sáez picked an article by Adeel Saeed for The Third Pole on how Pakistan’s trans community battles climate catastrophe and exclusion.In 2023, partnership engagement co-ordinator Lili Zay read The Broken Earth series — a fantasy/sci-fi trilogy by N.K. Jemisin that images a world deeply changed by climate disruption.“The main characters are women and girls, which is such an important representation in this genre and also for identities who are at the frontline of climate impacts,” Zay said.Deputy director Andrew McCormick stuck to basics and pointed to a “sprawling, ongoing series” in the Los Angeles Times. Climate reporter Sammy Roth traveled across the western US “to explore complex and often contentious realities of the energy transition with an eye towards cleaner and more equitable solutions.”
A media nudge group has announced its favourite journalistic pieces of the year, many of which connect climate change to groups the political left classifies as oppressed.Covering Climate Now, a group founded in 2019 by Columbia University, the Guardian, the Nation, and a New York City FM channel, exists to shape and inform climate change media coverage. It now claims 500 member journalists and outlets with a combined audience of two billion people.CCNow’s final email of 2023, released December 14, allowed staff to highlight their favourite coverage of the year. To lead off, CCNow engagement fellow Amanda Braitman placed “historical responsibility for climate change” on colonialism.“To me, you really can’t talk about climate change without acknowledging the role of colonialism in its origins. This Carbon Brief analysis does just that. It calculates total historical emissions by country taking colonial rule into account,” Braitman explained.“[T]he UK’s share of emissions doubles, while India’s share declines. Looking at colonial rule like this provides a vital intervention to the prevailing narrative about the crisis and how we can go about solving it.”Managing director Judy Doctoroff chose the five-part series Warming Signs by the national environmental correspondent for CBS News. David Schechter traveled to the world’s fastest-warming community in Svalbard, Norway, to interview scientists on how global warming is changing our climate.Doctoroff also thought CBS News and stations also excelled at “local climate impact stories” on rising sea levels, increasingly unpredictable winter weather, and how to respond.Local television engagement manager Elena González thought NBC national climate reporter Chase Cain did a masterful job using a sponge and “the power of TV” to connect storms in New York to climate change, “checking all the right boxes for good reporting: connecting climate change to extreme weather and fossil fuels and giving scientific context.”Co-founder and executive director Mark Hertsgaard complained, “Too much climate coverage has inaccurately channelled the view that the 1.5-degree-Celsius target is hopelessly out of reach.” In contrast, The Guardian’s environmental editor Damian Carrington used the sixth report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to make a “map of climate optimism.” Carrington outlined 40 actions that “require no new technology” to cut emissions in half by 2030.Meanwhile, executive director Anna Hiatt tied climate change to mental health deaths.”A forensic examination of 33-year-old Stephan Goodwin’s last days in Arizona’s extreme heat starkly illustrates how people with schizophrenia are at increased risk for heat-related injury and death. Affecting less than 1% of the population, recent research found that 8% of those who died in a 2021 heatwave in Canada had a schizophrenia diagnosis,” she warned.“The Washington Post reports that it’s ‘potentially the most dangerous preexisting condition in a rapidly warming world.’ Goodwin’s story is part of ‘The Human Limit’ series, which takes a critical look at how climate change threatens health.”Digital editor Karin Kamp liked a Zoya Teirstein piece for Grist which explained “how climate change is making us sick.” Climate change has been blamed for the migration of 20 million people annually, plus animals, algae, bacteria, and fungi.“New diseases are popping up and old ones are making a comeback. The northeastern US, where I live, is seeing a ‘massive proliferation’ of ticks that carry Lyme disease. It’s all projected to get worse, giving us another reason to act on climate change and report on it with the seriousness it deserves,” Kamp wrote.Engagement manager Maya L. Kapoor liked how The Marshall Project and Grist used a long-form comic to report on how Tulare Lake flooding in California revealed “prisoner vulnerability, a huge climate justice issue.”“Two points were gut punches: that California sees prisoners as resources during an emergency, and that prison planning treats prisoners as hazards, rather than as the ones facing hazard,” Kapoor wrote.Under the subheading “Apocalypse Urbanism: Cities for an Uninhabitable World,” Project coordinator Natalie Li liked an article exploring whether “zero carbon, climate-friendly” desert cities for “global city planning” provided “futuristic utopias.”“In this article for The Architectural Review, anthropologist Gökçe Günel unpacks the hyper-exploitative, settler colonialist, and ultimately status quo–reproducing downside of these desert utopias,” Li explained.Another CCNow engagement director, Mekdela Maskai, liked Naomi Klein’s newest book Doppleganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. Here Klein investigated Naomi Wolf to critique the increasing polarization that has shaped dominant narratives about major global issues. Maskai called Wolf a “feminist turned right-wing conspiracist,” adding, “Klein explores the fun-house version of reality that is the ‘mirror world’...[amidst] unfolding crises and collapsing trust in political institutions and news media.”Executive director of strategic initiatives Kyle Pope picked Margaret Renkl for her “spiritual approach” to climate change in opinion pieces for The New York Times.“You look for reasons to feel that it’s possible that everything will be OK, especially in response to the climate and extinction crises,” Renkl wrote. “There’s a line between grief and joy. If I can occupy that exact space, that’s my goal.”Under the subtitle “The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes,” audience engagement editor Theresa Riley picked Steven Johnson’s article for The New York Times. It covers Thomas Midgley Jr. who invented leaded gasoline and “the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons” which eroded the ozone layer. Riley warned new technologies could have “unanticipated consequences,” including those alleged to solve climate change.Training director Santiago Sáez picked an article by Adeel Saeed for The Third Pole on how Pakistan’s trans community battles climate catastrophe and exclusion.In 2023, partnership engagement co-ordinator Lili Zay read The Broken Earth series — a fantasy/sci-fi trilogy by N.K. Jemisin that images a world deeply changed by climate disruption.“The main characters are women and girls, which is such an important representation in this genre and also for identities who are at the frontline of climate impacts,” Zay said.Deputy director Andrew McCormick stuck to basics and pointed to a “sprawling, ongoing series” in the Los Angeles Times. Climate reporter Sammy Roth traveled across the western US “to explore complex and often contentious realities of the energy transition with an eye towards cleaner and more equitable solutions.”
