14 nonprofit news organizations elevating local stories about climate change
At the very time that the effects of climate change are felt more acutely in our local communities, there are fewer and fewer local news outlets reporting on the issue. To navigate our climate crisis, we need independent news outlets to provide valid information, hold energy companies accountable, and elevate stories of how local communities are developing their own solutions. The exceptional stories below illustrate how climate change impacts all aspects of our lives, from agriculture to public health to housing.
Nonprofit news outlets are playing an increasingly important role in climate change coverage, and organizations that care about the health of our communities are taking note. This year, outdoor retailer REI Co-op partnered with NewsMatch to support coverage of the outdoors and the environment, including climate, in 10 nonprofit newsrooms across the country. This money will double the impact of individual donations to those newsrooms, which will allow them to continue to do independent reporting that can’t wait.
We’re also proud that 25 newsrooms participating in this year’s NewsMatch are also part of Covering Climate Now, a global coalition of 250 outlets working to improve and elevate change coverage.
Adirondack Explorer showed how warming temperatures have resulted in the emergence of ticks in a region that had not seen them in the past, while at the same time New York State eliminated funding for tick research in the Adirondack Park.
Bay Nature magazine showed how the $17 billion agricultural industry in California’s Central Valley is scrambling to adapt to warmer winters, more erratic weather, and an imminent end to unfettered groundwater use.
When an EcoRI reporter looked into planning and environmental enforcement along Providence, R.I.’s industrial waterfront, he ran into a circular blame game between the state’s environmental agency, the city of Providence, and ProvPort, which represents business interests. The story showed how lack of transparency and leadership puts nearby communities at risk of major health hazards and sea level rise.
The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting collaborated with the Food & Environment Reporting Network to reveal that North Carolina for a decade had buried complaints by rural residents about noxious pollution from industrial hog farms. In public records obtained from top livestock producing states, North Carolina stood out for its 33 public complaints over a decade, compared with thousands in other states. The story first ran in The Guardian.
Scalawag reported on how the climate crisis is already uprooting people from their communities, and the first wave of climate migrants are public housing residents and other poor, disabled, elderly, and vulnerable people. The story in collaboration with Environmental Health News focused on New Bern, North Carolina, a refuge for free black people before the Civil War and home still to their descendants. In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, the city is tearing down public housing, forcing people to relocate because redevelopment and moving residents into other affordable housing nearby could take years.
In “City of Oil” NPR’s Latino USA (part of Futuro Media Group) follows the story of Nalleli Cobo, who from age 10 suffered terrible health problems. No doctor could diagnose the cause until her family learned they lived across the street from an active, hidden oil well. The doctor told them to move from their South Los Angeles home. Instead of moving, they organized. Los Angeles sits atop the largest urban oil field in the country and has been the site of oil extraction for almost 150 years. Now, Nalleli is 18 and fighting to ban oil drilling within a 1/2 mile of a school or residence, a ban that would essentially end drilling in LA. This story raised awareness of the health risks for 900,000 Angelenos who live within 1/2 mile of an active well, many of them hidden in plain sight.
A reporter for The World was one of only two journalists invited to spend seven weeks onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a research vessel bound for the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Carolyn Beeler’s dispatches explained the implications of the melting of the massive glacier, which could add 1 to 2 feet of global sea level rise in the next 50 to 100 years.
Reporting by Threshold revealed how climate change and climate change solutions are disrupting the traditional way of life for a Sámi reindeer herding family in Northern Norway. Warming temperatures are making it more difficult for reindeer to find food and a proposed wind farm threatens to disturb the herd even more. Caught in the middle, the family is struggling to maintain their traditions while navigating a changing landscape. This reporting raised awareness about the mixed implications of climate change solutions.
Civil Eats in partnership with NBC News explored how valley fever, an illness caused by a soil-borne fungus, is hitting farmworkers and residents of rural communities hard. Although treatable, valley fever is often misdiagnosed, allowing the disease to spread and the symptoms to worsen as infection rates appear to be rising with climate change-fueled drought and a 240% increase in dust storms.
Anthropocene Magazine explored how satellite surveillance technology is reframing our connection with nature in some of the same exhilarating and profoundly disturbing ways that social media reframed our connections with each other. Seeing the world’s 3 trillion trees in real time allows environmental watchdogs to catch criminals. But it also means that the data riches of big tech’s unblinking eyes will go to whoever can pay top dollar.
WJCT News is producing a website called ADAPT to explore how sea level rise will affect Northeast Florida and what’s being done by local governments, the Navy and others grappling with protecting everything from endangered species to drinking water, coastal economies and historic sites.
PA Post collaborated with public broadcaster WITF and local news outlet PennLive on a monthlong, multimedia series marking the 40th anniversary of the partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island. The project not only retold the events of 1979, but explored the challenges of the ongoing decommissioning of the remaining reactors at the site and nuclear power’s role in responding to climate change.
A Public Herald investigation uncovered that Pennsylvania is allowing sewage treatment plants to discharge radioactive fracking waste into 13 waterways. Landfills accept the waste, rainfall leaches out some of the soluble constituents, then the state Department of Environmental Protection lets the sewage plants “treat” and discharge the leachate. Other states have adopted the same practice, which appears to date at least as far back as 2009.
Despite its nickname of “The Garden State,” New Jersey is best known for its highways and tank farms. NJ Spotlight, partnering with NJTV News, set out to assess the state of farming and found it to be surprisingly healthy. The multimedia project explored what New Jersey has done well, the struggles farmers still face and how farming is changing to remain vital in the most densely populated state in the nation.
Part fundraising program, part capacity-building effort, part public-awareness campaign, NewsMatch works to support nearly 200 nonprofit newsrooms while making it as easy as possible for anyone — donor, newsroom, foundation — to participate. Click here to learn more and donate to a newsroom of your choice.
