Journalism & Media

"For years, climate scientists have been assailed from many sides -- through e-mail hacking, death threats, politician’s demands for documents, Freedom of Information requests (many having the strong smell of a fishing expedition). A Climate Science Legal Defense Fund set up last fall has taken on a formal affiliation with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an established nonprofit group offering aid and advice to government whistleblowers and scientists working on environmental issues."

"Mike Partain didn’t believe the rumors about a place called Baby Heaven until he visited a Jacksonville, N.C., graveyard and wandered into a section where newborns were laid to rest. Surrounded by hundreds of tiny marble headstones, he started to cry."

EPA's "Documerica" photo archive, suppressed by the Reagan administration and forgotten for years, is being revived. It provides a stunning series of "before" pictures as a context in which to place the pollution control now under assault by Republicans. And it offers cash-strapped journalists a treasure-trove of copyright-free graphics.

"Prominent MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel has been receiving an unprecedented 'frenzy of hate' after a video featuring an interview with him was published recently by Climate Desk.

Emails contained 'veiled threats against my wife,' and other 'tangible threats,' Emanuel, a highly-regarded atmospheric scientist and director of MIT’s Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate program, said in an interview. 'They were vile, these emails. They were the kind of emails nobody would like to receive.'

"TOKYO — A powerful and independent panel of specialists appointed by Japan’s Parliament is challenging the government’s account of the accident at a Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and will start its own investigation into the disaster — including an inquiry into how much the March earthquake may have damaged the plant’s reactors even before the tsunami. "

"Starting Feb. 1, drilling operators in Texas will have to report many of the chemicals used in the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Environmentalists and landowners are looking forward to learning what acids, hydroxides and other materials have gone into a given well."

"Ever wondered who the big greenhouse-gas emitters are in your neck of the woods? The answer is now just a click away."

Ongoing controversy over Pennsylvania's oversight (or lack thereof) of fracking for gas in the Marcellus Shale has brought a lot of readers to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "Pipeline" reporting portal. The Post-Gazette offers interactive maps of drilling data from the Department of Environmental Protection. One big problem: "DEP's production data ... says there are 495 more wells producing gas, or ready to produce gas, than DEP has recorded as ever being drilled, and 182 of those wells don't even show up on the state's Marcellus Shale permit list."