Multimedia
conference
coverage

 

Agenda

Coverage

Lodging/ Travel

Exhibits/Receptions

Environmental News

About Norman

 

 

SEJ's 25th annual conference, October 7-11, 2015, took place at the Embassy Suites & Conference Center in Norman, Oklahoma, hosted by the University of Oklahoma. Below, you'll find session-by-session multimedia coverage provided by SEJ, volunteers and conference attendees, posted as it arrives. All available audio files are now posted.

 

Additional coverage:

• SEJ's members-only Facebook discussion group
• University of Oklahoma's 1EarthOK. Twitter @1earthok
• Public SEJ Norman 2015 Flickr conference photo group, where you can upload/share your own conference photos

If you attended the conference, please take a few minutes to tell us how we did. What you think matters to us and your feedback helps SEJ make future conferences more valuable. Click here to take our online conference evaluation.

Thanks to all our volunteer writers, recorders and photographers — this would not happen without you!

It's critically important to SEJ to gather evidence on the impact of our work. Please help us to keep SEJ strong and share links, photos, copies of reporting generated or informed by this conference. Send your story links to Cindy MacDonald, SEJ's Web content manager. It's never too late. Please send yours!

 

Page Menu

Wednesday, October 7
Thursday, October 8
Friday, October 9
Saturday, October 10
Sunday, October 11
Miscellaneous conference coverage and local news

 

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Wednesday, October 7

 

Opening Reception, Dinner and SEJ Awards

L-R: Casey Camp-Horinek, moderator Jennifer Loren and Clara Caufield. More photos here (search on "Wed Opening Reception").                     Photo courtesy of Cindy MacDonald

 

• Video of traditional drumming, by Lana Straub.
• 2015 Stolberg Award Winner: Lana Straub.
• Event description.

Stolberg winner Lana Straub.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, October 8

 

Tour 1, Diving into Tallgrass — and Wind

© Richard J. Blaustein

• "Some Osage Nation Citizens Fight Proposed Wind Turbine Farm and Want Current Towers Taken Down," National Native News, October 20, 2015, by Chuck Quirmbach (listen from 00:56-2:39).
• "A Hidden Treasure in Northern Oklahoma," One Earth Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma, October 9, 2015, by Pamela Ortega.
• Event description.

 

© Lisa Snell, Native American Times. Click to enlarge.

Tour 2, Tar Creek: A Superfund Study in Environmental Justice

 

• "OU Researchers Working To Clean up Commerce’s Contaminated Water," OU Nightly, October 19, 2015, by Jennifer Sellers.
• "A Former Oklahoma Mining Town Dredges up Trouble 30 Years Later," OU Nightly, October 12, 2015, by Jennifer Sellers.
• Commentary: "Supersite us," MiamiOK.com, October 9, 2015, by Rebecca Jim (a speaker on the Tar Creek tour).
• Event description and related information.

 

Tour 5, Water Rights — Water Fights

 

• "Groundwater Concerns Cross State Lines," Arizona Daily Sun, October 14, 2015, by Emery Cowan.
• Event description and related information.

 

Tour 7, Drilling, Fracking, Disposal and Earthquakes? Oh My!

 

• "Oklahoma Earthquakes 2015: Tremors Rise As Oklahoma Officials Struggle To Stem Fracking Wastewater Flow," International Business Times, October 13, 2015, by Maria Gallucci.
• Event description and related information.

 

 

Tour 9, National Weather Center: From Balloons to Supercomputers, Forecasting Severe Weather

 

• "Ready — Weather Or Not!," Environmental Echo, November 15, 2015, by Don Corrigan.
• Event description.

 

 

"What's up with Jay? He's seriously depleted. 1.5 founders hanging out."                                © Amy Gahran

Independent Hospitality Receptions

 

• Event description.

 

 

 

 

Friday, October 9

 

Opening Plenary, Climate Change and Extreme Weather: Planning for an Uncertain Future

L-R: Kathleen Tierney, Berrien Moore, moderator Seth Borenstein, Kathryn Sullivan and Jonathan Overpeck.                                                                                                                        Photo courtesy of Cindy MacDonald

 

• Audio file (01:18:56/32.2MB).
• "Climate Lessons for Environmental Journalists – and You," Columbia Missourian, October 25, 2015, by John Schneller.
• "Weather Researchers Meet in Oklahoma, Look at How Residents Act to Tornado Information," NewsOK.com, October 10, 2015, by Silas Allen.
• "The Winds of Aug-tober: 70s Today, 80s Sunday (near-record highs)," Paul Douglas on Weather blog (Star Tribune), October 9, 2015.
• "NOAA Awards $5.7 Million To Improve Hazardous Weather Forecasts," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration release, October 9, 2015.
• Event description and related information.

 

Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 1, Wrangling the Numbers

• "Getting Sense of Statistics — By Eating Them," BBC Future, September 9, 2016, Enrique Gili.
• Event description and related information.

 

Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2, Covering Environmental Crimes

• "Learning To Cover Environmental Crimes,", Covering the Planet, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, Michigan State University, October 11, 2015, by Eric Freedman (includes take-aways from the panelists and from moderator Freedman's experience reporting on environmental crimes).
• Event description and related information.

 

Concurrent Sessions 1, ENERGY, What's Shaking: Earthquakes Linked to Drilling in Oklahoma and Beyond

• Audio file (01:13:11/29.9MB).
• Speaker George Choy's slide presentation, "A Brief Primer on Induced Seismicity."
• Speaker Kyle Murray's slide presentation, "Map of Earthquakes Mag >=2.8 for Jan 1, 2009–Sep 14, 2015."
• Event description and related information.

 

Concurrent Sessions 1, WATER, Water in a Thirsty World: Costs and Risks

• Audio file (01:10:47/28.9MB).
• Event description and related information.

 

Concurrent Sessions 1, NATIVE AMERICANS AND DIVERSITY, Indians 101: The Law and the Land

• Audio file (01:10:27/28.8MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE CHANGE AND WEATHER, Hours to Decades: The New World of Long-Range Tornado Science

• Audio file (00:53:23/21.8MB).
• Event description.

 

L-R: Moderator Mark Schleifstein of The Times-Picayune, Shellie Chard-McClary, Oklahoma DEQ, Kenneth Smith, American Society of Civil Engineers and previously Association of State Dam Safety Officials.                                          Photo courtesy of Cindy MacDonald.

Concurrent Sessions 1, THE LAND, Infrastructure, The 14-Letter Dirty Word

• Audio file (01:13:09/29.9MB).
• Event description.

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch Breakout Session 2, Beyond Hard Science: Social Science and the IPCC

• Audio file (01:05:35/26.8MB).
• Event description.

 

Network Lunch 6, Oklahoma-Arkansas and the Poop Wars

• "Suits Critical for Reducing Pollution in Oklahoma-Arkansas Cases," Bay Journal, November 9, 2015, by Rona Kobell.
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 1, Figures That Illustrate, Figures That Obfuscate and How To Tell the Difference

• Audio file (01:00:00/24.5MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 2, WATER, Megadroughts: A Threat to Civilization?

• Audio file (01:16:13/31.1MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 2, NATIVE AMERICANS AND DIVERSITY, Environmental Justice Today: From the Plains to the Streets

• Audio file (01:07:14/27.5MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 2, CLIMATE CHANGE AND WEATHER, Meltdown: Climate Change and Political Instability

• Audio file (01:11:11/29.1MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 2, THE LAND, Winged Warnings: What Can Today’s Mineshaft Canaries Teach Us?

• Audio file (01:15:35/30.9MB).
• Note: The video file at right is black, except for the 10-minute showing of the Environmental Health News' project "Winged Warnings" at 00:52.
• Event description.

 

 

 

 

 

Concurrent Sessions 2, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Can Big Data Save American Farmers?

• Audio file (00:48:21/19.8MB).
• Event description.

 

Afternooon Plenary, What's in Your Email, Doc?

L-R: Mike Soraghan of EnergyWire, Gary Ruskin of U.S. Right to Know, Michael Halpern of Union of Concerned Scientists, Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech, moderator Tim Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun.                                                                                                                      Photo courtesy of Cindy MacDonald.

 

• Audio file (00:57:08/23.4MB).
• Background links from speakers.
• Event description and related information.

 

 

 

Saturday, October 10

Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1, Pipelines at Your Doorstep: Safety and Routing Databases

• Audio file (01:11:42/29.3MB).
• Moderator Joe Davis' PowerPoint slideshow.
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 3, ENERGY, Fracking: What’s Happening in Your Home State?

• Audio file (01:06:10/27.1MB).
• Event description.

 

Leona Morgan (story). Photo courtesy of A Cheyenne Voice.

 

Concurrent Sessions 3, NATIVE AMERICANS AND DIVERSITY, Conservation and Mineral Extraction on Native Lands

• Audio file (01:20:34/32.9MB).
• "Young Navajo Spearhead 'No Nukes' Effort," Reprinted from Native Sun News, October 21, 2015, by Clara Caufield.
• Event description.

 

 

Concurrent Sessions 3, CLIMATE CHANGE AND WEATHER, A Most Violent Sky: On the Frontier of Severe Weather Research

• Audio file (01:14:56/30.6MB).
• "Godzilla, The Blob, and Son of Blob: An El Niño Reality Check," ImaGeo blog, Discover Magazine, October 14, 2015, by Tom Yulsman.
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 3, THE LAND, Are We Exhausting the Planet?

• Audio file (01:10:12/28.7MB).
• "Hot Hungry Planet," by moderator Lisa Palmer.
• "Reporting Resources on Population and Natural Resources," provided by speaker Robert Engelman.
• "Reporting Resources on Climate Change, Agriculture, Forests," provided by speaker Jeffrey Hayward.
• "Future of Food: Shaping a Climate-Smart Global Food System," provided by speaker Holger Kray. (For media inquiries, please contact Sarwat Hussein: shussain@worldbankgroup.org)
• "A River Runs Again," by panelist Meera Subramanian.
• "SESYNC Information Sheet and Story Sources," provided by Melissa Andreychek, SESYNC Communications Coordinator. Contact Melissa for tips on new research and the innovative work of postdoctoral fellows: mandreychek@sesync.org.
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 3, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Ecosystem-Based Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation on U.S. Farms and Ranches

• Audio file (00:58:04/23.7MB).
• Event description and related information.

 

L-R: Moderator Laura Barron-Lopez of The Huffington Post, Mother Jones' Russ Choma and Edwin Bender of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.                                          Photo courtesy of Cindy MacDonald.

Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT, Show Us the Money

• Audio file (01:07:22/27.5MB).
• Event description.

 

 

 

Concurrent Sessions 4, ENERGY, Get on the Oil Train (or Pipeline): Policies and Future

• Audio file (01:15:18/30.8MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 4, WATER, Trouble at the Tap: Beyond the Toledo Water Crisis

• Audio file (01:23:57/34.3MB).
• "Harmful Lake Erie Algal Blooms Worsened by Power Plant Pollution," Midwest Energy News, January 25, 2016, by Kathiann M. Kowalski.
• "Q&A: Ohio’s EPA Director on ‘Nonstop’ Federal Regulations," Midwest Energy News, October 14, 2015, by Kathiann M. Kowalski. ("Having Butler at the conference to speak on water issues on Saturday provided the opportunity for us to also arrange a sit-down interview on energy issues, which lasted an hour." — K.M. Kowalski)
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 4, NATIVE AMERICANS AND DIVERSITY, Indian Environmental Law: Flexing Legal Muscle Beyond Reservation Lands

• Audio file (01:11:44/29.3MB).
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 4, THE LAND, Plight of Western Grouse: Trying To Be Wild in an Increasingly Tamed World

• Audio file (01:11:21/29.2MB).
• "Stakeholders in At-Risk Species Conservation Discuss What’s Best for the Birds," Ecosystem Marketplace, October 16, 2015, by Kelli Barrett.
• Event description.

 

Concurrent Sessions 4, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Soil Tillage, Rainfall and Runoff

• The rainfall simulator demonstrates the soil’s capacity to store and filter water. When heavy rain strikes bare fields and construction sites, the two soil samples in the middle, dirty water flows into rivers and streams. Read story.                    © Photo courtesy of Brett Walton / Circle of Blue

  Audio file (01:13:47/30.2MB).
• "Putting Down the Plow in Oklahoma," Environmental Health News, October 15, 2015, by Brian Bienkowski.
• "Healthy Soils Reduce Water Pollution," Circle of Blue, October 13, 2015, by Brett Walton.
• Event description.

 

 

 

Lunch and Plenary Session, Our Energy Future

• Audio file (01:12:40/29.7MB).
• Event description.

 

Mini-Tour 5, Takin' It from the Streets: Norman Neighborhoods and Stormwater Innovations

• "Grass Really Is ‘Greener’ on Other Side of Street in Community Experiment," Bay Journal, November 23, 2015, by Rona Kobell.
• Event description.

 

Sunday, October 11

 

Can Faith Save the World?

L-R: Joan Rosenhauer of U.S. Operations/Catholic Relief Services, Renee McPherson of OU South Central Climate Science Center and moderator Seth Borenstein, AP.                                                                                                                      Photo courtesy of Cindy MacDonald.

• Audio file (00:55:19/22.6MB).
• Event description.

 

Book Authors’ Brunch, Climate Lit and Lessons from the Great Plains

• Audio file (01:09:16/28.2MB).
• Event description.

 

Miscellaneous conference coverage:

"In Need of a Career Boost?" Number 1 Shimbun, February 2, 2016, by James Simms.

"More Quakes Rattle Oklahoma But State Avoids Tough Measures," Associated Press, January 18, 2016, by Seth Borenstein, Kelly P. Kissel and Sean Murphy.

"Reporter's Notebook: A Microcosm of Environmental Change, in Focus," Sequim Gazette, November 18, 2015, by Alana Linderoth.

"YaYa Road Trip 2015 — Norman or Bust," by Lana Straub with Kathy Florsheim and Alison Jones.

"The Growth of the Water Beat," Circle of Blue, October 19, 2015, by Brett Walton.

"Indian Journalists Take Center Stage at Conference," Native Sun News, October 14, 2015, by Clara Caufield.

"Energy Industries Invest in Contest to Recycle Emissions," Climate Central, October 15, 2015, by Bobby Magill.

"October 2015 SEJ Edition of Crain's NewsPro."