What’s one thing you wish readers understood better about environmental coverage?
Lisa Song: I think it would be that the various people and organizations who advocate for environmental causes are not a monolith. There are many people who are doing various things to change or help the environment who wouldn’t even consider themselves environmentalists. Even if you just look at the biggest national environmental groups, everyone from the Environmental Defense Fund to the Sierra Club to 350.org, their names are recognizable nationwide by folks who cover this issue, but they sometimes have polar opposite reactions to certain policies and things that they support or don’t support. I wish more people recognized that sometimes groups that all vaguely want the same thing can have totally different solutions and policies and proposals.
One simple example is fracking. There were some environmental groups that were more okay with fracking, and others that were adamantly against it, no matter what rules were put in place.
Tony Briscoe: Science is complex. It’s messy. It’s not always that we’re dealing in certainties. I try to rely as much on observation as anything. It’s like, you could say that Illinois has warmed 1.2 degrees in the past century, or you can say that there are armadillos in southern Illinois and how strange is that? Sometimes it’s more about, well, this is the first time that we’ve observed this in a century and looking at ice bridges that used to support car traffic to islands in Wisconsin versus how ferries are running all year round. There are things that are just abnormal, that communities aren’t used to dealing with that, I think, resonate a little bit more than data does.
Lylla Younnes: It can be really difficult to find a direct cause and effect between a source and an individual harmed, but that doesn’t mean that we should look away. Sometimes the harm takes a very, very long time to reveal itself to us. And it obviously depends on the environmental issue. For forest fires, the harm’s there, it’s very present, we see it from outer space. But in the case of air toxics, for example, it’s sort of a lifetime of slow degrading on the body.
Elizabeth Weil: In a way, every story is a climate story. It’s important to know the particulars, but to extend climate as a framework for looking at the world is maybe the most important thing any of us can do as citizens.
That makes me think about how in recent years, I have noticed, environmental justice has become a more mainstream coverage area, as opposed to just environmental science. How has your understanding of that changed in your years doing this work?
LS: I would say that the environmental justice movement has always been there. Until fairly recently, it just hasn’t gotten the amount of mainstream, concerted effort in terms of coverage either by reporters or by politicians or policymakers. You’re starting to see a huge increase in folks representing EJ issues having a seat at the table. I think it’ll be interesting to see whether that’s a pattern and a trend that lasts.
TB: More people are challenging this thinking that certain things are accepted as normal. When we talk about environmental justice, places don’t necessarily have to be breaking the law to create harm. And I think that a lot of [environmental justice] uncovers a lot of different harms that exist within the parameters of what’s totally legal, which brings up a different kind of issue.
LY: I would echo that. I mean, one of the things that's really shocked me as I’ve just gained some more experience on this beat, which I mean, I really haven't been reporting on this for a super long time, but certain things are just completely legal. When I started, my baseline was probably “Oh, are they violating the legal limit?” And now I’m very much “Well, what is the legal limit? And how protective is the legal limit here? And how has it changed over time? Who were the people who’ve been responsible for its change?”
All of you have done stories that paint a very bleak picture of where we are versus where we ought to be in terms of our response to climate change. In your work, how do you balance hope and despair? Do you have any advice for how readers should apply those lenses to what they’re learning about the climate?
EW: Last summer, when California was on fire and the air was impossible to breathe, and I was new on the beat and reading intensely, it was really difficult. I had moments of feeling like “How does anybody do this?” The world itself returning to being a beautiful place physically, for me at least, was really important. To be able to go to the mountains and see that Earth is still actually really lovely and magical and beautiful and it’s not all gloom and doom was super important for me.
LY: There are victories sometimes, and it’s worth celebrating them. In St. James Parish, Louisiana, a plant that we reported on down there was going to become the largest petrochemical plant in America. It’s currently stalled, in a really rare case in which the Army Corps of Engineers basically pulled at the last minute their permits for additional inspection. It was a really incredible moment, because that would have never happened had the community not banded together and for years persistently organized against this plant. I think one of the heartening things is community engagement, and documenting it. In some cases they are successful.
LS: On climate change in particular, there’s a really useful framing from NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel, who said, “Climate change isn’t a cliff we fall off, but a slope we slide down.”
It’s not a binary: Are we saved or are we doomed? Rather, it’s about how far down the hill are we going to fall? So, to think about it that way, every 10th of a degree that you can further prevent warming is a good thing and will have massively good consequences for the world. There’s a big difference between letting climate change raise average temperatures by three degrees versus two degrees. With every new policy and every incremental step, that’s always a good thing.
TB: With climate change, I think it really helps [to focus on] what makes these communities special, what they’ve had for generation after generation, and what we can hold on to. Highlighting that, for me, has been huge.
Lake Erie is the walleye capital of the world, where it’s only got 2% of the water volume of the Great Lakes, but it has 50% of the fish. So, [knowing that] really helps home in on why the annual dead zone is a big deal for the fishermen that are there. It’s one thing to say that you’ve never been ice fishing. It’s another thing to say that you’ll never go ice fishing.
Are there personal behaviors that you have changed since you started doing your reporting?
LS: There’s a lot of greenwashed product stuff, where different companies are like, “Buy our eco-conscious product here.” Being able to see through the greenwashing is interesting both for myself and sometimes talking about it with friends, and, you know, sort of confirming that buying a giant box of stuff to replace other stuff you might have used is not necessarily always the best choice if you care about the environment.
LY: I don’t feel like I’ve changed my behavior nearly enough. I think I’m just a lot more painfully aware of different things. I mean, I don’t buy plastic if I can help it, because I know how awful it is to produce it, how much it affects communities around plastics plants.
TB: Being frank about the evidence that exists that debunks climate skepticism. I feel not only more capable, but also compelled to debunk that information, given how much climate skepticism there has been.
EW: A new framework for viewing the world is really the most major change. But because this is now my work, I have lots of conversations with people about the climate crisis, which is a change, and a really positive one.
