Issue

Environment and Climate Change

Earth's average temperature has risen approximately one degree Fahrenheit in the last 50 years. By the end of this century, it will be several degrees higher, according to the latest climate research.

But global warming is doing more than simply making things a little warmer. It's changing rainfall, causing heat waves, and making sea level rise, all of which create human suffering.

Environment and Climate Change brings together reporting from Pulitzer Center grantees on the abilities of communities in diverse regions to bounce back and adapt to the impacts of climate change: One highlight includes in-depth reporting by Nathaniel Rich on the response to global warming during the 1979-1989 decade—an article that takes up the entire issue of The New York Times Magazine. Our journalists investigate climate change in the Arctic—the effects on indigenous communities, the destruction of the fragile natural environment, and the conflict between humans and polar bears. One interactive, award-winning multimedia project, "Sea Change," looks at ocean acidification, its impact on fishing, people's livelihoods, and food security. The documentary "Easy Like Water" features a solar-powered school boat in Bangladesh, where flooding may create 20 million "climate refugees" by mid-century.

Other stories covered here range from the future of the residents of Kiribati, a low-lying island nation in the Pacific, to the biological diversity of the rainforest in Peru, and the psychological effects of climate change on the inhabitants of Australia and Fiji. How does the melting Arctic ice cap affect our lives? How do overfishing and exploitation of mineral resources beneath the ocean’s surface jeopardize food sources need to sustain the planet’s ever-expanding population?

As part of the Pulitzer Center's long-term support for climate change reporting, the Rainforest Journalism Fund was established to provide capacity for local journalists operating in the rainforest regions of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, as well as international journalists reporting from those regions. The Fund represents a major investment in global environmental and climate reporting, with plans to support nearly 200 original reporting projects along with annual regional conferences designed to raise the level of reporting on global rainforest issues such as deforestation and climate change.

 

Environment and Climate Change

Changing Minds on Climate Science

A look at how attitudes toward climate science among coastal North Carolina residents and decision makers have evolved during the past decade as the signs of change have become increasingly visible.

A Deadly Shade of Green

Canada wants to supply New England with cheap, "clean" hydropower. But the region's mega-dams carry hidden costs to Inuit culture, the environment, and even the climate.

Never Turn Your Back to the Sea

Environmentalists, cities, and owners of beachfront homes are engaged in bitter battles over how to save the coastline from rising sea levels.

From the Amazon Forest to the Industry

Surrounded by the Amazon rainforest, some 400 families from the Middle Juruá Extractive Reserve transform the andiroba and murumuru that they collect from the forest into raw material for industry.

Swimming and Water Safety

Students will learn about the importance of water safety and collect class data on swimming involvement.

Soil Pollution in China

Essential questions: What is the cost of industrialization and who pays it? How do we determine whether food is safe? How do you balance food security (production) and food safety?

Environmental Health: What is it?

This lesson draws from a range of projects on food waste, ocean health, global goods and extractives, food insecurity, water and sanitation and more to support student understanding around...