Reporters Toolbox

Environmental journalists need environmental data, even as it’s being stripped from government sites by the Trump administration. That’s where a band of programmers organized into the Public Environmental Data Partners comes in. The latest Toolbox reports it’s rescuing wiped data and making it accessible to reporters. Learn who’s behind the project and get an overview of some of the datasets being restored.

Even as U.S. government agencies rush to wipe climate change information (or even the mention of the word climate) from their websites, others are racing to reconstruct lost data elsewhere. Case in point is a rescued database on climate risks preserved by The Guardian. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox has more on the preserved database and how best to use it.

With many states dominated by a few powerful industries — whether oil, mining or agriculture — the influence of campaign dollars can have an outsize effect on legislation, even to the point of corruption, notes the latest Reporter’s Toolbox. So while the U.S. Congress may be languishing, environmental journalists can dig up stories on lobbying at the state level using a powerful data source.

If the possibility of a politically driven dearth of data for your climate and environment reporting has you on edge, the new Reporter’s Toolbox just may have something to soothe your nerves: A data source from beyond the grasp of the Trump administration and outside the boundaries of the United States. Take a quick tour of environmental data from the OECD.

Keeping up with the Trump administration is tricky, given the speed and volume with which the action is unfolding. But the new Reporter’s Toolbox has a handy list of more than a dozen Trump trackers, watching everything from campaign promises and executive orders to litigation launched against the administration. There’s even a tracker watching his time spent on the golf links.

Environmental journalists aiming to report local or regional stories on real estate climate risk should explore an impressive bit of data journalism on the subject; Reporter’s Toolbox lauds it not just for the exemplary work, but also because the project, from The Washington Post, allows them to look up a variety of risks in their own locales.

The United Nation’s annual climate change meeting is underway this week and if you’re seeking databases on greenhouse gas emissions, the latest Reporter’s Toolbox suggests they might not be from the U.N. Instead, look for the best data from the European Commission’s EDGAR project. What makes EDGAR’s data particularly strong and how to make the best use of it in your reporting.

Susceptibility to landslides is more on the minds of environmental reporters, especially in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which caused hundreds of them. To get a better read on local landslide risk for local stories, Reporter’s Toolbox recommends an enhanced resource from the U.S. Geological Survey, which layers the risk data into easily readable map form.

When Hurricane Helene ravaged a swath of the Southeast in September, leaving at least 230 people dead, it also temporarily took out a critical repository of climate data in Asheville, North Carolina. That got Reporter’s Toolbox thinking about the risks to some of the nation’s other important storehouses of environmental information, whether from extreme weather, hackers or politics. Here’s a shortlist.

A serious air pollutant prevalent in underserved communities, Superfund hazardous waste sites nearby, public drinking water systems out of compliance. All are new or enhanced insights found in an improved version of the federal government’s EJScreen data tool. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox reviews the changes and how they can be used to tell stories of real people’s daily lives.