A computer hacker nearly succeeded recently in rendering a local Florida facility a source of poisonous drinking water. And the risk of other such hacks is real, even as the vulnerabilities are hidden behind stringent U.S. secrecy laws. The latest TipSheet explores dangers to our drinking water supply — which go well beyond future hacking.
"The head of a House oversight panel on Monday renewed its investigation into political interference in the nation’s coronavirus response, releasing new allegations of meddling in scientists’ work."
President Biden’s national climate advisor Gina McCarthy joined an outspoken U.S. senator and a roundtable of elite journalists last week to preview dramatic changes possibly ahead in U.S. and international climate policy, environmental justice, clean energy and more. Get the upshot from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ 2021 Guide to Energy & Environment event. Plus, watch video of the full program.
The Biden administration has moved rapidly to reset energy and environment policies dramatically shifted by the Trump White House. But how quickly can such a reversal occur, what are the priorities and what are the critical pathways for change? To help sort out the latest news and track larger trends, SEJournal offers this overview and analysis, part of our extensive “2021 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment.”
A case study in how journalists can center environmental news around social justice is at the heart of a new volume of scholarly essays reviewed in the latest BookShelf. While its tale of rural residents poisoned by contaminants is decades old, its lesson of what happens when power players bank on media acquiescence holds for stories of today.
"A decade after an outbreak of Q fever killed 95 people in the Netherlands, scientists fear the emergence of a new disease",
"as Joe Biden takes the presidential oath of office, he will inherit a pandemic that has sickened and killed more people — and caused anguish and hardship across the nation — at a scale not seen since the influenza pandemic of 1918.""
"Air quality regulators have lifted the limits on the number of cremations that can be performed in Los Angeles county, citing a death rate that is more than double the pre-pandemic norm and an unmanageable backlog of dead bodies."
"President-elect Joe Biden has unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan to end “a crisis of deep human suffering” by speeding up vaccines and pumping out financial help to those struggling with the pandemic’s prolonged economic fallout."
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