2025 Journalists' Guide to Environment + Energy

In this special report, “2025 Journalists’ Guide to Environment + Energy,” the SEJournal looks ahead in our ninth annual guide to key issues in the coming year. Check out the guide’s special forward-focused TipSheets, Backgrounders, WatchDogs, a new EJ TransitionWatch column and an overview analysis.

 

Overview Analysis

• Environmental Policies Upended, Climate Plans a Casualty As Trump Takes Power

EJ TransitionWatch

• Energy-Dominance Exponent Coasts Into Interior
• EPA Nominee Heads for Approval, Despite Inexperience
• ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ Could Undo Biden’s Climate Progress
• What Biden Rules Could Congress Unplug With Review Act?
• What Will a Second Trump Term Mean for Environmental Justice?
• Climate Action Looks First To Go Under New Administration
• Trump’s Public Health Agency Picks, Looking Peaked?
• EPA Science Integrity Threatened by House Republicans
• Will Trump ‘Disappear’ Environment, Climate Data?
• Is Fluoride Facing Phaseout in Your Community’s Drinking Water?

Issue Backgrounders

• Insurance Meltdown a Foreseeable Climate Disaster
• What Would Trump 2.0 Mean for the Environment?
• How Climate Change Complicates the Refugee Crisis
• Will the Coming Plastics Treaty Solve the Problem Or Enshrine It?
• Does Kamala Harris Have a Green Streak?

Plus, more forward-looking Backgrounders:

• The EPA’s Power Plant Rule … We’ll See You in Court
• EV Charging Stations — Are They There Yet?
• LNG To Fuel Conflict, Profit, Warming in Coming Years

WatchDog Opinion

• Press Freedom Issues Come to Fore As Trump 2.0 Launches
• There Has Never Been a Better Time for Environmental Journalism
• Will Trump 2.0 ‘Come After’ Journalists?
• Attention Press Officers — Read This Reporter’s Bill of Rights
• What Would a Second Trump Reign Mean for Press Freedom?
• Why the Press Needs To Press for Senate Action on the PRESS Act
• Harris Must Shed More Light on Her Press Freedom Views

Plus, more forward-looking WatchDogs:

• Should Weather Data Really Be Withheld From the Public?

Special TipSheets

• Will Your Local Dam Turn Deadly in the Next Big Storm?
• Could Beef Be the Route to a Bird Flu Pandemic?
• What Makes Communities More Survivable in Extreme Heat Events?
• Is Your Community Ready for Tornadoes? Are You?

Plus, more forward-looking TipSheets:

• Sewage Sludge Can Spread the Harm of Many Toxic Chemicals
• Extreme Heat Changes Landscape for Summer Recreation Stories
• New PFAS Drinking Water Rule Promises Local Stories

Reporter’s Toolbox

• Is Climate Data at Risk From Natural Disasters?

Other look-ahead coverage

• EJ Academy: Up for a Challenge — Fifty Environmental Journalists on the Profession and Its Future
• Voices of Environmental Justice: Communities at Risk Are Climate Stories Too
• Voices of Environmental Justice: Future of Justice40 Program Hangs in Balance
• Feature: Better Communicating for the Climate
• Feature: Coequal Catastrophes — Quammen on Climate Change, Extinction and Epidemics
• Feature: Rethinking Rural Reporting — How To Get Past the Cliches
• Feature: ‘Green’ Steel: Five Things To Know About the U.S. Transition

 

Also be sure to check out this past year's 2024 Guide.