Category: PATA_ClimateReporting_2019_related

At the start of the previous decade, Kallan Benson was 5 years old, her favorite story was “The Secret Garden,” and Earth was in the midst of its warmest year on record. Benson had heard about climate change (her mother is an environmental scientist), but she didn’t know world leaders had just signed an agreement calling it “one of the greatest challenges of our time.” She cared about Earth, but she trusted adults to protect it.

Marked by innovative initiatives and high-quality reporting, 2019 was a breakout year for climate journalism. But there is still work to be done. Broadcast and cable TV news are still greatly underreporting catastrophic extreme weather, failing to cover the crisis on the Sunday shows, and ceding discussion of proposed climate solutions to right-wing media.

THIS DECADE, MANY people around the world woke up to a grim reality: Climate change is here, it’s happening now, and it could very easily get much, much worse.

One of the busiest years yet for climate litigation, 2019 was highlighted by favorable decisions handed down by some of the world’s highest courts.

It is always difficult to encapsulate a 12-month period, let alone the 365 turbocharged 24-hour news cycles that seem to have become the new normal. So much happens in the course of a year — from governments, companies, activists and many others — that it all becomes a blur.

THIS DECADE, MANY people around the world woke up to a grim reality: Climate change is here, it’s happening now, and it could very easily get much, much worse.

The end of 2019 is quickly approaching, leaving a whirlwind of city-shaping news and developments in its wake.

The 2010s may go down in environmental history as the decade when the fingerprints of climate change became evident in extreme weather events, from heat waves to destructive storms, and climate tipping points once thought to be far off were found to be much closer.

OnDecember 11, two things happened that caught the attention of those invested in the fight against climate change, which at this point should include all of us. TIME magazine named 16-year-old Greta Thunberg its 2019 person of the year, lauding her for “creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change.”

Ten years ago, they promised us self-driving cars. We got a scooter surge, clashes with regulators, and the brutal realities of mobility.