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Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet
Posted by: IwantCleanAir -- Mar 17, 2006

The folks at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism noticed that reporting in the U.S. on Global Warming tends to fail, in part, due to journalistic laziness.  So, they created a curriculuum that encouraged students to explore the story with honest skepticism.

"We intended to avoid the pitfall of creating a false balance of 'dueling experts,' which gives equal weight to unequal sides," said course creator Sandy Tolan in his introduction to the series.  "This did not mean that we wouldn't learn all sides of an argument, but that in our pursuit of knowledge and story ideas... we'd place such skepticism in scientific and political context."

In partnership with two other great journalistic enterprises, Salon and NPR's "Living on Earth," the student's work will be published in a series titled Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet on Fridays through May 5th, 2006.

The first intallment, The Bears of Churchill brings us to what local Churchill, Canada residents call "The Polar Bear Capital of the World."  We learn how the bears are suffering from a warmer climate... later winters and earlier springs... and how this is affecting the people of Churchill.

Looks to be a great series.