A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
Desk reporter Connor Giffin of the Louisville Courier Journal snapped this picture of a coal waste field in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, on a tour looking at the environmental legacy of fossil fuel extraction in the state.
Desk editorial director Tegan Wendland questioned U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan about the status of the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force during a Friday plenary session.Panelists from across the country discuss communal, indigenous-led and grassroots solutions to land and water protection during the Desk’s workshop at #SEJ2024.Several Desk journalists visited Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay to catch the sunrise and take home lessons for the Mississippi River about water pollution from farm runoff.
The Desk was on the road last week to learn and explore together in Philadelphia, at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference — SEJ’s biggest ever.
We took field trips to coal country, bay shores, wind farms, water plants and more and joined Q&A with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan, the first EPA chief to speak at an SEJ conference in two decades (check out coverage from our mentor journalists Mark Schleifstein and Chris Clayton).
The Desk hosted a packed conference workshop exploring multi-state compacts and other collective and communal approaches to managing watersheds, and a vegan dinner about myths and facts about global water conflict. We spent days talking with our peers and colleagues from around the world about rural reporting strategies, alternatives to the business frame in journalism and the future of our craft.
We’re grateful to SEJ for partnering with us to help train our journalists, and to all the speakers, reporters and staff who made our conference programs possible. See more coverage from the conference here and stay tuned for takeaways and stories.
Thanks for reading,
Annie Ropeik Ag & Water Desk assistant director and SEJ
Journalists participate in a systems thinking exercise, mapping the forces that affect drought management, at the Desk’s #SEJ2024 workshop. Our expert journalist advisor Erin Jordan of The Gazette led this group.Desk expert journalist Halle Parker of WWNO-New Orleans Public Radio (left) and assistant director Annie Ropeik, a freelance climate journalist (right), co-chairs of the SEJ board’s programs committee, address the conference.
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