When it comes to telling environment and energy stories, especially about place and scale, data visualizations can turn an average story into a standout. Reporter’s Toolbox takes a look at some recent examples of inspiring data-mapping projects that provide insight into everything from auto emissions and floods to vanishing rivers and whipping winds.
As U.S. coal’s comedown continues, our latest Issue Backgrounder takes a close look at the factors behind the industry’s decline and finds a combination of economics, competition and shifting global markets, along with aging technology, politics and environmental pushback. What’s in store for coal in 2020?
"The decadeslong Pacific Northwest salmon war may be nearing the end. But it's economics, not fish, that could be the demise of four dams at the center of the fight."
"ANATONE, Wash. — Somewhere near this tiny farming town last month, a Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife hunter conducted what officials call a lethal removal, killing a gray wolf, a member of a species that the state considers endangered."
"As he stood amid the thick old-growth forests in the coastal range of Oregon, Dave Wiens was nervous. Before he trained to shoot his first barred owl, he had never fired a gun."
"Warming waters and a series of dams are making the grueling migration of the Chinook salmon even more deadly — and threatening dozens of other species."
"A massive marine heat wave that caused record warming of ocean waters off the West Coast five years ago, sending salmon numbers crashing and malnourished sea lions washing up on beaches across California and other Pacific states, is back, scientists said Thursday."
"Nearly a century ago, America embarked on a great social experiment in the Pacific Northwest, charging up the Columbia River and erecting dams. ... Now the system is buckling."
"A coal company has been dealt another legal blow in its attempt to build an export terminal on the lower Columbia River. The Washington Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling Tuesday that was being challenged by Millennium Bulk Terminals and Northwest Alloys Inc."
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