People & Population

For a clean energy transition to succeed, it almost certainly will have to bring along displaced workers and communities. To help journalists understand the challenges underlying that shift, BookShelf’s Jenny Weeks reviews two volumes. The first is a new memoir of working in North Dakota’s booming Bakken oil fields, the second an earlier account of decline in a working-class community in Oregon.

Journalist Lyndsie Bourgon had covered timber poaching in the Pacific Northwest for over a decade when she decided to expand her scope, heading to the Peruvian Amazon to explore old-growth poaching there. In FEJ StoryLog, she shares the ups and downs of that project, made possible in part by a grant from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism.

With megadrought a growing reality, one way into the story is through ubiquitous water management agencies. TipSheet surveys the “waterscape” of these governmental bodies — from local irrigation districts to multi-state regional water compacts — and how focusing on them can yield vital insights for drought stories. Plus, questions to ask and links to reporting resources.

An unusual student journalist, moonlighting in between his Ph.D. training as a clinical psychologist, turned an interest in the ways nature can heal into an award-winning story for a prominent magazine, and in the process helped prompt skyrocketing interest among mainstream physicians in “prescribing nature.” Aaron Reuben shares his experience in the new EJ Academy.