What’s at Stake for the Climate in the 2016 Election? BY MARIANNE LAVELLE InsideClimate News,  October 3, 2016 Following the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the gulf between the candidates has never seemed deeper, perhaps most alarmingly so on climate change. The election shapes up as the most significant possible choice […]

Crocodiles and Palm Trees in the Arctic? New Report Suggests Yes. By Marianne Lavelle May 23, 2016, National Geographic News In even the bleakest climate change scenarios for the end of this century, science has offered hope that global warming would eventually slow down. But a new study published Monday snuffs out such hope, projecting temperatures […]

Last Dance? Researchers push to prevent a last dance for the lesser prairie chicken. Science  June 19, 2015 By Marianne Lavelle HEALY, KANSAS—At first, there’s no sound or motion on the dance floor, just the far-off howl of a lone coyote and the rhythmic thump of a distant oil well. So the scientists wait, keeping […]

Virginia becomes the wine center Jefferson envisioned 200 years ago. Modern technology and marketing have helped, but a changing climate has transformed Virginia into a wine-making terroir worthy of the founding father’s aspirations. The Daily Climate, December 30, 2014 Charlottesville, Va. –- Gabriele Rausse tends to grape vines that are thriving on the same high slope where […]

The Daily Climate, September 22, 2014 “Her day was getting up, eating if she could, then crawling back to bed.” As Lyme disease spreads in the U.S., those in its path cope with a debilitating, bewildering array of maladies, misery and afflictions. Richard Gardiner had no option but to shut down his law practice in […]

“Good for the gander? As Alaska warms, a goose forgoes a 3,300-mile migration“ The Daily Climate, October 30, 2014 The vast marshes on the southwestern tip of the Alaskan peninsula must look like a buffet to a seagrass-loving goose like the Pacific black brant. Right now virtually the entire population  – about 160,000 birds – […]

“Methane: Good Gas, Bad Gas” National Geographic magazine, December 2012 Burn natural gas and it warms your home. But let it leak, from fracked wells or the melting Arctic, and it warms the whole planet. …Out on the lake Katey Walter Anthony stares at the black ice beneath her feet and at the white bubbles […]

National Geographic News, October 13, 2010 National Academies of Science Keck Futures Initiative Communications Awards, Finalist, online National Magazine Awards for Digital Media, Finalist, news reporting See special report at National Geographic News, or browse below.   Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania Along the narrow two-lane roads that wind through Washington County […]

The climate change lobby explosion, The Center for Public Integrity, February 25, 2009 …While the Obama team readies to take on the global warming challenge, the special interests that seek to derail, blunt, or tailor any new climate policy to their narrow agendas have already gathered in staggering numbers. A Center for Public Integrity analysis […]

“Water Woes,” U.S. News and World Report, June 4, 2007 The nation’s hidden water problem rushed into the basement apartments of 51st Street in West New York, N.J., last February 9, shortly after 4 a.m. That’s when a 2-foot-wide pipe ruptured under Bergenline Avenue, New Jersey’s longest commercial thoroughfare. Water burst through the asphalt with […]

The New York Times Magazine, March 9, 1997 (Part of a special issue: The Age Boom) Larue Simpson made $196,000 a year, played golf and owned thoroughbred racehorses before his life derailed, he contends, on the prejudice that does not discriminate by race, sex or class. A jury agreed that Simpson lost his job as […]

“Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide in Environmental Law” The National Law Journal, September 21, 1992 I led a team of three reporters in the newspaper’s most ambitious investigative project ever, a computer-assisted project that showed stark disparity in enforcement of environmental laws in white and minority communities. Our 12-page report led to Congressional hearings, a U.S. […]