Metcalf News

As the global impacts of climate change become more apparent, China has become a crucial player in the international discussion about how to address these impacts. A new website, chinadialogue.net, facilitates this cross-cultural dialogue with China. The University of Rhode Island's Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting and URI's Confucius Institute will host a public lecture by Isabel Hilton, founder and editor of chinadialogue.net. [ Full text ]

Reporting on the environment, public policy, and even business, often requires journalists to explain complex scientific research and its implications. The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental reporting is recruiting journalists for two science training fellowships: Metcalf's Tenth Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists, and the Metcalf Institute Diversity Fellowships in Environmental Reporting. [ Full text ]

Leading climate scientist Dr. Benjamin D. Santer will be the keynote speaker at this year's Grantham Prize Seminar on Environmental Journalism, "Reporting on Climate Change: Science, Policy and the News," Monday, September 24, 2007, at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography's Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. [ Full text ]

The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting has awarded the 2007-2008 Diversity Fellowships in Environmental Reporting to six professional journalists. [ Full text ]

The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting has awarded Annual Workshop for Journalists Fellowships to ten reporters from around the country. The reporters will attend a week-long marine and environmental science immersion program at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography from June 10 to June 15, 2007. [ Full text ]

For nearly 20 years, civil rights leaders, academics, and legislators have argued that biases in environmental policy and long-standing economic discrimination in America have together created a disproportionate amount of hazardous pollution among the poor and communities of color. In seeking to redress these inequities, a movement toward environmental justice has evolved, bringing about debate some equity-based policy, but also over whether environmental discrimination actually exists. [ Full text ]

The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting has awarded the Diversity Fellowships in Environmental Reporting to six professional journalists.

This 42-week fellowship program provides minority journalists with an opportunity to learn basic science, gain environmental research and reporting skills, and apply new knowledge and skills in a 38-week reporting assignment. [ Full text ]

"Scientists and Journalists: Getting the Point Across" is an annual public lecture series held as part of the Eighth Annual Workshop for Journalists fellowship program. Lectures are free and open to the public. Speakers scheduled for the lecture series are:

MONDAY, JUNE 12 - 3:30 p.m.
Biological Invasions in the Sea: Science, History and Policy
James T. Carlton, Professor of Marine Sciences, Williams College; Director, Williams-Mystic

TUESDAY, JUNE 13 - 3:30 p.m.
A World Without Sharks: Consequences of Global Loss of Ocean Preditors
Ransom A. Myers, Killam Chair of Ocean Studies, Dalhousie University

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14 - 3:30 p.m.
The Shifting Landscape of Environmental Reporting
Amanda Griscom Little, Columnist, Grist Magazine

THURSDAY, JUNE 15 - 3:30 p.m.
Climate Change and the Ocean's Role in the Future of the Planet
Thomas Delworth, Climate Dynamics and Prediction Group Leader, Princeton University/NOAA

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 - 11 a.m.
Science in the Political Arena
David Goldston, Chief of Majority Staff for the House Science Committee

The largest journalism prize in North America was announced today to honor outstanding reporting on the environment by journalists in the United States and Canada. The Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment will provide a $75,000 cash award each year to one journalist or a team of journalists in recognition of exemplary reporting on the environment. [ Full text ]

The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting was awarded a $856,479 grant from the National Science Foundaiton to support six 42-week paid science and reporting fellowships for minority journalists. The Metcalf Institute, publisher of Environment Writer, will administer this new program over the next five years, which will begin in 2006. [ Full text ]