It’s Getting Easier To Have Climate Stories Greenlighted
I’ve been trying to write climate stories for 30 years. Now editors are getting on board
I was a teenager in 1988 when James Hansen gave his congressional testimony on climate change.
It was the first time I’d seen the dangers of greenhouse gases laid out so clearly — and alarmingly. Being a science nerd back even then, I dove into the nascent literature about CO2 and other heat-trapping gases, and it scared the living crap out of me.
So when I became a freelance magazine journalist in the mid 90s, I decided I wanted to write about climate change and energy as much as possible.
As it turns out, I didn’t often get a chance. Back then, most editors were skeptical about approving many pitches on global warming. As they noted — correctly — the stories were brow-furrowingly complex: Lots of molecular science, atmospheric physics, all material that thrills science nerds but is a harder sell for others. Plus, the subject of energy wasn’t on the front burner, editorially. (Back then, you read about it more often in the business pages, if at all.) Worse, global warming was simply a bummer, certainly compared to the other hot tech story of the day, the rise of the Internet.
