5 Questions for the Fellows

Five Questions for the Fellows: Mercy Orengo

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 17:40:16 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Mercy Orengo Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/21/2023 - 10:40

Devin Farmiloe

The Ted Scripps Fellowships have been bringing award-winning environmental journalists to CU Boulder for 26 years. Fellows embark on a year of courses, projects, field trips, seminars and more— taking advantage of everything university life has to offer. This series is a chance to get to know this year’s cohort of talented journalists beyond what a typical bio page will tell you.

Mercy Orengo is a features reporter and has primarily focused on human interest stories in Africa. Orengo was a longform reporter for The Standard, the longest-standing newspaper in Kenya. Reporting for The Standard, she wrote on topics like how climate solutions have been used to reduce intertribal conflict and how research gaps can interfere with climate solutions. During her fellowship, Orengo has been exploring new avenues of environmental reporting in hopes of finding a medium that is accessible to the Kenyan public.

Orengo sat down with CEJ graduate assistant Devin Farmiloe to talk about her work and experience as a fellow.

Your past work dealt a lot with climate and climate change. One of the things you have worked on recently that I am interested in is the research gaps in Africa that are hindering the continent's participation in climate solutions. Could you tell me some more about that line of inquiry?

I've done a lot of climate change stories, but in a broader perspective. After I graduated, and just as I was applying for the Scripps fellowship, I thought about climate reporting in the Global South. I started doing independent research on some of the body of work that has been done by journalists and researchers. One of the things that I found was that women are disproportionately represented in climate change conversations, especially in the Global South. That is in both journalistic work and those championing climate change issues. You don't hear a lot of women's voices. If it's a global story, you rarely see the Global South, especially Africa, being quoted independently or being quoted as progressive. Most of the time when we are writing about climate change in Africa, it's always about how Africa still lags behind. Yet Africa is rarely included in conversations about climate change.

During your time in the fellowship, you are working on ways to use new media to help promote climate stories in Kenya, and potentially Africa as a whole. How is that going?

Looking at the media in Kenya, climate change issues rarely make it to the front page. That's because our papers and newsrooms are mostly political, or they just think that climate change issues aren't as close to home as other continents. I want to approach that. I'm thinking of creating a space to highlight some of the climate change issues, and especially how climate change affects people at the grassroots level, because most of the time when climate change issues make it in the newspaper, it's always policy-based. But we rarely look at how that then affects the farmer in the village. How does this affect women? Who determines the kind of fuel we'll be using to light up the house or to cook? I want to break down climate change issues in a way that people can read and identify that this is a climate change story, and it affects someone who is beyond a policymaker.

I always find it interesting that when issues of global warming or climate change are being discussed, people don't focus so much on Africa. Yet the impact is being felt so much in Africa, but since the attention hasn't been there, the mitigation is not there. Even the most basic things haven't been embedded in the culture, because for a long time, it's been ignored. So while major stakeholders were focusing on the US and Europe, because they were the mass producers of pollutants, the effects of that were being felt in Africa and in nations of the Global South. But since the focus wasn't there, the mitigation was not put there. It means then that the impact that they're feeling doesn't even have a place where someone can say “these are some of the things that are being done to prevent that.” So we are having diseases that we didn't have in the past, we are having crises that we never had in the past, yet we do not have the mechanism to help with that, because the global attention hasn't been on us. So to me it feels like they are groping in the dark.

What have you enjoyed most about the fellowship program so far?

I look at it three ways. The first is the social part of just meeting people who are coming from different backgrounds. I'm meeting people who have done very remarkable things in their own fields. The fellows here, we aren't just having conversations on a professional level, but personal level as well. For me it's just knowing that if I ever get stuck, whether I'm doing this fellowship, or after I've finished the fellowship, I'll always have these people who I can reach out to and be like, “Hey, I'm stuck here.” It's so beautiful, forming friendships with people who I didn't know before, and organizing for these trips, and hugging these people. You know, if I was having some personal stuff, just knowing that I can call these people and they would show up. I think that's something that we rarely get an opportunity to talk about. Just knowing that people will always show up for you. And sometimes when we have an activity that we have to go for, and I don't have a car, and I wake up in the morning, I get a text message from Gulnaz, from Andy, from Jessica, asking me, do you need a ride? Without me having to ask. I think that's the most beautiful thing.

The second one is the classes that I've chosen. It's interesting, because today, I just got an email from my leadership professor, who was like, “Today, the class starts with Mercy.” And I'm like, dear Lord, you know, I didn't even know that was a thing. But they're saying, “Today, the class starts with Mercy so that Mercy can talk to us about her project, we can guide her on how to be a leader, as a journalist.” When I was applying for the fellowship, I hadn't thought that I would be thinking deeply about myself, and where journalism is going. To know that there is this community that wants to listen to my story as a journalist, that's interesting for me.

The third part is, being in this fellowship has given me an opportunity to actually think about my future. What do I want to do with myself? Just having a space where you can ask yourself that question and have resources that can help you answer that question. I think it's beautiful.

What are your favorite classes you are taking this semester?

It's really hard to choose my favorite class, because I'm taking four classes and all of them are unique, so maybe I'll pick two. I've alluded to the leadership class, which I enjoy because in media we rarely talk about leadership. Yet the leadership that you have in a newsroom or the leadership qualities that you have in yourself as a journalist really determine your success, and even how the audience appreciates your stories. Because unless you're an organized person, unless you have good communication skills, you won’t be successful. One of the things that we've done in my leadership class is confronting your weaknesses. And as journalists, sometimes you have this thing that makes you feel like you're almost beyond reproach, because you're the one who is gazing at other people and writing about their weakness. But now you have this class where you are analyzing your own weaknesses, your personal weaknesses, and how they affect your life as a journalist. That's where I am.

I just recently realized that I'm very disorganized—that was painful to learn. And I'm also realizing that I'm impatient. And journalism, somehow, because of the beat that I was on, has taken away some of my humanity. I start looking at people as potential stories instead of people. I learned that in my leadership class, where we're just confronting our weaknesses, and seeing ways in which we can work on that. So I love the leadership class, because it's very holistic, it teaches you your strengths, your weaknesses, and the way forward.

The other class that I'm loving is global health and music. I love music. I have been listening to music just for the sake of listening to music. But this class is teaching me to look and listen to music differently. For instance, we're learning how to use music for mental health. We were learning how to use music for exercise. We even came up with a playlist on some of the best music you can use to work. And it's interesting to just learn music from different cultures. We were learning how even people in media and people in the communication field can use music to communicate. We're looking at music in terms of HIV. How music was used to drive messages. Music during the times of Ebola, music now during COVID. And that's an interesting class. We are also learning music for the sake of fun.

Along with listening to music and dancing, what are some things you like to do for fun?

I love reading. I love listening to music, especially recently. I've started deliberately stepping out of the house and walking. Sometimes I do 20,000 steps in the evening. I've been realizing that I'm starting to enjoy learning things about people and just watching people, because I've always been fascinated by people. When you're walking and looking at what people do with their free time, you get to see what fascinates people, and that is interesting. Another thing that I've started doing recently because I come from a big family —I have six sisters—every day they ask me for photos of what I did, so I started deliberately just taking one photo a day that summarizes what I did. It's interesting how the world looks when you're analyzing photos that you took about each moment.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Jessica Camille Aguirre

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 04:49:26 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Jessica Camille Aguirre Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/15/2023 - 21:49

Devin Farmiloe

Jessica Camille Aguirre is a climate journalist who focuses on climate change at its extremes. Her work has taken her to Amsterdam, where she reported for The New York Times on how to recycle a 14-story office building; to Colombia to cover oil spills wreaking havoc on local communities and ecosystems; and many other locales to cover the business of climate change, climate terrorism, utopias, and much more. Aguirre has been a Knight Science Journalism Fellow and received the 2018 Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award.

Aguirre sat down with CEJ graduate assistant Devin Farmiloe to talk about her work and experience as a fellow.

Jessica, you focus on climate change topics at their extremes. What is a climate extreme you have reported on that highlights the magnitude of the crisis?

When I say that I write about climate change and extremes, what I mean is that climate change as it's affecting our planet is going to exacerbate the occurrence of these extremes. What I'm interested in is how humans confront that experience: what it means to be pushing those extremes further and further, as we start experiencing to a greater and greater degree the effects of the changing chemistry of our planet. In that sense, I think that it's kind of a broad interest of mine. In terms of an extreme experience, one thing that I've been writing about recently is space exploration. What kind of impact that leaving the planet has on people's perceptions of the planet. The extremity of being in space and how that often catalyzes a kind of shift in perspective about what it means to have a planet that enables biological life, and what it means then to protect the planet, especially when you consider the uniqueness of it in the universe.

You are currently working on a project about recreating the earth's ecosystem for space travel. What is your most interesting finding from that line of inquiry?

What I expected to find—and have been finding—is just the level of complexity that is inherent in ecosystems that support human life, and how difficult it is to recreate anything like that. I think that’s what initially drew me to the question of recreating ecosystems and what continues to interest me about the question. More specifically, one of the things I found really interesting in researching this is that a lot of the ways in which we recreate ecosystems are for space travel, and so they're these miniature, artificial environments. And because they're small, you can only fit a certain number of people in them, so you've got these little groups of people isolated for months at a time. They end up producing some really interesting psychology, and interpersonal relationships, and interpersonal dynamics. So much of what it means to be alive is to negotiate our interpersonal relationships, and how that can be really challenging when they're placed under duress.

Could you tell me more about the studies being conducted in these artificial environments?

The first series of experiments were done in Siberia in the 1960s, where they created these underground bunkers. They used algae to produce a lot of oxygen, and grew some crops for food. The Soviet scientists at the time were like, “We should diversify what we're giving the participants to eat.” So then the ecosystems became much more complicated. They still used algae to produce a lot of their oxygen, but then they started introducing things like wheat crops and cucumbers and beets and other stuff. And these cosmonauts would be locked into them. They were hermetically sealed so they wouldn't get any oxygen from the atmosphere, and all of their carbon dioxide that they emitted would be trapped in with them to test whether or not these plant ecosystems would be able to process the participants’ chemical effluents. Those are the first experiments that they were locked into for months at a time. And then obviously psychologists also watched how they interacted with each other.

Then the next large-scale experiments were the experiments in Arizona in the late ’80s, early ’90s. NASA at the time was developing a couple of different human enclosure experiments to try to test out closed-loop ecosystems. Then the most recent ones are underway in China at something called the Lunar Palace, outside of Beijing. The reason it is called the Lunar Palace is the idea of it is to create a human habitat that they can export to a colony on the moon. So there are concrete ambitions to establish human colonies on the moon that have been articulated by the Chinese government.

Moving to something quite a bit less complex, how has your time in Boulder and the fellowship so far?

It's been great. I have felt very privileged to be able to attend classes across a range of departments here at the university. In particular, I'm taking a few classes in the geology department, which have been really eye-opening and have deepened my appreciation of the Earth's history and deep time. I have also taken classes in environmental philosophy and environmental chemistry. I've had the chance to really expand my studies and extend my studies in a lot of different areas that I didn't necessarily feel confident in beforehand.

I also think that having the opportunity to be here with a cohort of accomplished journalists who are here to pursue these really interesting projects has been an extraordinary privilege. It's a lot of fun to be able to meet up with them at least once a week. We meet more often, but in the seminars we get to talk about some of the biggest environmental stories of our time. That's been a lot of fun as well.

Lastly, what do you do outside of journalism?

I spend a lot of time reading and I like to hang out with friends and cook meals with people. I like to spend time outside, which Boulder has been great for. It's kind of amazing how many different hiking paths and incredible outdoor spaces you can reach within five minutes from downtown Boulder. So that's been something else that has been really great about my time here so far.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 19:37:51 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/04/2023 - 12:37

Devin Farmiloe

The Ted Scripps Fellowships have been bringing award-winning environmental journalists to CU Boulder for 26 years. Fellows embark on a year of courses, projects, field trips, seminars and more - taking advantage of everything university life has to offer. This series is a chance to get to know this year’s cohort of talented journalists beyond what a typical bio page will tell you.

Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi is a finance correspondent for Reuters, based in Zurich. During the fellowship she is exploring “stakeholder capitalism,” a form of capitalism where companies seek long term value for all of their stakeholders and society at large, and the intersection of wealth and finance with climate change. Recently, she has reported on an investor rebellion over climate action in one of Switzerland's

largest banks, a money laundering trial against Credit Suisse, and Switzerland's first same-sex marriage. Hughes Neghaiwi was part of an international team that produced an investigative series about the nascent cryptocurrency industry; the story was a finalist for Reuters’ Story of The Year as well as the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing’s Best in Business Reporting awards.

Hughes Neghaiwi sat down with CEJ graduate assistant Devin Farmiloe to talk about her work and experience as a fellow.

You mostly write about finance, but you're interested in the relationship between wealth and climate change. Could you tell me more about that?

Having covered finance for the past seven years, I was very interested to unpack this transitional moment in which the financial system seeks to reconcile tensions between continuing to strive for maximum profits and the urgency of tackling climate change. The 2019-2020 period brought about a change in discourse surrounding corporate “purpose,” as sustainability shifted from a side or topical concern to something that needs to be addressed. There was a very unique confluence of external factors -- from climate protests and extreme weather events to scientific consensus, which really highlighted the urgency of addressing climate change, to social movements such as Black Lives Matter and growing public surrounding inequality -- that shifted that framing. The COVID-19 pandemic and its massive economic and social impacts also played a central role.

During that time, we saw huge public expenditure, just an incredible amount of fiscal stimulus, with some of that money going towards individuals in ways that it didn't previously. At the same time, the billionaire class saw their wealth skyrocket, while the very unequal burdens of the pandemic highlighted gaping disparities that had been growing for a very long time. That confluence it seems to me brought about genuine discomfort and soul searching that's been going on within these echelons of private-sector wealth.

I'm interested to explore that, because it seems like there's a lot of thinking out loud that's happening at the moment and questions that haven't been answered. How meaningful or realistic is it for investors and businesses to say they are reorienting towards a stakeholder model, aiming to take not only profits, but also environmental and social impact, into account? How much closer does that bring us to closing multi-trillion-dollar climate finance gaps, or achieving sustainable transition? The narrative surrounding a “win-win” solution -- whereby positive social and environmental change goes hand-in-hand with generating positive financial returns -- deserves deeper probing, I think. The timing is critical, given the unprecedented economic transformation required to meet emissions reductions targets and the trillions in annual financing which need to be redirected in order to do so.

What was the original thing that got you interested in this relationship? Was there one moment in your reporting?

Definitely. I would say two things. One was some reporting I did together with a colleague at Reuters, that was looking at this issue of wealth increases during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking to wealthy individuals, but also to their advisors within private banking and other spheres, there was growing awareness of inequality as becoming, for the first time, a serious concern for the wealthy. And we saw very different responses to that, ranging from some number of wealthy individuals who said, “Well, yes, taxes (for the rich) should be higher” to others who were relocating at much higher rates to “favorable” jurisdictions or taking precautionary measures to shield themselves from tax hikes and other changes that might affect their wealth.

Another piece was more recent research on impact investment, which is this niche of investment where the aim isn't necessarily or exclusively to maximize profits, but to achieve a positive outcome in the world. Looking at the challenges and very different philosophies that exist within this very small niche of finance exposed some of the very real and underlying conflicts at the heart of this critical moment for capitalism: How feasible is the project of “making money and doing good” on a systemic scale? Is it even realistic to aim for both those things at once, or does a dual-objective approach sidestep much more fundamental tensions and the need for concession?

Changing gears a little bit more to your time in the fellowship, how has your time in Boulder been so far?

It's been amazing. Such an adjustment not to have deadlines on a daily basis or even on the basis–as it happens in journalism and covering breaking news, of a 30-second interval. It's been really incredible to be able to take a step back and to learn quite different things. I’m having so much fun taking classes in areas that are very new to me, going out on field trips, and also just being able to have conversations which are more an interrogation of ideas, as opposed to the Q&A format of an interview. So having opinions is a new thing. And that's been really, really fun and amazing.

What is your favorite class so far?

One is the Humans, Environment and Justice seminar in the Masters of the Environment program. It's taught by Fatuma Emmad, who is also active in the food sovereignty and urban farming space. It's been incredible to be able to participate in the dialogues led by Emmad within class, but also to get out and experience some of that work in practice. We did a farm visit to Sister Gardens, an urban farm in north Denver led by Emmad and others from the Frontline Farming organization, which was really amazing. It was very cool not only to experience, on a practical level, what doing the work of urban farming is like, but also to witness and learn about the many different negotiations that go into operating a community farming space in a changing urban environment.

I also have been auditing a business school seminar called Socially Responsible Enterprise, taught by Joshua Nunziato. The conversations within that class have been very thought-provoking. Having long interacted with people in the business and more specifically corporate sustainability space, I came into the class anticipating a more in-depth examination of arguments and considerations I’ve previously encountered in those conversations. But it’s been much more philosophical and thought-provoking, which I credit to Nunziato’s angle on the topic. And it's been so interesting to see how these business students, who are hoping to go out into the world and do this work, are working through these problems.

Last question: What do you like to do outside of journalism?

A really fun thing about this time here has been being able to spend time outdoors–hikes, some forays into camping. A really fun project has been trying to become a little bit more familiar with the plant and tree life around. We went on a field trip to the Mountain Research Station and it felt like a big achievement to be able to identify many of the trees by the end of our visit with the help of the director. I’ve been able to put some other skills to work on some hiking trips since then. I also love cooking and dinner parties, so I'm hoping to make that more of a thing during my time here as I continue to meet new people.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Andrew Cullen

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 17:30:22 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Andrew Cullen Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/09/2022 - 10:30

Devin Farmiloe

The Ted Scripps Fellowships have been bringing award-winning environmental journalists to CU Boulder for 26 years. Fellows embark on a year of courses, projects, field trips, seminars and more - taking advantage of everything university life has to offer. This series is a chance to get to know this year’s cohort of talented journalists beyond what a typical bio page will tell you.

Andrew Cullen is an independent photojournalist who examines the relationship between the environment and human societies. As a Peace Corps member, he developed an interest in the environment that flourished further as a freelance journalist in Mongolia. Andrew has covered oil fields in North Dakota, the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the controversy surrounding Bears Ears National Monument. He is currently working on a project documenting migrant deaths along the U.S/Mexico border.

Andrew sat down with CEJ graduate assistant Devin Farmiloe to talk about his work and his experience as a fellow.

What have you been working on during the fellowship?

I've been focused on improving my Spanish and learning about climate change, as well asGIS mapping to visualize those changes. All of this will go together at some point in the future in the documentary photo projects that I'm working on about migration in the Americas.

What was the original inspiration for your project?

The sub issue that I have been working on regarding immigration is migrant deaths along the U.S./ Mexico border, and in particular on the U.S. side of the border. It is a significant issue: hundreds, if not thousands, of people die crossing the border every year. People who have already crossed the border - they're already in the United States - and yet, they die before they reach wherever they're going. When I first found out about that, it just seemed like this total anachronism, like some kind of Old Testament story of a beleaguered people crossing the desert at great expense to either escape a life that is untenable, or to start a new life somewhere that offers more opportunity. And so I was naively kind of shocked that this was actually a 21st-century issue. And now that I've been working on this project for over half a decade, it's very clear that it is a 21st-century issue. But it is one that I think is largely a creation of policy, and is therefore something that could be changed. So I think it is worthwhile to continue to document for those reasons.

I imagine the fellowship might be a good way to recharge after such intense work. How has it been so far?

I am really enjoying it. It's great to be in Colorado. It's great to be with a cohort of other fellows who are all doing really interesting work and are wonderful people. It's nice to be on a university campus after some time. I feel like universities have an energy to them that is hard to find elsewhere. So that's great. That's fun.

That's awesome. And what is your favorite class you are taking?

I'm enjoying my Spanish class. Just because it's a daily challenge. Hopefully, you know, I'll make some progress. That's just very satisfying. But the History of Natural Resource Law is also a really interesting and enjoyable class that I'm getting a lot out of. It's definitely relevant to a lot of the other work that I have done and will continue to do that is separate from my immigration work.

What do you like to do outside of journalism?

I love riding bikes. I'm really enjoying that change from Los Angeles to Boulder, where it's just much easier to be on my bike every day.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Melissa Bailey

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 05:41:37 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Melissa Bailey Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 04/24/2022 - 23:41

Samuel Bowlin

The Ted Scripps Fellowships have been bringing award-winning environmental journalists to CU Boulder for 25 years. Fellows embark on a year of courses, projects, field trips, seminars and more—taking advantage of everything university life has to offer. This series is a chance to get to know this year’s cohort of talented journalists beyond what a typical bio page will tell you.

Melissa Bailey focuses on the intersection of climate change and health. She has been reporting on health care for the past seven years, most recently as a freelance journalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR and other publications.

She started her career in community journalism, spending eight years at the New Haven Independent, a startup that became a national leader in online-only, not-for-profit local news. She was a 2015 Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard. After that, she reported for STAT, a health and science publication affiliated with the Boston Globe. She spent three years on the investigative team at Kaiser Health News, digging into lapses in hospice care, suicide in nursing homes and the role of dementia in gun violence. She holds a B.A. in mathematics from Yale University.

Melissa sat down with CEJ graduate research assistant Samuel Bowlin to talk about her work and life.

How did you get your start in environmental journalism?

I was a math major at Yale, though I always wanted to be a writer. I just loved math. I thought about becoming a math professor, but I decided I wanted a career that was more connected to civic life, to community. I took an internship at the alternative weekly paper in New Haven [Connecticut] right after graduation. I didn't have any training in journalism. I just learned on the job as a local news reporter for the next ten years. I left New Haven in 2014 to do a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. Just as I was finishing, the Boston Globe's parent company was starting a new national health and science outlet, STAT, and I got hired to cover Boston's medical district. That got me hooked on the health and science beat. I've been covering health and science for the past seven years, including several years on the investigative team at Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health news service.

In recent years, I've been feeling called to write more about climate change, and I've been curious about the connections with health. Research shows that people respond more positively to information about climate change when it's framed as a public health issue.

I became interested in this growing field of inquiry into the impact of climate change on health, but I didn't have much training or experience reporting on environmental issues. So I started looking around for training in this area, and that's when I stumbled across the Scripps Fellowship.

I would imagine your previous beat, death and dying, could be a really tough topic to cover. Did you ever get burnt out from your work?

It certainly got bleak at times. I worked on a story about suicide in nursing homes, which entailed six months of looking at inspection reports and cold-calling families to talk about these deaths. So yes, it got pretty heavy at times. But I found that a lot of people really wanted to talk about their loved ones, and it can be quite cathartic. It can actually be a positive experience for them when the story gives them a chance to say that their loved one’s life mattered. That can be uplifting to me and to whomever I’m interviewing as well.

What have you been working on during the fellowship?

For my project, I’m writing a series of stories on the impact of climate change on health. I’ve published three so far. One was about some solutions in this area, one was an interview with a Zen priest who's also a climate scientist, and the third was about how climate change is expected to influence the spread of West Nile virus.

Unexpectedly, I spent much of the first semester doing academic research with a professor at the public health school. Our goal was to see how air pollution may be affecting birth outcomes in Colorado. I got to see how science works from the inside. That was an amazing thing to be part of, and something I would never have gotten to spend time on if I were in a newsroom or working full-time. To get to do something like that as part of this fellowship was such a wonderful gift.

How have your other experiences with the fellowship been?

It has been a wonderful opportunity to step back from deadlines and get to be a total beginner and learn new skills. I learned to code in R for statistical analysis, which is super helpful with understanding health or science research. I also took an audio reporting class. I had an audio story published in NPR's Science Friday, which was super exciting for me. Now I'm working on a photojournalism project that's challenging me to think in new ways.

What do you like to do outside of journalism?

Well, one of the wonderful things about living in Colorado was I got to learn how to backcountry ski. I took an avalanche safety course and got to learn all about snow science. I have been out, gosh, maybe 17 days this season?

I've been skiing since I was three years old, but I've never done the whole backcountry thing. It's just been an incredible way to see the state and learn a new skill. So yeah, it was a real highlight of the year.

Boulder is the perfect place to be a climate reporter, for better or worse. In my first week here, there was a heat wave, an Ozone alert day, and a flash flood warning that was linked to past wildfires. I didn't have much experience with those, so it was a quick primer in our changing climate. Later we had a ton of wildfire smoke, and of course a catastrophic fire in December. Coming from the East, those are events that you hear happening elsewhere. These phenomena can obviously be worse in other places, but the signs of climate change feel really present here.

Despite all that, Boulder is still a beautiful place to live. It’s close to amazing hiking, and I love how bikeable it is. And I think the most surprising thing for me about Boulder was the sheer abundance of fruit trees on the streets. Finding apples and pears and even peaches and plums in town has been so enjoyable. I just had no idea that there would be fruit teeming from regular street trees.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Marissa Ortega-Welch

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 05:32:29 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Marissa Ortega-Welch Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 04/24/2022 - 23:32

Samuel Bowlin

Marissa Ortega-Welch is an award-winning radio and print journalist based in Oakland, California. Most recently, she was the science reporter for KALW Public Radio in San Francisco. Her work has been featured on outlets such as NPR, Latino USA, Reveal, and The California Report. In addition to reporting, she has taught radio journalism to high school students, career-changing professionals, and adults incarcerated at California state prisons. She made the career-change to journalism after working for a decade in the environmental education and science fields. During her Scripps fellowship, she’s working on a series about the history and management of wilderness areas on public lands in the West.

Marissa sat down with CEJ graduate research assistant Samuel Bowlin to talk about her work and life.

How did you get your start in environmental journalism?

I did my undergrad in environmental studies, so I was always pointed towards environmental work.

I went on this backpacking trip for young women when I was in high school—which rocked my world—so I wanted to work for the organization that had led that trip. It was a big quality-of-life decision because I just wanted to be outside living that kind of lifestyle, and I really cared about the environment. Then, that led me into environmental education out of college because I really enjoyed teaching as well. I ended up working in the environmental education and science fields for about a decade.

My transition into journalism started through internships with local public radio stations. There was a radio station in Berkeley that had a six-week crash course on how to do audio journalism in exchange for volunteering for the station one day a week, which was a very trial by fire process, but you just learn so quickly that way. From there, I applied for other internships and fellowships and used those as a ladder to move into the industry.

Coming from conservation work, how steep was the learning curve while you transitioned into journalism? Was it difficult to find your voice?

I think I’m still learning. I feel like when you're new to journalism, it can feel like you’re just supposed to recite back the facts as you’ve learned them and not have a point of view, almost as if that’s the easiest way to interpret the code of ethics that you're supposedly held to.

But as I get more comfortable in this field, I’m realizing that it’s okay to have a point of view. That’s not to say that I think journalists should be biased, but our role is often to do all this research that the average person doesn't have the time to do, and then come away with some takeaways on the subject matter. I’m learning to trust my own voice and when necessary, advance an argument. That’s actually been something that’s been helpful to think about while at a university, because academia is all about staking claims and advancing arguments.

What are you working on during the fellowship?

I'm creating a podcast about our changing relationship to wilderness. As a radio reporter and avid backpacker, I got interested in the subject when I noticed the huge increase in the number of people coming into wilderness areas and backpacking over the last five or ten years, and they’re bringing their phones with them. I think phones and the internet empower people that maybe otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable wandering off into the woods to get out there, and it’s also led to a different experience than what I had when I first started backpacking. The increase in visitation also has a lot of environmentalists worried that we’re “loving nature to death” but as a former environmental educator I felt like, “Isn’t this what we wanted: for more people to get outdoors?”

Interrogating my own feelings around this got me curious about the history of wilderness areas and the act of Congress which set aside these lands. This idea that we set aside pristine nature is a myth, right? Because wilderness areas and public lands were all expropriated from tribes in the beginning, who had often been managing the land for a long time. So, we've set aside the thing that we designate as wilderness, and we get in our cars and drive to it to experience it, and it's beautiful and I love it and it’s incredibly important that we protect it. I don't want it to go away, but I think that there are some real assumptions and values behind it all that deserve looking into, and reveal how we think about our relationship to nature overall.

How has your experience with the fellowship been so far?

Getting to take classes as an auditor is amazing, because you have the power to really pick and choose what you want to learn and spend time on. It’s also been a luxury to be able to call people doing research related to what I’m working on and tell them I’m a Scripps Fellow. In this region, that seems like it’s opened some doors because people know the fellowship well. And it’s wonderful to go on field trips and speak to people and see places you wouldn’t normally have access to.

Part of the reason I’m here is to take those trips, which have been just as educational to me as the research I’m doing. As someone who's lived and worked up and down the West Coast, it has been really enlightening to live in Colorado and experience what the Mountain West is like and see this region’s version of issues we also grapple with on the West Coast. I knew when I applied for the fellowship that being in Colorado would be helpful to the kind of reporting I do, but I’ve been blown away by how many of the country’s foremost thinkers and practitioners on public land issues are located in the Front Range or very nearby.

I am from the Bay Area, which is itself an amazing place. But the fact that I can drive 45 minutes and hike in wilderness here is incredible. Boulder has that over everywhere else, it seems. And the fact that I can bike along the bike path and go swimming in a creek right in town is also amazing. It’s a very dreamy place to live.

What have been your proudest moments in journalism?

In addition to reporting, I’ve been the manager for my station’s radio training programs for the last four years. I get to help other people make a career change to journalism like I did, and that’s been so satisfying. For the last three years running, the “Best Radio Feature” award from our region’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter has gone to people who came out of our training programs. Alum have gone on to work at public radio stations and podcasts across the country. I think fellowships like the one I’ve run and the Scripps fellowship are invaluable tools to help journalists move forward in their career, at whatever stage they’re in, so it feels great to get to be on both sides of that.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Luke Runyon

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 03:31:52 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Luke Runyon Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/18/2022 - 21:31

Samuel Bowlin

Luke Runyon reports on water and climate in the Western U.S. Prior to the fellowship he built a collaborative reporting project focused on the Colorado River watershed, based at NPR member station KUNC in northern Colorado. Luke has also reported for Harvest Public Media, Aspen Public Radio and Illinois Public Radio. He currently serves on the board of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Luke is a contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and APM's Marketplace. He has a master’s degree in public affairs reporting and a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Illinois Springfield. His work has been recognized by the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Colorado Broadcasters Association and the Public Media Journalists Association.

He is relocating to Grand Junction, Colorado with his husband after the fellowship, where he plans to spend his time exploring rivers, valleys and mountain peaks in the central Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau.

Luke sat down with CEJ graduate research assistant Samuel Bowlin to talk about his work and life.

How did you get your start in environmental journalism?

I really got started covering environmental issues as an agriculture reporter for a project called Harvest Public Media. If you’re covering farming and ranching in Colorado, you inevitably run into water scarcity issues because the availability of water is so fundamental to how agriculture is done in the West. I really wanted to explore it further. So, when the station I was working for, KUNC, received a grant to report on the Colorado River Basin and cover it as a beat, I jumped at the opportunity. In those four years before the fellowship, I got to focus on the Colorado River and develop a real deep knowledge of the issues it’s facing.

How can coverage of Western water scarcity be better?

The stakes have risen dramatically in just the last few years. Headlines about the West’s water problems are growing more dire. The supply and demand imbalance is getting worse. As the situation on the ground gets worse, people start paying attention more. As I started reporting on the bureaucratic, often complex issues around water scarcity, I found there’s an audience with an appetite to know why the problem is getting worse, and they want to hear more about solutions. They’re not scared off by the complexity if it’s presented in a relatable way. But to get to that point, where we’re talking about solutions, it’s important for people to understand the West’s political landscape around water. You need lots of background on the people involved, and their interests. There isn’t one agency or institution pulling the strings. It’s a bunch of varied interests across the region, both formal and informal, who have a stake in the Colorado River. Obviously, it won’t be just one little corner of the watershed that figures it all out—it’s going to be this whole ecosystem of people, agencies and institutions working on it. Once you understand the players, their motivations, their fears, their visions for the future, and how they work together, you can let that inform your reporting and get way deeper than just telling your audience that there’s not enough water to go around.

What have you been working on during the fellowship?

My project is focused on the 100-year anniversary of the Colorado River Compact—which is coming up this November—and I’ve started reporting for a limited-run audio series looking at the solutions to water scarcity issues in the Colorado River Basin. I feel like there is plenty of literature on the compact’s history, so rather than rehashing all of that, I’m focusing on discussing how we get out of the problem that we’ve created. I’ll be looking more toward the future.

In the West, we’ve gotten used to having it all. Consumers usually get what they want, and few of us have had to actually change the way we’re living and our relationship to water. But that era I think is coming to a close, and ultimately everyone is going to have to change how they view their relationship to water—some in profound, fundamental ways, others in smaller, more nuanced ways.

I’ll be delving into concepts like demand management and broader questions about tribal water use. I hope to avoid some of the doom and gloom framing, because pessimism around our ability to adapt to scarcity is something I think people tire of pretty quickly. What I’m most interested in is addressing how we as residents of the West can create policy to lessen our reliance on the Colorado River and do so in a way that feels equitable and fair, and question if that’s even possible.

How has the fellowship helped you so far?

I think the best thing has been a change of pace. Being a beat reporter, I’m always hustling to cover the topic the best that I can, so I’m usually trying so hard to stay on top of things, get scoops, and develop long-term relationships with sources. And the Colorado River watershed is huge, so I would travel quite a bit. Being a part of the fellowship has been such a nice change of pace because I’ve been able to take a breather from the demands of daily reporting. I don’t feel like I need to be on top of every little thing, and developments in the beat can happen without me being the one reporting on them right away. Don’t get me wrong—I still love and miss reporting, but slowing down has been really nice.

Being at the university has been lovely too. It’s such a beautiful campus. There is so much going on, with top researchers and experts in almost everything that you would ever want to know about, and they're right at your fingertips. You don’t have that as a journalist very often. If anything, you're constantly chasing people. The fellowship has such a good reputation around campus, and I felt that when I would introduce myself as a Scripps Fellow. It's great to be part of something that people think highly of.

What do you like to do outside of journalism?

During the fellowship I tried to get outside as much as possible. There's so much to explore, and the flexible schedule gave me more opportunity to do that. I like to go backpacking in the summertime and cross-country skiing in the wintertime. There were a couple big snowstorms in Boulder that me and the other fellows took advantage of and went skiing through town. I also love to bake, but I often end up baking more than I should probably eat. So it's been really nice to have the fellows around, because I can offload my baked goods on everybody else. That’s going to be a challenge for me after the fellowship—I’ll either need to slow down my baking or just get used to eating a lot more.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Sasha Chavkin

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 04:57:28 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Sasha Chavkin Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/28/2022 - 21:57

Samuel Bowlin

Sasha Chavkin is an investigative reporter specializing in the environment, Latin America, and public corruption.

From 2013 to 2020, Sasha was a reporter for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. At ICIJ, he investigated topics including the global medical device industry, offshore secrecy, and forced displacement caused by World Bank development projects. His stories have led to the worldwide recall of Allergan breast implants associated with elevated cancer risks, a reorganization and budget increase for enforcement of the World Bank's social and environmental safeguards, and the forgiveness of billions of dollars in federal student debt held by disabled former students who had been trapped by a flawed Education Department program.

In 2020, Sasha was on a team named as Pulitzer Prize finalists for the FinCEN Files, a project on the role of global banks in industrial-scale money laundering. He has also shared in honors including the George Polk Award, the Investigative Reporters & Editors award, the Barlett & Steele Gold Award and the Overseas Press Club award.

Sasha sat down with CEJ graduate research assistant Samuel Bowlin to talk about his work and life.

How did you get your start in investigative journalism?

The stories that were always compelling to me were investigations. I spent a year in Peru after college, and I worked up this story about how USAID was pressuring Peruvian family planning organizations to avoid speaking about contraception in ways that contravene the rules for how they were supposed to provide aid. But I couldn't quite nail the story—I couldn't get the person who gave me info to go on the record, and I couldn't find the documents that proved any of it.

That was one of the earlier occurrences that made me realize I wanted to learn to be an investigative journalist. My hope was that if I gained those skills, I’d be able to pin down the stories that I really cared about and felt like could actually have an impact if done right.

Do you have any proudest moments in your journalism career?

Just after grad school, I spent a year as a reporting intern at ProPublica. I worked on a project about student lending, where we found out how borrowers who became disabled after college were getting buried in debt and screwed over by the Education Department, which wouldn't forgive their loans, which is insane.

What was really quite validating for my efforts was when they ultimately forgave billions of dollars in loans, including the loans for the people in our stories. This woman who I'd talked to for a very long time was a police officer who had been hurt while training for the job. Even though she was on the job when she got hurt, she still couldn't get anything forgiven, and she had been pouring her heart out about it for months. But right after the story was published, her loans went away.

That was a big deal for me, and seeing the impact that story had quickly made me feel like I was on the right path and that I was starting to understand what made a successful investigation.

Your investigations have been ambitious, to say the least. How do you stay motivated when they become difficult?

For me, impact is the biggest motivator of my work, and that's why I have focused on investigative journalism. There have been a couple of stories where I've been really satisfied by the results that followed because something real was accomplished, like the forgiven loans piece.

I worked on an investigation about breast implant safety as a part of a global ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) investigation concerning medical devices, and we found that unsafe implants had been allowed back on the market after being taken off for 10 years without having resolved many of their safety issues. There were women who were suffering from issues all the way from serious side effects to a form of cancer associated with the implants that some women even died from.

As a result, the FDA slapped black-box warning labels, which is their strictest kind of safety warning, on all breast implants. Now women have to be warned about risks that they had no clue existed before the investigation. There are still things that could be improved. It's a process, but it's gotten a lot better.

How has the Scripps Fellowship helped you so far?

I think that the fellowship has been incredibly valuable in providing the classwork, the professors, the time, and the environment to ask the question, “What should I be reporting on?” rather than focusing on simpler stories right in front of me. It’s really nice to view things from a longer-term perspective that way.

Another thing I've really enjoyed is the field trips because they’ve given a very hands-on sense of how our communities interact with the environment. That's from a different kind of reporting background, which was not something that I had before. It's one thing to think about climate change or the health hazards of certain products, but it's another to go to the places where you see how management of wildfire succeeded and failed, or where we're trying to channel the Colorado River so we could make use of its dwindling water supply. Those kinds of hands-on connections with the human-environment interface have been really helpful in changing my thinking.

Also, I love Boulder. It's just so beautiful here. I knew it was going to be amazing, but it still surprised me. I've lived in places that I've loved before, but being in this environment is not like anywhere else I’ve experienced.

What do you like to do outside of journalism?

I always try to have a book going, and I really, really enjoy reading fiction. I love being outdoors, hiking, running, skiing—all those things that Boulder is great for, and I love watching baseball. When I have a baseball game on in front of me and a beer in my hand, I am at peace, even if you can’t tell that from the shouting out of my mouth.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Anna V. Smith

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 19:57:25 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Anna V. Smith Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/24/2022 - 12:57

Samuel Bowlin

Anna V. Smith writes and edits from the Pacific Northwest and Boulder, Colorado. Before the fellowship, she worked as assistant editor on the Indigenous Affairs Desk at High Country News, a regional magazine that covers the people and places of the Western U.S. She’s covered stories on Indigenous land rights and repatriation, the suppression of the Native vote, and Indigenous immigrants navigating language barriers around COVID-19. She’s won awards from the Native American Journalists Association, including Best Coverage of Native America, and has also freelanced for publications like Slate, Audubon and The New York Times.

Anna sat down with CEJ graduate research assistant Samuel Bowlin to talk about her work and life.

How did you get your start in journalism?

I started doing journalism when I was in high school because I always wanted to write and I really loved to read, and journalism felt like my way into that. I started in local news and worked my way into magazine journalism, where I am now. And I was lucky—I could not have asked for better mentors in my journalism career. I think the biggest thing that I can attribute to any success I’ve had is mentorship.

What have been your proudest moments in journalism?

I think the proudest moments happen when I finish a story and hear back from the people that I included in that story. Oftentimes they hadn’t seen themselves or their tribal nation represented in that way before, or been given that much space to tell their story. In 2019 I wrote a story about a smaller tribal nation who was successful in getting the U.S. to return some lands back to them, which generated little to no national coverage. The tribe ended up ordering 250 copies of the magazine with the story in it to distribute to their citizens and keep in their archives. The relationship between many tribal nations and the media is an old and often negative one. So it feels good to strive to improve that relationship, even if it’s just one story at a time.

You're great at taking a step back and admitting when it's not your place to comment on topics in Indigenous affairs. How'd you learn that skill?

Early on, I learned the importance of asking myself, “Am I the right person to be telling this story?” Undergraduate journalism schools don't always teach journalists about their limits, what stories aren’t theirs to tell, and on a broader society-level scale many (white) people think that everything is theirs to read, to tell, to consume, to buy, or to sell, and oftentimes without a great sense of responsibility.

I think acknowledging that question makes room for other people who are better positioned to tell the story. Journalism can feel very independent and very individualized, which incentivizes you to jump from publication to publication or focus on awards and accolades. But we should be viewing journalism as a much more collective effort. That means locating yourself, and figuring out what role you play in the larger media ecosystem. On the Indigenous Affairs Desk, we’ve always talked about how—as journalists—our goal shouldn’t be to write about Indigenous people, but to write for Indigenous people. It sounds like a subtle shift, but the end result is meaningfully visible in the stories we tell.

How has the Scripps Fellowship helped you so far?

There has been no pressure to “produce,” and that’s been lovely. It’s nice to have someone recognize the work I’ve done and tell me it’s okay to take a breath, which is what the Scripps Fellowship has felt like. Although in my full-time job I don’t have the burden of writing five stories a day or something like that, it is taxing over the long term to delve deeply into people’s lives or complex, long-running legal issues, and to take on the responsibility of getting it right, especially during a pandemic or such a historic “unprecedented” year like 2020.

During the Scripps Fellowship I've focused on classes on media theory and Indigenous studies, and it’s been incredible to get to learn for the sake of it. The idea behind the project I'm developing is an open-access tool for journalists and others as a means to find and include a more diverse set of Indigenous voices and perspectives in their work, ranging from community organizers to legal experts. There's a lot of nuance to take into consideration for such a project, which will be heavily shaped by input from collaborators over time.

What's your favorite thing to do outside of journalism?

Right now, my favorite thing to do outside of journalism is to work with paints and textiles, specifically via quilting and natural dyes. I first learned how to quilt in high school from my mom—quilting runs in the family—but I've only recently begun exploring quilting as an art form with history. Both quilting and journalism hold memory and story, often whole generations worth, and both take time to get right, one stitch or word at a time. So much of my work is writing and editing, so it feels good to make something with my hands and use a part of my brain entirely concerned with color, shape, and aesthetic.

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Five Questions for the Fellows: Alec Luhn

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 17:54:13 +0000

Five Questions for the Fellows: Alec Luhn Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 02/27/2021 - 10:54

Julia Barnes

As part of the Ted Scripps Fellowships in Environmental Journalism, award-winning journalists have been coming to CU Boulder for 21 years. Fellows embark on a year of courses, projects, field trips, seminars and more — taking advantage of everything university life has to offer. This series is a chance to get to know this year’s cohort of talented journalists beyond what a typical bio page will tell you.

Alec Luhn is an independent journalist with a focus on the changing communities and ecosystems of the far north. Previously a Moscow correspondent for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, he’s been published in The Atlantic, GQ, The Independent, National Geographic, The Nation, The New York Times, POLITICO, Reuters, TIME, Slate and WIRED, among others.

During a decade abroad, he’s reported from the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth and covered the conflict in eastern Ukraine, annexed Crimea, war-torn Syria and Chernobyl Reactor Four, as well as covering oil spills, permafrost thaw, reindeer herding, polar bear patrols, Gulag towns and the world's only floating nuclear power plant in the Arctic.

As a fellow, he is studying how climate change and resource extraction are altering the fragile environment of the north, with deep repercussions for reindeer and caribou and the indigenous peoples that depend on them.

Why did you choose to cover environmental topics, and is there any memory that stands out as formative in your decision?

I remember very clearly, I did my first environmental story when I was working for the University of Wisconsin student newspaper, The Badger Herald. And I remember working there and fellow students telling stories about people who lived over by the coal plants on campus, and how they would find this black soot in their windowsills. People were scared that they were breathing in lots of coal soot if they lived over on that side of campus. I remember that really struck me.

And then that year there was a story that the Sierra Club actually sued the university over that coal-fired power plant, the Charter Street Power Plant, right downtown, next to all the student housing. And I wrote a big article about that. Just looking at this lawsuit, looking at the legacy of this plant, looking at the health concerns, looking at the environmental concerns, looking at the disconnect between what the university was promising in terms of in terms of becoming more sustainable and environmentally friendly in their operations, and what was happening on the ground — which was this huge coal power plant continuing to operate.

Then a year or two later the university agreed to step up its sustainability benchmarks, reduce the use of that power plant, and eventually shut it down. That was very gratifying to be part of this kind of coverage which eventually led to that impact.

And that was a huge formative experience. I went on that year to write about several more environmental issues, including a story on a controversial bioweapons research facility they wanted to build near my hometown. I didn't see it as a career yet, but I always kept on doing environmental stories no matter where I was. I worked as a foreign correspondent in Russia for 10 years. So I did a lot of environmental stories in Russia as well. That was always my main passion on the side, in addition to the daily news responsibilities I had.

What do you think is the most important environmental story happening right now?

I think the transition into the Biden presidency is probably the most important environmental story happening right now, just in the sense that it will affect so much, from the Paris Climate Accords, to the role of the government in regulating companies' environmental actions, and then also in terms of public lands, which is a huge issue here in the West, obviously. A different president and different environmental policy is going to affect so many things both locally and globally.

I'm also really interested in the Arctic and climate change in the Arctic. I think that people have realized that the Arctic is important for the climate system, and that's being covered. What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. The warming of the Arctic more than two times faster than the rest of the globe - that has all sorts of cascading effects and feedbacks on the global climate system, and that's very important.

I'm also interested in the Arctic in terms of the local effects, in terms of the effects on indigenous communities especially, and cultures that are being impacted and ways of life that are being impacted by climate change on the front lines. I'm interested in how and what that cultural loss and the loss of biodiversity is going to mean for the rest of us. I think it's going to mean a lot.

What's the most surprising thing you've learned from being at CU or in the Boulder community since starting the fellowship?

I've had the chance to take classes in the geology, geography, atmospheric and ocean sciences, and biology departments. And one thing I've learned that I think will be really useful is a way to build a better argument against climate change denialism.

Working in Russia, I've encountered a lot of climate change denialism. The human roots of climate change are still not very widely admitted in Russia because it’s a petrostate that is so dependent on oil and gas.

One thing I've learned here is to look at climate change from the standpoint of the global energy balance. Looking at the all the physical effects we know can happen — Milankovitch forcings, solar radiation, increasing or decreasing volcanic activity — all these things we know can alter the Earth's climate on a geological time scale, and looking at them and seeing that they're all going in the other direction. Really, we should be cooling down right now. There should be cooling down, and yet it's warming up because of the one forcing that is not going that direction: human carbon emissions.

I think having a more scientific grasp and a more robust step-by-step argument against climate change denialism is probably the most useful thing I've taken away from the studies I’ve been doing at CU Boulder so far.

What has been the most helpful part of the Scripps Fellowship so far?

The Scripps Fellowship is hugely helpful in giving journalists the luxury of learning science in an academic setting, not on deadline, not crashing Wikipedia pages in the hours before an article is due, but really learning the science behind the topics we are covering and that we understand at a fundamental level, but that we don't necessarily understand all the nuances and the scientific background behind.

That's the greatest gift that anyone could give an environmental journalist: the freedom, and the facilities, and the chance to pursue a scientifically grounded approach to what they cover.

Obviously, the pandemic has been challenging because we're not interacting often in person with our professors, but I've still made some good relationships here and hopefully will continue to make good relationships with the professors that I'm learning from and also with the other fellows. Both of those groups of people can teach each of us so much.

What do you like to do outside of journalism?

This is another reason why the Scripps Fellowship has given me so many opportunities--because I really like rock climbing, hiking, even a little bit of mountaineering, and obviously, Boulder is just such a playground for that. All of Colorado is such a playground for that. So, I've made the most of being in close proximity to the Flatirons. I'm also a big skier, so this is going to be the first time that I get a chance to ski consistently in some of the prime areas in the world.

I love getting to the mountains. I love cold climates. And Boulder offers a lot of both. There's something about those environments that are at altitude and are very cold that are profound in a certain way. They really make you reconsider your place on the planet, reconsider the idea that life is easy. It just reminds you of the human struggle, I think, going to those kind of environments. It's also really heartbreaking to see those changes like snow cover decreases, and rising temperatures, and the alpine environment creeping up the mountainsides.

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