Climate Fwd: 5 of Our Favorite Climate Stories of the Year

Henry, Claire, Brad, Nadja and Hiroko picked a memorable story they worked on, large or small.

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Happy New Year, Climate Fwd: readers. This week, we're looking back on our climate coverage from 2017. We started the New York Times climate team this year and we want to thank you for being a part of our extended family. We traveled to Antarctica, Iceland and Alaska, and to Mexico City, Jakarta and Houston. We wrote about melting ice, hotter summers and water crises. We covered a new president, international climate talks and natural disasters. We collected our biggest stories of the year in a feature called "2017: The Year in Climate." But we also asked five of our reporters and editors to pick one of their favorite things they worked on, large or small. Here are five memorable stories from Henry, Claire, Brad, Nadja and Hiroko.

As Hurricane Irma approached Miami, wildfires burned in the West and an earthquake hit Mexico. Coincidence? Yes. Kevin Hagen for The New York Times

Henry Fountain @henryfountain Some of my favorite stories this year involved traveling to exotic places like Iceland and the Alaskan tundra. But there's one story that really stands out because it was so different. I was in Florida in early September, helping with coverage of Hurricane Irma. Two days before the storm was forecast to hit, I got a call from John Broder, one of my editors. There had been a strong earthquake in Mexico overnight, and between that, the string of hurricanes and the wildfires blazing in the West, some of the top editors at the paper wanted a story that asked: What the heck is going on with the world? My first thought was that it would be interesting to be the person who writes the story for The New York Times that says the apocalypse has arrived. So I hopped in my rental pickup and drove until I found a shady spot with good cell reception, and spent the next couple of hours in the truck calling scientists, sociologists, religious environmentalists and others. And with the help of Benedict Carey from the science department and with deft editing from John, we produced this story. Which then led to this video. (And no, it wasn't the End Times — yet.)

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Claire O'Neill This one-question "quiz" by Lisa Friedman was one of the first things I helped edit when I started at The Times this year. I can't take credit for the concept, but I think it's a fun (to the extent that the "apocalypse beat" can be) way to play with assumption versus reality. It also sparked in me a slight obsession with this problem and its possible solutions. Take the quiz and join me in losing sleep over it.

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A section of the Amazon rain forest that has been illegally slashed and burned in the Jamanxim national park near Novo Progresso in northern Brazil. Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times

Brad Plumer @bradplumer Here's an overlooked bit of research that stuck with me this year: To help various species fend off extinction, scientists in Brazil are trying to stitch together fragments of rain forest that have been carved up by roads and logging. I liked the idea of helping endangered golden lion tamarins find love in the jungle in order to keep the species going. And it was a good reminder that, as neat as solar panels and electric cars are, not all solutions to environmental crises involve fancy new technology.

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Nadja Popovich @PopovichN It may be hard to remember now, especially if you're enjoying a snowy holiday season, but last summer was a scorcher across much of the world. In Europe, a heat wave grew so intense it was dubbed "Lucifer." In Arizona, planes were grounded because of extreme heat. In Pakistan, temperatures approached 130 degrees Fahrenheit. A question that comes up often is whether such events are "normal" or influenced by climate change. While we couldn't say much at that time about those specific events, this project provided a broader context. Using data from Columbia University, my colleague Adam Pearce and I showed how summer temperatures considered "extreme" in the middle of the 20th century have become much more common. You can see the shift toward hotter temperatures as the orange and dark-red areas expand on the right side of the bell curve. The visualization highlights how even modest changes in average temperatures, brought about by global warming, can have big consequences in the extremes. As Todd Sanford, director of research at Climate Central told me, it also provides "a glimpse to what's in our future."

Doug Palen, a fourth-generation grain farmer in Glen Elder, Kan., uses a no-till farming method that prevents erosion and keeps carbon in the soil. Christopher Smith for The New York Times

Hiroko Tabuchi @HirokoTabuchi I loved reporting on this story about "no till" farmers in Kansas who may not talk about climate change but who are thinking deeply about sustainable farming methods nevertheless. I later heard from Doug Palen, the farmer featured in this story, that he'd received letters from readers from across the political divide, thanking him for his efforts and even apologizing for assuming that farmers don't care about the environment. It seemed to raise hope that there's room for constructive dialogue on specific climate change issues, even in an age when conversations around the subject have become highly partisan.

One of the letters Doug Palen received. Doug Palen

Be sure to visit our "2017: The Year in Climate" feature for many more stories from the Times climate team.

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