Alec Luhn
Alec Luhn is an environment reporter at New Scientist whose work traces climate change through its extremes, its frontiers and its human consequences. He focuses on climate, conflict and migration, and distinguishes himself by reporting directly from places where warming, instability and displacement intersect. His stories often move between scientific insight and lived experience, showing how abstract climate trends translate into risks for communities and landscapes.
Climate breakdown and extreme events
Luhn’s recent coverage at New Scientist centres on how climate breakdown manifests in surprising and hard-to-model ways. In a feature on El Niño and the UK, he examines why global climate patterns do not translate neatly into local forecasts, highlighting the limits of current models and the complex pathways that connect ocean temperatures to regional weather. In another piece, he reports on why the extremes of climate breakdown will continue to catch societies off guard, drawing on observations of melting glaciers, warming seas and rising temperatures to explain why outlier events are becoming more common. He has also written about physiological adaptation to heat, using time in a heat chamber to show how repeated exposure can train the human body to cope better with high temperatures, linking personal testing to broader questions of resilience in a hotter world. Across these stories he combines clear explanations of climate science with close attention to risk, focusing on what changing baselines mean for infrastructure, health and preparedness.
Remote ice, permafrost and climate frontiers
A defining strand in Luhn’s work is his reporting from remote, icy and mountainous places where climate change is most visible. He has documented the disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice and what an ice-free season would mean for global warming, drawing on first-hand reporting trips to polar regions.
His portfolio includes coverage of a town invaded by polar bears, the world’s only floating nuclear power plant and the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth, using these locations to show how industrial activity and wildlife are colliding as temperatures rise.
He has investigated deadly anthrax infections triggered by thawing permafrost, illustrating how long-frozen pathogens can re-emerge as the ground warms. He has also broken stories on how Russia spills an amount of oil each year comparable to multiple major offshore disasters, framing chronic pollution as part of the wider climate and environmental crisis.
In these pieces, Luhn treats remote regions not as curiosities but as laboratories for understanding planetary change, with detailed observation of ice, permafrost and fragile ecosystems.
Climate, conflict and migration
Luhn’s beat spans beyond physical climate impacts to the political and social fault lines that run through them.
He has a long record covering conflict and security issues, including work on the identity of the second perpetrator in the Skripal poisoning case, and he often connects these stories to environmental risk and governance failures. His biography emphasises reporting on climate, conflict and migration from places such as Alaska and Somalia, as well as earthquake zones, wildfire regions and drought-stricken areas.
This mix of locations and topics gives his environment coverage a geopolitical edge: he treats climate change as a force that reshapes borders, drives movement and exacerbates existing tensions. For communications around stories that sit at the junction of climate, security and displacement, his track record shows an interest in both frontline experiences and the policy debates that surround them.
Format, outlets and recognition
Luhn’s environment reporting appears primarily in the news and features sections of New Scientist, where he writes explanatory pieces grounded in current science and on-the-ground reporting. He also contributes to New Scientist’s audio output as a guest on the magazine’s podcasts, discussing topics ranging from geoengineering risks to wider climate stories featured in the publication.
Beyond New Scientist, his work has appeared in major international outlets including The Atlantic, The Guardian, National Geographic, The New York Times, Scientific American, TIME, WIRED, CBS News radio and VICE News television, reflecting a career that spans print, digital and broadcast formats. He runs a newsletter focused on climate stories from high altitudes and high latitudes, extending his reporting on remote ice and mountainous regions to a regular audience. His work has been recognised with awards and honours such as a Covering Climate Now award, multiple Emmy nominations, a Scripps environmental journalism fellowship and other prizes for environmental and science reporting.
Taken together, his output shows a reporter who uses field reporting, narrative features and multiplatform storytelling to make complex climate and environment issues immediate and concrete.
4 more environment journalists.
Abby Wallace
Abby Wallace covers where energy, climate and politics meet, with a focus on how net zero, power markets and extreme weather affect people and institutions. She is an energy and climate reporter at POLITICO, covering U.K. energy policy, climate targets and the transition from fossil fuels. Her subjects include government and opposition debates over net zero, decarbonization, support schemes, infrastructure, public spending and climate adaptation. She also reports on energy companies, household bills, labor standards, supply chains and corporate accountability. Her work connects technical policy choices to jobs, competitiveness, public services and voter sentiment. She uses polling, expert voices and political analysis to examine public attitudes and government response to extreme weather. Before POLITICO, she worked on the companies desk at the Financial Times and the business news desk at Insider. She has also freelanced on politics, business and climate.
Adam Fulton
Adam Fulton is a digital news producer focused on fast-moving global stories where environment, conflict and politics meet. He works on the Guardian’s Australian operation, using rolling live blogs to cover geopolitical crises, climate-linked disasters and wars with clear structure and context. His Middle East coverage, including the Gaza peace plan, tracks tension between political messaging and on-the-ground realities, tying leaders’ statements to military movements, diplomatic reactions and humanitarian reports. His disaster reporting, such as on Nepal–Tibet floods, links rising tolls and missing people to infrastructure damage, rescue strain and cascading environmental threats. His Ukraine war blogs treat resource scarcity, especially water and energy, as strategic factors and track how infrastructure damage shapes the conflict. A former entertainment and arts reporter and senior editor at major Australian newspapers, he applies careful pacing and narrative arcs to collaborative, time-stamped live coverage.
Amy Lyall
Amy Lyall is a regular contributor to The Connexion, and her work stands out for turning French rules, services and the built environment into clear, usable advice for everyday readers. She covers housing, energy use, resident obligations and the practical steps behind things like getting air-conditioning approved for flats. Her beat also includes national and local schemes, insurance and legal conditions for lending a car, mobile network coverage, mosquito-borne diseases, water filters, fruit harvests and emergency drones with defibrillators. She writes news, practical guides and magazine-style features, using plain language to explain technical topics and official systems. She also writes explainers on French words and phrases and occasional culture pieces on unusual sites such as Maison Picassiette.
Angela Giuffrida
Angela Giuffrida is a Rome correspondent for the Guardian and the Observer who reports on how climate, tourism, migration, labour and justice intersect in Italy and across Europe. She has more than 16 years of experience as a journalist and editor. Her environment beat focuses on climate events, wildfires, extreme weather and natural hazards, using concrete crises to show social and economic consequences. She covers tourism and overtourism as structural issues, linking visitor numbers, local politics, urban management and environmental strain. Her work on Italian politics and migration tracks how border and asylum rhetoric becomes policy and shifts Europe to the right. She also reports on courts, workplace safety and historical accountability, examining the human cost of corporate and policy decisions. She works across formats, from breaking news and analytical pieces to collaborative briefings and video explainers.