Nicole Yu
Nicole Yu covers environmental stories for The Wash, focusing on how climate interventions reshape ocean ecosystems and the global carbon cycle. Her work sits at the intersection of climate science and ecological risk, emphasizing the trade-offs between carbon dioxide removal and the health of marine food webs. Alongside her reporting, she contributes to scientific analysis that quantifies both the climate benefit and ecological cost of strategies such as ocean iron fertilization.
Ocean iron fertilization and climate trade-offs
Yu’s work on ocean iron fertilization uses a process-rich ocean biogeochemical model to examine carbon dioxide removal potential and ecosystem impacts across ten ocean biomes over sixty years.
She shows how fertilization efficiency varies sharply by region, with the Southern Ocean and equatorial Pacific achieving the highest removal rates through distinct pathways. The analysis spells out that decades of fertilization yield net atmospheric carbon dioxide removal of around 1.1–5.3 ppm, with more than half of that carbon re-emitted within decades once fertilization stops.
This framing presents climate solutions as long-running experiments rather than quick fixes and insists on quantifying both their gains and their limits.
Carbon removal, biodiversity and food webs
Yu devotes significant attention to how engineered algal blooms alter nutrient dynamics, energy flows and biodiversity, rather than stopping at headline carbon numbers.
In the equatorial Pacific, she traces how macronutrient depletion suppresses non-local productivity, reduces energy available to higher trophic levels and expands oxygen-minimum zones. She contrasts these impacts with higher-latitude fertilization in the Southern Ocean, where ecosystem resilience and increases in macrozooplankton biomass can accompany substantial carbon removal. The work foregrounds ecological side effects as central to the climate story, making marine biology and food-web integrity part of the decision calculus on carbon removal.
Governance and equity in climate interventions
Yu also brings governance and equity questions into her coverage of climate technologies.
Her ocean iron fertilization analysis underscores the disconnect between localized interventions and global climate outcomes, showing how this gap complicates robust carbon crediting. She raises concerns about who bears ecological risk when interventions are deployed in one region for benefits that are counted elsewhere, and how that asymmetry should factor into policy and market design. This lens positions her as an environment reporter who treats climate technologies as political and ethical choices as much as scientific ones.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.