Climate Is Every Story

We must never forget that the natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity, and the responsibility of everyone.

— Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 2015

Series Overview

“Climate Is Every Story” is a year-long event series that seeks to foster an ongoing dialogue about covering the climate crisis among leading journalists and Boston College’s faculty and students.

The World Meteorological Organization reported in March 2025 that the past 10 years on earth have been the hottest 10 years in almost 200 years of record-keeping. Which means that right now, there is no news story bigger than our fast-warming climate. It is global, geopolitical, existential, and rapidly evolving. Most journalists who cover climate do so as a beat — they chronicle the persistent rises in global temperatures, the cascading natural disasters, the political battles over clean energy and emissions, and the ever-more-dire United Nations reports. But climate change has seeped into every facet of modern life: How we work, what we eat, how we invest, where we build, and, in the case of the most vulnerable, how we survive. Which is to say, it’s outgrown any single journalistic beat. It is inextricable now from most disciplines, from the economy and business development to culture, food systems, immigration, and so on. Simply put: Climate is every beat; every beat is climate.

And yet: Covering the climate crisis grows more challenging by the day. Even as climate impacts are spreading, the media environment is becoming increasingly precarious. Between media layoffs and the proliferation of “news deserts” — or regions without reliable local news sources — it’s getting harder for newsrooms to adequately cover climate stories. Last summer, in a survey conducted by the Earth Journalism Network, 76 percent of environmental journalists reported that their coverage was limited by a lack of resources. The report recommended that individual journalists “need the support of their newsrooms to specialize in environmental journalism and break down barriers between beats, allowing journalists across the organization to cover climate change and its effects.” 

We know that journalism shapes the decisions of individuals, communities, companies, policymakers, and governments as they navigate an uncertain future. And we know that a lack of informed and insightful journalism about climate change has broad-reaching impacts on communities and society at large. But we believe that the future of climate journalism is a conversation that reaches far beyond journalists. And we believe Boston College can be a place that both inspires and informs that conversation.