The Climate Beat at the New York Times is, um, Heating Up & Times' Columnist Validates our 'Energy Crunch' Prediction

One trend that we didn't highlight in our 20th anniversary list of predictions is climate change. The reason: because it's already something the media covers.

That said, the New York Times is bulking up its climate desk.

The latest addition is David Gelles, a longtime Times business reporter, who wrote its popular "Corner Office" column that interviewed CEOs. Gelles will now help cover "the nexus between government and the private sector." 

According to the Times, 

"David will examine the corporate influence on government action on all levels — federal, state and local — to reveal which corporate players are serious about mitigating climate change and which are just posing, or worse. He will report deeply to uncover actions and conflicts on the government side while also closely scrutinizing the role of companies, business interests and the financial sector."

 In the past few months, the Times added:

• Somini Sengupta has shifted to head up its Climate Fwd newsletter, which the Times said is "one of the most important ways we connect readers with our climate content."

• Ray Zhong, who formerly covered Chinese technology for the Times and is currently based in Taiwan, now covers climate science.

• Former culture reporter Cara Buckley now covers "the more quiet, human stories about how people around the globe are living on a warming planet."

What's going on at the Times? A statement says, "Climate change is an urgent concern of NYT readers, who turn to us as a definitive source of coverage about all facets of the crisis — from the news to the science to the policy and politics as well as ambitious investigative pieces and stunning visuals." So it is finding new ways to cover climate change.

We expect other media outlets -- but not all -- to increase their attention and coverage of climate change. That does mean that companies should be looking at ways to tell an environmental story when possible.

The need to cover the climate is an ongoing trend but it becomes more important given our recent prediction about an Energy Crunch. Back on March 9, we predicted there would be more interest in renewable and clean energy, based on several factors including the reliance of European countries on Russia for gas and oil. In a recent opinion article headlined, "How to Defeat Putin and Save the Planet,"

Thomas Friedman: wrote:

Nothing has distorted our foreign policy, our commitments to human rights, our national security and, most of all, our environment than our oil addiction. Let this be the last war in which we and our allies fund both sides. That’s what we do. Western nations fund NATO and aid Ukraine’s military with our tax dollars, and — since Russia’s energy exports finance 40 percent of its state budget — we fund Vladimir Putin’s army with our purchases of Russian oil and gas. 

It may seem obvious but we feel national security and the need to protect our environment are converging and that renewable and clean energy will continue to be an important trend.