Climate Change

Juli Berwald’s book Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Act of Growing a Backbone is beautiful, scientific exploration of the much-maligned, but ecologically important, jellyfish.

It’s going to be a rough year, but we’ll also see some progress.

We’ll have to contend with new limits to the Clean Water Act, growing threats from climate change and fixing our aging infrastructure.

The government shutdown could have long-lasting environmental effects, as could several other actions taken by the administration over the holidays.

Climate change and the extinction crisis resonated with our readers this year — as did steps toward solving these problems.

Beavers, sharks, whales and the Trump administration — our writers took on some heavy topics this past year.

This year the Trump administration and its corporate cronies seemed determined to roll back every environmental protection, but next year may be the start of a new story.

At the same time, reporters should be cautious not to oversell small and dubious solutions, as one recent case illustrates.

Books coming out this month also look at the ethics of conservation, the history of water and the exploitation of the Congo.

They tried to bury the report by releasing it on Black Friday, but the threats we face — and possible solutions we can take on — are still very real.