CT legislators will weigh solutions to high energy rates, waste disposal problems, and the rising black bear population in 2023.
Jan Ellen Spiegel
Jan Ellen is CT Mirror's regular freelance Environment and Energy Reporter. As a freelance reporter, her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Yale Climate Connections, and elsewhere. She is a former editor at The Hartford Courant, where she handled national politics including coverage of the controversial 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. She was an editor at the Gazette in Colorado Springs and spent more than 20 years as a TV and radio producer at CBS News and CNN in New York and in the Boston broadcast market. In 2013 she was the recipient of a Knight Journalism Fellowship at MIT on energy and climate. She graduated from the University of Michigan and attended Boston University’s graduate film program.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Air quality can affect health. Climate change is worsening both.
In CT and beyond, emissions worsen air quality and contribute to global warming, which can cause or exacerbate air quality degradation.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
The winter energy crunch, what it costs, and what it will take to fix it
Spiking winter energy prices are the result of a crisis that has been a decade in the making, after New England opted to bet on natural gas.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
BEST OF 2022: How heat affects health: An overlooked outcome of climate change
Health professionals are realizing how much climate change — especially more heat — can lead to cascading effects on human health.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
BEST OF 2022: Efforts to get food out of the waste stream finding more support
A number of projects are underway to solve the food waste problem, which many say is the linchpin to Connecticut’s waste disposal crisis.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics, Transportation
Lamont scores some wins on environmental issues, but luck had a hand
As Gov. Ned Lamont heads toward election day, he can point to a robust climate change record — thanks largely to the Biden administration.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
How heat affects health: An overlooked outcome of climate change
Health professionals are realizing how much climate change — especially more heat — can lead to cascading effects on human health.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Supreme Court deals climate change fight a major blow in EPA ruling
The decision is likely to have far broader impacts, not only on environmental regulation but also on actions by other federal agencies.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A key rule on the New England power grid will end, but not for a while
At the last minute, ISO-New England filed a plan to keep the MOPR – a rule that makes it harder for renewables to join the grid – until 2025.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Efforts to get food out of the waste stream finding more support
A number of projects are underway to solve the food waste problem, which many say is the linchpin to Connecticut’s waste disposal crisis.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Climate change bills face the ticking legislative clock, again
Complex measures aimed at tackling environmental issues still await final passage with just days to go in the legislative session.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Observing Earth Day in the era of climate crisis
Some two generations since the first Earth Day, five Connecticut environmentalists reflect on its legacy and what it means for the future.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT plans a green hydrogen path, but it has potholes
Green hydrogen is considered carbon-free from start to finish, but the technology is expensive, and the product is hard to transport and use.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Transportation
Climate change and transportation legislation is back, without the TCI part
Senate Bill 4, a comprehensive climate and transportation bill, would start several large clean transportation programs.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Proposed Killingly power plant dealt another blow
Two rulings in recent weeks spell the end of the line for the proposed Killingly natural gas plant, as far as ISO-New England is concerned.