Assigning blame for power outages misses the point. Instead, we should be figuring out how to keep the lights on.
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, Justice, Transportation
CT signs on to regional plan to cut transportation emissions
Connecticut has signed on to a ground-breaking plan that will help dramatically lower greenhouse gas and other emissions from transportation.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
‘Everything related to the environment is at stake’
As America heads into Election Day, environmentalists are warning that time for turning back climate change impacts is running short.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Energy bill takes on storm response and grid reform challenges
Energy legislation wasn’t on the radar for any special legislative sessions called to deal with critical issues lost to the COVID-cancelled session from this winter. Even the annual July electric rate adjustment –- which this year contained big increases that sparked public outrage — would not have warranted legislation. That was until Tropical Storm Isaias […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Justice
Tong takes on ExxonMobil over climate change
Connecticut on Monday joined a list of states using litigation to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for causing climate change.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT keeps losing power when storms strike. But that doesn’t have to happen.
Assigning blame for power outages misses the point. Instead, we should be figuring out how to keep the lights on.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Where Connecticut, COVID, climate change and critters intersect
The great outdoors is an escape from pandemic-induced boredom, but there are dangers to be aware of.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Never let a good crisis go to waste
Experts say the pandemic gives Connecticut an opportunity to make big advances in clean energy — and reap the profits.
Posted inEducation
Connecticut public schools are out, but their kitchens are busier than ever
More children are likely to qualify for free or reduced-price meals as pandemic-induced food insecurity spreads.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Summer at state parks in the time of COVID: Less parking, no volleyball, but probably lifeguards
Connecticut state parks and forests face a summer of social distancing and possibly a less than ideal bathroom situation.
Posted inNews
Coronavirus is breaking the food supply chain
While officials insist the food supply chain is strong, consumers and those trying to feed the poor say otherwise.
Posted inHealth
Connecticut scrambles to feed those hardest hit by the COVID economy
Connecticut residents have joined those in lines all over the country looking for the most fundamental of life’s imperatives: food.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Stern warning from DEEP on use of state parks: Follow the rules, or else
Failure to obey social distancing rules could result in fines or park closures, the agency says.,
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Most NE nuclear power offline due to timing fluke and problem
All but unnoticed as coronavirus tears through – the New England power grid is without 75% of its nuclear power.
Posted inEconomic Development, Health, Money
Gig economy, artists welcome unemployment payments, but face an unknowable future
The artistic gig economy gets a short-term lifeline of unemployment benefits, but no guarantee of a future.