Planning for this sort of climate change-driven weather certainly requires physics and meteorology — but also probably a crystal ball.
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
Is the Connecticut Green Bank still green?
The legislature changed the Green Bank’s statute to allow it to fund waste-to-energy technologies like those used in Connecticut now.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Legislature’s inaction on food waste leaves towns holding the (trash) bag
The CT legislature didn’t provide funding to help municipalities get food out of the waste stream. Now, cities must pay the price.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Climate change all but ignored by the CT legislature in 2023
CT’s environmental community never had high hopes for legislation this session to address climate change, waste disposal or other issues.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A CT bear bill tramps toward the finish line. Here’s what it would do
The bill that has emerged from the CT legislature has no bear hunting, but clarifies when bears can be killed and bans intentional feeding.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Is CT’s largest offshore wind project headed for the shoals?
The developer of Park City Wind may be trying to alter its contract with the state. And that’s not the only problem the project faces.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Advocates searching for any kind of legislative win on environment
The biggest climate bill proposed in CT this year is dead, and a few smaller measures could be the stars of the 2023 legislative session.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Building emissions are the climate change contributor you hadn’t heard of – until now
Building emissions are CT’s second-largest category of greenhouse gas emissions — and they’re growing. Is the state addressing them?
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Connecticut’s new bottle law — the bumpy road to 10 cents
CT’s bottle and can deposit-and-return system saw changes in January, but there have been disputes and delays along the way.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Energy and environment legislative priorities include garbage, power and bears (Oh my!)
CT legislators will weigh solutions to high energy rates, waste disposal problems, and the rising black bear population in 2023.
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.
