Katie Myers, Author at Grist (original) (raw)
25 Years on the Climate Beat
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Articles by Regional Reporter, Appalachia Katie Myers
Katie Myers reports on climate change in Appalachia through a partnership between Grist and Blue Ridge Public Radio in western North Carolina. She previously served as a climate solutions fellow at Grist, and as an economic transition reporter in eastern Kentucky with the Ohio Valley ReSource and WMMT 88.7 FM. Her freelance work has appeared in the BBC, NPR, Belt Magazine, and the New Republic, among others, and she has completed media fellowships with the Society for Environmental Journalists, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, America Amplified, and the Solutions Journalism Network.
A gentle shower fell as four people in rain gear made their way deep into a spruce-fir forest high in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Ducking beneath bright green underbrush and stepping away from the road, a hush took over.
Just a few steps in, they came across an aging yellow birch tree covered in moss.
But it wasn’t just moss. James Hollinger, a retired computer scientist turned amateur lichen scientist, leaned closer and spotted a rare, spongy lichen that has been documented about a dozen times in the park. As far as he knows, it does not appear in any botanical guidebooks.
“So, we could, right here right now, come up with a common name for it,” Hollinger said excitedly, as fellow volunteer and lichenologist Laura Boggess unfolded her magnifying lens. Counting carefully, she found more than 17 other moss and lichen species on just one side of the tree.
Every square foot of ... Read more