Washington Post hires writer to launch climate advice column

The Washington Post is rolling out a new product it is calling a “climate advice column” as part of a larger effort to expand its efforts covering climate change.

The newspaper announced on Monday it had hired Michael Coren, formerly a deputy editor at Quartz who led the outlet’s climate coverage, as the writer of “Climate Coach.” He will pen the new column and a newsletter that the Post said “will help readers navigate the choices they face when seeking to live a more climate- and environmentally friendly life.”

“Don’t expect lists of ‘101 things’ or symbolic gestures. No plastic straw campaigns here. We’ll be digging into data and giving evidence-backedadvice and thoughtful analysis about what matters in protecting the planet, the environment and one another,” Coren wrote in his first entry this week, pledging to host “an honest discussion about the environmental choices we face in our daily lives.”

“We’ll approach these questions with curiosity, optimism — and vigilant skepticism,” he said.

The Post, like many other national news outlets, has been beefing up its coverage of energy, environmental and climate news in recent years.

The Post has tripled the size of its climate team, which totals more than two dozen journalists, as part of what Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said is “a newsroom-wide commitment to covering perhaps the century’s biggest story.”

“No story is more global than climate, and we are placing reporters across the country and the world to capture it as it unfolds,” Buzbee wrote in the Post this week introducing the outlet’s expanded coverage of climate issues. “At the same time, we are reimagining climate journalism to be more visual and accessible, bringing on trusted voices and some of the world’s best visual journalists to tell stories in intimate, visceral ways that we hope will both inform and empower you.”