Here’s How TV News Outlets Are Covering Earth Day 2022

TV and streaming news outlets are commemorating Earth Week with special coverage focusing on the state of the planet and the issue of climate change through Earth Day on Friday, April 22.

Here are the coverage plans from some of those outlets:

ABC News:

• GMA, World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, GMA3: What You Need to Know, Good Morning America: Weekend Edition, ABC News Live, ABC News Digital and ABC Audio will have dedicated coverage of Earth Day across the country all week.
• Ginger Zee, chief meteorologist and managing editor of the climate unit, kicked off network coverage on This Week this past Sunday as Zee discussed President Biden’s progress on his climate agenda.
• Zee’s 2,000+ mile electric vehicle road trip starting in Times Square began on Monday, April 18, and culminates in Miami Beach, Florida, with live reports throughout the week on GMA, Good Morning America: Weekend Edition and Nightline. The series examines the expansion of electric vehicles in America, and ABC News will stop at automotive manufacturing facilities and charging stations, helping to demystify electric vehicle ownership.
• In addition to Zee’s road trip, GMA will feature daily segments, including on professional rock climber Alex Honnold’s trip to Guyana’s Amazon rainforest for National Geographic’s Explorer: The Last Tepui as well as eco-friendly small businesses and forest protection with broadcasts live from treetops in a partnership with National Geographic.
• Next week, chief national correspondent Matt Gutman will report from a South African rhino sanctuary on the birth of the first baby rhino to two orphans.
• ABC News has partnered with Teen Vogue for a story about the impacts of climate change on mental health in high school students and how to combat eco-anxiety. Zee will have interviews with some of the students for GMA3: What You Need to Know” and a digital story and video featured on ABCNews.com.
• ABC News Live will air content from ABC Owned Television Stations, highlighting people across the country doing work in their communities to address climate change and the environment.
• ABC News Live Prime will take a look at climate challenges facing communities inside the U.S. and potential solutions.
• ABC News Digital will feature stories about how the video game industry is tackling climate change, youth-led lawsuits as hundreds sue states over climate change, as well as a video on the future of renewable energy.
• GMA Digital will feature a series with Zee showcasing ways to make your life more sustainable, from your beauty routine to inside and outside your home.

CBS News:

• CBS News and Stations has launched Earth 365, a multi-platform series exploring the damaging effects of climate change and solutions being implemented to save the environment.
• A team of CBS News correspondents will report on the most important environmental stories from across all seven continents as part of the Network’s coverage surrounding Earth Day 2022.
• The series will build on the network’s ongoing coverage of climate and environmental challenges facing the planet. This includes the CBS News Streaming Network’s series Climate Watch, featuring reports from senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy that examine the damaging effects of climate change and the solutions that are being developed.
• In addition, original reports will air across all platforms: CBS Mornings, the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell, CBS Saturday Morning, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS Stations, CBS News Radio and CBS Newspath.
• In addition to Tracy’s reporting, the Earth 365 series will feature reports from CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti, CBS Saturday Morning co-host Michelle Miller, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Seth Doane, CBS News contributor Barry Petersen and more.
• CBS News’ partners at The Weather Channel will also contribute to the Earth 365 coverage, with new investigative reporting and enlightening conversations about the impacts of climate change.
• On Earth Day itself (Friday, April 22), the CBS News Streaming Network will visit every continent in the world to focus on climate solutions around the globe. Tracy’s Climate Watch series will highlight ways in which everyday people are tackling climate-related issues, as well as simply appreciating the wonders of nature. CBS News Streaming will also feature a new episode of Steve Hartman’s On the Road series that revisits a few of his favorite stories from the last 25 years that focus on the wonders of our natural world—and why it’s so important to preserve it.

Fox Weather: 

• Fox News’ free ad-supported streaming television weather service, will commemorate Earth Week with special coverage focusing on the state of the planet and the issue of climate change through Earth Day on Friday.
• Featuring a number of in-depth reports, Fox Weather’s team of meteorologists and multimedia journalists will present segment series surrounding the evolution of Earth Day, how the earth has warmed two degrees since Earth Day was established in 1970, NASA’s earth science initiatives and the impact of elements like bees and agriculture have on our environment, among other topics.
• Additionally, the team will be joined by special guests throughout the week, including members of the Red Cross to discuss the increase of natural disasters, Keep America Beautiful to highlight volunteerism and Fox Nation’s Abby Hornacek to discuss the country’s national parks.

MSNBC:

• Yamiche Alcindor/ Systemic Racism Leads to Wastewater Crisis in America’s Black Belt (Location: Lowndes County, Alabama )
  • Raw sewage pooling all over homes and flowing into the yards where children play and where adults scrape out a living is a daily reminder of the poverty and systematic lack of infrastructure enveloping Alabama’s Black Belt residents. In Lowndes County alone, at least forty per cent of households have an inadequate septic system or none at all.
  • To get by, residents—most of whom are Black and who would have to pay almost a year’s salary to have proper septic systems—have commonly come to rely on “straight-piping.”
  • The results are ghastly scenes that motivated the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the area last November—and the Biden administration to allocate $1.4 million for an Office of Environmental Justice at DOJ.

NBC News:

• Today show:
  • Friday, April 22: Al Roker Live from Puerto Rico on Earth Day
    • How the island has recovered after Hurricane Maria by utilizing alternative energy and self-sustaining buildings.
  • Friday, April 15: Tom Costello/World’s First All Electric Commuter Plane (Test Flight)
    • We’ll take a look behind the scenes of a Seattle-based company building an all-electric commuter plane. The battery-powered, no-gas engine will carry 9 passengers and is likely to make its maiden flight early this summer.   
• Today All Day:
  • Tuesday, April 19: Blayne Alexander/Electric School Buses
    • Blayne Alexander will look at where electric buses are hitting the roads, why it’s important to many families, and what’s ahead as more districts embrace the idea.
• MTP Reports (on Peacock):
  • Thursday, April 21: Anne Thompson / Copenhagen, Denmark aims to be first carbon neutral capital by 2025, with 2 US cities following its lead.
    • Copenhagen, Denmark, is on track to become the world’s first carbon neutral capital city in 2025. Anne Thompson reports it’s not just Copenhagen aiming for a carbon neutral society, cities in the US are taking on the challenge, as well, and using the European capital as an example.
• NBC News Now
  • Thursday, April 21: Jacob Ward/Climate Disasters and the scarred families they Leave Behind
    • Jacob Ward connects with a family near their new home in Grass Valley CA during a therapy session dealing with the aftermath California’s deadliest and most destructive fire in history, 2018’s Camp Fire.
    • The family had to evacuate because the fire was close and drove 4 hours to safety.

• NBC Nightly News:
  • Thursday, April 28: Lester Holt /Snowless in the Sierra
    • Lester reports on The Sierra Nevada Mountains of California — known as the “western ‘backbone’ of the Americas.” But this Spring, the Sierra Nevada, Spanish for “Snowy Mountains”, may be missing a lot of the snow responsible for its iconic name. Much of the Sierra Nevada has seen the greatest snowmelt on record since early January
    • California is facing one of the smallest springtime snowpacks in state history. As of April 1, the statewide snowpack was a dismal 38% of normal. The official state snowpack measuring site in Phillips, near Sierra-at-Tahoe, was almost completely bare ground at just 4% of normal. And the dire situation at the start of April was even before a record-setting early April heat wave threatened to erase what snow was left.

NBCLX:

• NBCLX, which airs on broadcast in 46 U.S. markets and can be streamed on Peacock, will observe Earth Day with a special LX News live event from Alaska entitled Thirst this Friday, April 22. The one-hour special will be presented at 2 p.m. ET and will encore at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET.
• Climate storyteller Chase Cain will be reporting live from Alaska and will be joined by several leading experts and special guests. He will explore glaciers and reveal the impact of climate change, and how the effects are escalating in Alaska and across the nation. The program will also feature in-depth reports on the fight to preserve fresh water, the great climate migration already underway, and the actions people and communities are taking to preserve water and ensure water security in the future.
• This week, NBCLX is also showcasing climate- and environment-related features LX News and LX.com as part of its Earth Day coverage. The pieces, which will debut daily, cover a range of locations and subjects, including recycling, desalination, climate migration and climate gentrification.

The Weather Channel:

• In addition to several on-air nods to Earth Day on Friday, TWC’s new climate and sustainability series PATTRN, airing weekdays, debuted a new special report that just went live, “Power Outrage“. Reported by The Weather Channel’s Dave Malkoff, the piece explores who’s getting paid from Pacific Gas & Electric’s multi-billion dollar victims’ fund & what’s being done to prevent future fires.
  • In the piece, Malkoff asks National Weather Service wildlife meteorologist Heath Hockenberry about anticipating longer droughts and fire seasons, to which he responds: “We’re preparing for it. Things will burn hotter. The fires will be more aggressive. The tactics will have to be changed in order to combat those fires.”