Climate Change story proposals

Story proposal 1: A story about how climate change is impacting the research of new crop strains, specifically wheat. 

I wrote a story on the topic for the Evergreen a couple years ago when I was freshman, but would like to revisit the issue and go more in depth. At the time I learned that a number of professors at WSU are working to develop new strains of wheat. But it can take up to 15 years to design a new strain and with the possibility of climate change occurring in that time, there's no guarantee that wheat developed today will best serve the farmers of tomorrow. 

The story would look at how researchers are coping with these uncertainties. How has their research been affected and to what extent? How big of a concern is climate change for their work? I'd interview WSU professors working on new wheat breeds. Many of them are also involved in federal agricultural programs so I would try to also expand the focus to areas outside the Palouse.

A lot of the documents for this story would hopefully come from the researchers, but I was able to find some journal articles that are already addressing the possible need for new strains of wheat. I was particularly taken by the article, "Climate Change: Can wheat beat the head." Another article from the Journal of experimental botany also looked promising, "The effects of climate change on development in wheat: analysis and modelling," but it ran in 1992 and the full text is not currently available from WSU libraries. I'm continuing to work on tracking it down.

Story proposal 2: A story looking into the trend of going green and examining the motivation behind the movement. The story would also attempt to do a cost-benefit analysis of sorts to see if these attempts to go green, actually make a difference.

Part of the story would focus on WSU. The university initiated a "Be Crimson, Go Green," campaign and is pushing recycling and using environmentally-friendly dinnerware in the dining centers. The new CUB building is also LEED certified. For the story to move forward, it would first have to be determined if climate change played any in role is pushing these changes forward.

If so, then what is the reaction to these changes? Have their been improvements? Are the programs making a difference? The story would then be expanded to looking at efforts made by WA state or other states in the Pacific Northwest to become more sustainable. How much does sustainability cost tax-payers and what is the public's role in this sustainability movement? 

I would interview the head of Dining Services and also the CUB Director to get a better sense of the motivation behind the changes. I would also talk to state officials and possibly environmental groups to learn their motivation and what worth they see in sustainability.

Articles for this topic were more difficult to find. I would place several public record requests to look at budgets before and after efforts at sustainability were implemented. I was also able to find an article which discussed consumer attitudes toward sustainability specifically in Washington - "Envisioning agricultural sustainability from field to plate: Comparing producer and consumer attitudes and practices toward 'environmentally friendly' food and farming in Washington State, USA." The article did have a greater focus on sustainable food production than trends in recycling and environmentally friendly buildings, but should still be of some use.