Elizabeth Shogren

Elizabeth Shogren, a veteran newspaper reporter, came to NPR in February 2005 to cover environmental issues on the National Desk.

Prior to NPR, Shogren spent 14 years as a reporter on a variety of beats at The Los Angeles Times. For the last four years she reported on environmental issues in Washington, D.C., and across the country. From 1993 - 2000, Shogren worked from The Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau covering the White House, Congress, social policy, money and politics, and presidential campaigns. During that time, Shogren was given the opportunity to travel abroad on short-term foreign reporting assignments, including the Kosovo crisis in 1999, the Bosnian war in 1996, and Russian elections in 1993 and 1996. Before joining the Washington bureau, Shogren was based in Moscow where she covered the breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of democracy in Russia for the newspaper.

Beginning in 1988, Shogren worked as a freelance reporter based in Moscow, publishing in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post. During that time, she covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful revolution in Prague.

Shogren's career in journalism began in the wire services. She worked for the Associated Press in Chicago and at United Press International in Albany, NY.

After earning a B.A. in Russian studies at the University of Virginia in 1985, Shogren went on to receive an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University in 1987.

In her free time, Shogren enjoys hiking and backcountry skiing with her husband, Jeff, and their dog, Trekker.

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1:16am

Fri May 10, 2013
Environment

College Divestment Campaigns Creating Passionate Environmentalists

Originally published on Fri May 10, 2013 9:04 am

At about 300 colleges across the country, young activists worried about climate change are borrowing a strategy that students successfully used in decades past. In the 1980s, students enraged about South Africa's racist Apartheid regime got their schools to drop stocks in companies that did business with that government. In the 1990s, students pressured their schools to divest Big Tobacco.

This time, the student activists are targeting a mainstay of the economy: large oil and coal companies.

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12:56am

Wed April 17, 2013
Animals

Lionfish Attack The Gulf Of Mexico Like A Living Oil Spill

Originally published on Thu April 18, 2013 11:45 am

Credit Cammy Clark / MCT/Landov

A gluttonous predator is power-eating its way through reefs from New York to Venezuela. It's the lionfish.

And although researchers are coming up with new ways to protect some reefs from the flamboyant maroon-striped fish, they have no hope of stopping its unparalleled invasion.

Lad Akins has scuba dived in the vibrant reefs of the Bahamas for many years. But when he returned a couple years ago, he saw almost no fish smaller than his hand.

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3:11am

Thu April 4, 2013
Environment

Arkansas Oil Spill Sheds Light On Aging Pipeline System

Originally published on Thu April 4, 2013 8:45 am

Amber Bartlett was waiting last Friday for her kids to come home from school. One of them called from the entrance to the upscale subdivision near Little Rock, Ark., to tell her the community was being evacuated because of an oil spill. Bartlett was amazed by what she saw out her front door.

"I mean, just rolling oil. I mean, it was like a river," she says. "It had little waves in it."

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7:53am

Sun March 3, 2013
Environment

After Keystone Review, Environmentalists Vow To Continue Fight

Originally published on Mon March 25, 2013 12:33 pm

Credit Rod Lamkey Jr. / The Washington Times /Landov

Environmentalists have a hope.

If they can block the Keystone XL pipeline, they can keep Canada from developing more of its dirty tar sands oil. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and turn it into gasoline, so it has a bigger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional oil.

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3:37am

Mon February 18, 2013
Environment

Protesters Call On Obama To Reject Keystone XL Pipeline

Originally published on Wed February 20, 2013 2:33 pm

Tens of thousands of protesters turned out on the National Mall Sunday to encourage President Obama to make good on his commitment to act on climate change.

In his Inaugural address from outside the U.S. Capitol, the president said: "We will respond to the threat of climate change knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."

Just a few weeks later, next to the Washington Monument, Paul Birkeland was one of a couple dozen people holding a long white tube above their heads.

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