Planet A is the result of a four-month collaboration among a team of writer-photographers at the Columbia Journalism School. Our immediate task was to find stories about climate, with a focus on New York and its vicinity. Our broader task was to report and write and think our way beyond despair.

Some titles we considered for the magazine were: “Slurry,” because of the devotion of one of our writers to the slushy mixture made from organic waste (“compost”) on its way to a bacterial journey that would turn it eventually into natural gas; “Afterglow,” for the penumbra of light that lingers after a volcanic eruption, the eruption in this case being catastrophic climate change; and “Planet B,” after the climate advocacy slogan, “There is no Planet B.” We liked the last one but then figured, if there is no planet B, we should probably focus on the fate of our one and only planet, the Earth, Planet A.

The articles and photos in this issue cover a wide range of stories related to climate change. In these pages, there is, of course, flooding: Jana Cholakovska describes the life of a former police officer facing the dangers of cloudburst in Flushing, Queens; Lue Palmer talks to a traumatized survivor of Hurricane Ida; and Nate Rosenfield captures the dilemma of a nature enthusiast trying to stay in a vulnerable part of New Jersey’s Meadowlands. Ani Freedman takes us on a tour of the stubborn air pollution epidemic in the South Bronx, and Tamia Fowlkes shows us the wages of extreme heat on the job in upstate New York. Natalie Novakova investigates the mysterious die-off of the honeybee population, and Hypatia Wu bears witness to the ongoing massacre, via glass windows, of migratory birds. If this seems too grim a menu, you can also read about solutions, both good and bad, both ingenious and impossible: Asta Kongsted and Benjamin Moore both write about planning, and lack of planning, for flood protection in the Bronx; Miho Ouyou traces the progress of green roofs in Manhattan; Juanita Gordan takes us inside the world of clothing recycling, from a repurposed ambulance to a Bronx warehouse; Daniel Shailer journeys into the polluted Gowanus to check in on its kelp; Luwa Elena Yin travels up the Hudson to see how dams are being removed there; and Jake Bolster visits a giant warehouse where slurry is being created from our mounds of food waste.

In all cases, our goal has been the same: to find the people and the stories of climate change as it is happening right now, whether as witnesses to its destruction, as advocates for its mitigation, or as both. This is the contribution that reported journalism can make to the climate story: to go out and talk with people and find out what they think and how they live and allow ourselves to learn something, to be amazed, to experience sympathy and tragedy, to be surprised.

As Planet A journalists reported, they photographed. Climate change is an incredibly challenging visual subject because its effects are gradual and subtle, at least where we live. In order to capture the images in this magazine, they needed to press for access and show up; then slow down, look closely, and make pictures. They kept at it as winter turned to spring, which yielded a range of excellent images, among them Rosenfeld’s studies of Moonachie, Yin’s pastoral dam pictures, Palmer’s ethereal underpass photos, Bolster’s arresting anaerobic digester eggs, Cholakovska’s dynamic and colorful Flushing street images, and many more.

We are extremely proud of the work the writing and editorial staff did on this issue. We hope you enjoy reading and looking at it as much as we did making it.

Keith Gessen and Brian Palmer