I don’t understand why CNN has fired its entire science/environmental team. Nor have I seen a good explanation for it – as in, what’s the thinking behind this? Obviously, these topics are only going to get more important as time goes by; it’s time to expand, not gut them.

The stated reason – science and environmental coverage is being folded into the mother ship, under the aegis of Anderson Cooper’s show – doesn’t make much sense. Having Cooper be the sole point person on these topics may well be a good idea: CNN can leverage his star power, as it already has, to dramatize these er, dramatic issues. But you’d think it would still require a certain critical mass of expertise and experience to generate the relevant content for Cooper’s show. But perhaps I’m just naive about how the cable nets operate. (And I’ll confess, it’s a little weird when your space correspondent has the same name as a Star Trek character.)