This is extremely kick-ass news: The New York Times is creating a dedicated unit of eight reporters, with their own full-time editor, to cover environmental stories.

Columbia Journalism Review has all the details:

That editor is Erica Goode, a former behavior and psychology reporter turned Health editor who has been at the Times since 1998 and spent her last year in Baghdad covering the Iraq War. Her impressive team comprises Andrew Revkin and Cornelia Dean from Science, Felicity Barringer and Leslie Kaufman from National, Elisabeth Rosenthal from Foreign, Mia Navarro from Metro, and the Washington bureau’s Matthew Wald, who writes for the paper’s Energy Challenge series (another multi-department project).

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.