The Columbia Journalism Review may be cutting back or dropping The Observatory and its editor, Curtis Brainard, according to a post by Paul Raeburn at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, based on an article by Joe Pompeo at Capital New York.  This would be a huge loss of an important, and critical voice in science journalism, especially concerning environmental science.  And, it comes on the heels of the January’s announcement by the New York Times that they, too, are cutting back on their commitment of staff and resources to coverage of environmental news.  This includes the recent cancellation of the Green blog that Brainard 1st reported.    As climate change and other environmental issues appear in the news with increasing frequency, this couldn’t be a worse time for critical voices to be silenced.