Lydia Dotto

Lydia Dotto (1949–2022) was a Canadian science journalist and author, a wildlife photographer, and an educator on science communication. Dotto's best known book is Storm Warning, a 1999 non-fiction work on climate change and its predicted effects. Dotto worked as an arctic diver and trained in zero gravity flight prior to her writing career.

Career

Dotto was a journalist with the Edmonton Journal in 1969 and with the Toronto Star between 1970 and 1971. Dotto was staff science writer for The Globe and Mail from 1972–1978.

She completed two dives under the Arctic ice for an article on cold-water diving. She covered space missions including Skylab, Apollo, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Dotto's association with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency continued even after leaving The Globe and Mail, in part through her rapport with astronauts Chris Hadfield and Marc Garneau. and executive editor of Canadian Science News Service from 1982–1992. She was chosen to give a talk on "Planet Earth as a Life Support System" for the 1990 Royal Astronomical Society of Canada General Assembly.

The year she turned 65, Dotto shifted her focus to wildlife photography. Wildlife magazines published her pictures from Canada, Costa Rica, Tanzania and elsewhere.