The Green Skeptic

"It Was Twenty Years Ago Today..." The Green Skeptic at 20

2024-11-24T12:21:00.000-05:00

Today, twenty years ago, I typed out my first blog post with a mix of uncertainty and conviction. “Why Blog? and Why The Green Skeptic?” the title asked—questions that would shape my next decade and a half of writing about environmental pragmatism, clean energy, and social innovation.

As The Green Skeptic, I carved out a unique space between environmental advocacy and market-based pragmatism. Working at The Nature Conservancy then, I saw firsthand the need for voices that could bridge ideology with practical solutions. One of my most effective early posts, “Caring, or A New Conservation Ethic,” first posted in 2005, challenged traditional environmental messaging and advocated for a more inclusive approach to conservation that acknowledged economic realities and people’s concerns.

A 2008 post, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Protecting and Saving,” argued that everything we thought about saving or protecting ecosystems and habitats was wrong and we needed to unleash human creativity to find new technological solutions as well as new ways of living with nature.

The blog evolved to tackle emerging challenges and opportunities. My piece, “The Coming Disruption—Lead It or Follow It,” from 2011, argued that partisan ideology on both sides was getting in the way of facing the systemic problems of our way of life. (Still true today!) Another 2011 post, “A Tale of Two Cleantech Companies” offered a critical analysis of what worked—and what didn’t—in the emerging green economy, a deep dive I explored in a case study format at the IMPACT investor conference that year. Exploring the intersection of faith and environmentalism in a two-part post on “The Evangelical Environmental Movement” sparked important conversations about building broader coalitions for climate action.

Some of my proudest moments came from highlighting changemakers like Kalyan Paul and his work with Grassroots International, showing how social entrepreneurship could drive sustainable development. The post “What Keeps You Up at Night?” resonated deeply with readers, examining the personal stakes of environmental challenges. My analysis of “Philanthropy & Environmental Change” pushed for more effective deployment of charitable resources to support environmental causes. (It also led to my being introduced to the woman who is now my wife.)

As clean technology and social entrepreneurship emerged as critical areas of interest for me—I moved from the Conservancy to the social venture capital organization Ashoka, and then into my own consulting practice, VerdeStrategy, before landing with EY’s cleantech and power and utilities practices—expanding the blog’s focus into these areas. This evolution led to unexpected opportunities, including a three-year run as a commentator on Fox Business with Varney & Co., where I brought these nuanced perspectives to a broader audience.

The Green Skeptic on Fox Business in 2010

For ten years, I maintained a steady dialogue with readers about everything from microfinance innovation to personal environmental choices, as captured in posts like “Falling Up, Or The Choices We Make May Be Our Own,” part of which led me to write a short memoir called Falling Up, several years later. The blog became a space not just for commentary, but for imagining better futures, exemplified in pieces like “IMAGINE The Man Who Cared,” my reflection on John Lennon’s inspiring legacy of activism. Another post explored the impact of one of my boyhood heroes, Roberto Clemente, who died tragically trying to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

While The Green Skeptic’s final post came in September 2019, its spirit of questioning assumptions and seeking practical solutions lives on in my current writing—from regional features and profiles in Berkshire Magazine to exploring new frontiers in psychedelic-assisted therapy for Terrain.org and Lucid News. I still have another, occasional blog, Scott Edward Anderson’s Poetry Blog, where I post mostly about poetry, and my essays are regularly published in various publications.

The media landscape has transformed dramatically since 2004, with Substack and Medium newsletters replacing individual blogs. But that early blogging experience taught me something invaluable: the power of putting thoughtful perspectives into the world without perfectionism getting in the way.

Twenty years later, we need independent voices willing to challenge assumptions and bridge divides more than ever. So, here’s to The Green Skeptic—not just for what it was, but for how it helped shape the conversations we’re still having today about building a more sustainable future.

Today is Pub Day for My New Book, FALLING UP: A Memoir of Second Chances

2019-09-10T12:48:00.002-05:00

"Steve Jobs is dead," I said.

So begins my new book, Falling Up: A Memoir of Second Chances, which drops today from Homebound Publications as part of their Little Bound Book Essay Series.

When I spoke those words, I was speaking to an audience at the SXSW Eco festival on that fateful morning in October 2011. Jobs had just died and many in the crowd had not heard the news. He was fifty six. (Readers of this blog may recall I wrote about it here and here and here back in 2011.)

"Fifty-six," I write in the book. "As I stood on the stage that October morning in 2011, a couple of years shy of fifty myself, I couldn't help thinking--as perhaps many in the room were thinking, too, in the wake of the example of Jobs--what have I done with my life?"

(You can read more from the opening of the book here.)

Falling Up, my most personal book to date, tells the story of several "second chances" I've had in my life, starting with a fall at Letchworth Gorge as a teenager in upstate New York through my most recent change of life, leaving EY after my job was eliminated despite the successful launch of a global technology-as-a-service solution that I led.

Along the way, I explore my original second chance in the wake of that fall in the gorge, my pursuit of art and writing throughout my life, learning to experience nature through the eyes of my children, as well as the story of several entrepreneurial endeavors--successes and failures--and, finally, how I found real and lasting love late in life and learned to embrace it.

Falling Up is about the struggle to become authentic, vulnerable, purpose-driven man in the 21st century and, ultimately, about making one's dream a reality.

Mark Tercek, the former CEO of The Nature Conservancy--an organization for which I worked over fifteen years and that serves as part of the backdrop for several stories in the memoir--called the book, "An inspiring read for anyone seeking meaning in their work or in their life."

I hope my little book--only 84 pages and around 10,000 words--lives up to the promise of that advance support and that it helps readers find a way to "fall up" in their own lives.

You can order the book directly from my publisher, Homebound Publications, or through Amazon, and wherever books are sold.

And if you do, please let me know what you think of Falling Up and share your own story of your second chances.

How My Simple Purpose Statement Stays Fresh [Hint: It's Real]

2017-06-27T09:57:00.000-05:00

My sons, Jasper & Walker, in Alaska, July 2008

“My goal is to catalyze innovation and investments that generate a new prosperity by improving our world, sustaining our environment, and generating profits.”

These words are posted at the very top of my LinkedIn profile and, come to think of it, these same words appear on the top of my resume as well.

Yesterday, a new contact on the site noticed my words and commented on it, wanting to hear more. That got me thinking about its origins and relevance.

I remember writing this goal statement twenty years ago in a workshop led by one of my mentors, the consultant and philanthropy guru Simone Joyaux. I lived in Alaska, where I worked for The Nature Conservancy, and my first son had just been born. I sat on the board of a professional association there and we invited Simone to speak at our annual conference.

Envision the world you want to live in and the impact you want to have, Simone instructed us. Then think of your goal – in life, work or life and work – and how you might achieve that vision.

This is what I came up with, “to catalyze innovation and investments that generate a new prosperity by improving our world, sustaining our environment, and generating profits.”

I don’t remember editing it much after putting it to paper. Perhaps I tweaked it a little and smoothed out any rough edges, but it’s pretty much intact. And it stuck.

Every few years I revisit this goal statement, taking a fresh look. Should I rewrite it? Does it need updating? The goal is twenty years old. Does it still express who I want to be in the world?

Reviewing this purpose, however, I always end up recommitting to it. It’s still my goal, and has been on my journey since it was written -- from The Nature Conservancy to Ashoka to VerdeStrategy and, even at EY, where what I’ve done over the past five years touches several aspects of that goal.

Surprisingly, even at a big four accounting and advisory firm, I’ve been able to find work with purpose.

My work at EY over the past five years includes working with cleantech CEOs on their growth journey and developing a digital grid solution from a single smart metering engagement in South Africa to a partnership with Microsoft that will soon scale the solution around the globe and help utilities extend power to more people.

In the workshop Simone led, she also asked us to follow up our goal by stating how we get to the what; how we achieve our goal. Here’s how I put it:

“I do this by working with people committed to collaboration and breakthrough innovation, linking vision to action with people, and attracting and deploying capital to achieve results and lasting impact.”

Seems like a tall order, but when you break it down, it becomes clear:

1.) We’re better working together than at cross purposes, so finding others committed to collaboration and innovation is essential to move forward;

2.) Creating a vision is one thing, linking it to the action we will take ensures the vision has a chance to be realized; and finally,

3.) We can’t do anything without capital, so we better be able to attract it if we want to achieve results and lasting impact.

I’m proud of the fact that my goal statement – my purpose – hasn’t really changed in 20 years. It still represents the vision I have for the world and how I’ll show up in it. The vehicles I use and the people and organizations with whom I collaborate may change, but my purpose remains the same.

I’ll follow up this post with some real-world examples -- and thank my new contact for prompting me to think about my goal and purpose again all these years later.

Top 5 Reasons US Pulling Out of Paris May Not Be a Bad Thing After All

2017-06-03T14:08:00.003-05:00

Snowflakes were melting all over the Internet. The sky was falling and people forgot all about secret messages encoded in typos from the Tweeter-in-Chief.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump did what everyone suspected he would, despite the advice of some of his closest advisers, corporate heads, and even a family member, he pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

Did President Trump Intend to Poke the Polar Bear?

I'm not convinced he really knows what he did or even what's actually in the Paris Agreement.

Like many of Trump's decisions, this one seemed knee-jerk, ill-informed, and spiteful.

He wants to renegotiate to get a better deal?

The agreement is non-binding, each country gets to set its own targets and decide how to get there, and almost every country is involved.

What more do you want?

Look, I'm not convinced these big global agreements do much good. I've long argued that there's more hot air and fewer teeth in these types of global pacts than a nonagenarian who's just eaten a bowl of chili.

But with the Paris Accord, at least everyone was participating -- everyone, that is except Syria, which is too war-torn to commit to anything, and Nicaragua, which didn't think the agreement went far enough.

Renegotiate? Come one, Donny, even some of the best deal makers in the world could see this was a pretty sweet deal, considering how much polluting we've been able to get away with over the past 257 years since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Under the Paris Accord, developed countries will contribute towards the so-called Green Climate Fund, intended to be the main fund for financing global climate change projects in the context of mobilizing $100 billion by 2020. The fund is designed to help poorer countries reduce their emissions and address the impacts of climate change.

The price tag for the US is a meager $3 billion -- $1 billion of which was already paid by the Obama administration.

Folks, that's less than $10 per person to help fund such projects as "development of irrigation and groundwater replenishment systems in northeastern India, where climate change has made monsoon rains less reliable; a hydropower plant in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific to eliminate diesel generators; and restoration and protection of Ugandan wetlands that are used by subsistence farmers," according to the New York Times.

(To put this in perspective, Business Insider reported last year that people around the world spent over $10 billion on beverages at Starbucks in 2015. At Starbucks alone!)

In any event, what's done is done. Well, there is that nasty business of the time it takes to actually withdraw from the agreement. By some estimates, the process won't be completed until the day after the next presidential election in 2020.

The reaction to this threatened withdrawal, however, has prompted some unintended consequences --perhaps Donny really is a genius and his decision was meant to encourage states, cities, companies, and individuals to act, and spur private investment to address climate change.

Here are my top 5 reasons the US Pulling out of the Paris Agreement may not be a bad thing after all:

1.) Climate change "ratings" went way up. Okay, well, Google searches on "Paris Accord" hit an all-time high on Thursday around 3PM Eastern, and then quickly dropped back down to normal. However, "climate change" tracked along with it on the uptick and, arguably, got more attention in the media in any 24-hour news cycle since Superstorm Sandy hit.

2.) Rather than prompting countries to abandon the Paris Accord, Trump's withdrawal seems to have strengthened the resolve of many of other countries. Some, such as China, see the US withdrawal as an opportunity to increase their share of the pie when it comes to addressing the issue. As Reuters reported on Thursday, China and the EU pledged to come together to fill the leadership void created by the president's decision.

3.) US cities, States, and companies are stepping up their game in response to Trump's trashing of the agreement, as the Times reported Thursday.

4.) Captains of the private sector, including leaders of Goldman Sachs, Disney, Tesla, and Apple have recommitted to tackling the issue. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein even joined Twitter to voice his disappointment, and billionaire Michael Blomberg pledged $15 million to help tackle climate change.

5.) Trump's pulling out of Paris may have poked the polar bear. By doing so, he may have awakened a force to be reckoned with -- the many organizations and individuals already committed to finding solutions to the climate change issue, especially those who have been on the front lines of the environment, social justice, and renewable energy for decades. It may also serve as a wake-up call to many others to take action.

In the end, the decision to withdraw may be heralded as a catalyst to finally getting the world to rally around the climate in an unprecedented way. Perhaps not what the Donald intended with his reality-show build-up and reveal in the Rose Garden, but potentially a pretty good ending.

Pulling Out of Paris Agreement is Bad for Business

2017-05-31T11:50:00.001-05:00

Should we stay or should we go?

President Trump is following the advice of entrenched, vested old-economy interests that would turn our backs on a bright economic future. If his vision to make America great again requires further dependence upon fossil fuels like coal and oil, then we are headed back into the Dark Ages.

The Paris Agreement isn't a lock on the bridge.
It is the bridge.

Explain to me how ceding the economic prosperity represented by energy innovation, and climate mitigation and adaptation to China and India makes us great?

Leaving the Paris Agreement throws our climate and future economic success under a bus. In doing so, Trump ignores the pleas of his Secretary of State, his daughter, several conservative Republicans, and many of the most successful high-growth company leaders in the US. This isn't just sad, it's a bad decision.

Staying in the Paris Agreement is good for business, as CEOs of 30 companies with major operations in the United States, including Dow Chemical, Proctor & Gamble, Goldman Sachs, and Coca-Cola (not exactly greenies!) argued in a 10 May letter to the President.

Why? Because, as an ad that ran in major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere, which was signed by technology giants like Apple, Facebook, Google, Gap, HP, along with energy and utility powerhouses National Grid, PG&E, and Schneider Electric, explained, the Paris Agreement spurs economic growth in the United States by strengthening competitiveness, creating jobs and markets, and reducing business risks.

When even ExxonMobil (and its former CEO, Rex Tillerson, now Secretary of State) supports the Paris Agreement and believes the oil company "has a constructive role to play in developing solutions," it's hard to understand what is motivating the President to pull out at this stage.

The Paris Agreement provides a level playing field for all countries -- except Nicaragua and Syria, which are the only two countries refusing to sign (great company, huh?), provides certainty for businesses and investors, which in turn allows for long-term planning and investment, and encourages market-based solutions and innovations that can benefit our economy, build a new manufacturing base, and create a future-focused industry.

Pulling out of the Paris Agreement is bad for business, bad for the planet, and a bad deal.

My Talk at Riverbend: Aware, Responsible and Caring Citizens

2016-11-15T19:18:00.001-05:00

My son Walker, then 2, in his "one square yard."

"Aware, responsible and caring citizens." Yeah, we can use some of those right about now.

Back in June 2016, a colleague at EY reached out to ask me to speak at Riverbend Environmental Education Center, just outside of Philadelphia.

I jumped at the chance, in part because I love a stage, but also because Riverbend has an important mission: teaching environmental principles to children...through a direct connection with nature, inspiring respect for our natural world and action as aware, responsible and caring citizens.

Here is the talk I gave, which included a few poems that I added for color:

I want to share with you three stories tonight, each of which is paired with a poem or part of a poem that illustrates a point I’d like to make about why we are here, why we need to know about this place and others like it, and why we should care. Care not just about Riverbend Environmental Education Center and the people it serves, but why we should care about this big blue marble we inhabit.

There was a popular book a number of years ago called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. For me, I’ve always said all I really needed to know I learned from Gladys Taylor. Gladys was a surrogate Aunt for me, a retired English and Physical Education teacher, who taught me about nature and art and poetry and being active, and also about how to look at the world and begin to make sense of it – years later I realized she was training me to pay attention to the world around me and it has come to inform a lot of what I’ve done in my life and work.

Work that has taken me from the halls of a publishing house to protecting forests, grasslands, rivers, and seascapes with the Nature Conservancy, investing in social entrepreneurs trying to solve the world’s pressing problems, and to helping developing countries provide greater access to electricity that can help improve lives and economies.

I’m not alone in having a pivotal figure in my life that helped me find a path or multiple paths. It could have easily been a parent, teacher or a mentor from another part of my life. But for me, it was a woman who looked after me during my formative years in Rhode Island and summers at her family house in Vermont. I wrote a poem about her influence on me – it’s too long to read here in its entirety, but you can find it in my book, FALLOW FIELD – the poem is called “The Postlude, or How I Became a Poet,” and it opens with this passage,

I am a child, crawling around in the leaves

With Gladys Taylor while she names the trees,

Parts the grasses, digs into the earth with a gardener’s trowel.

She picks out worms and slugs, millipedes

And springtails, which we see with a “Berlese funnel.”

Busy decomposers working their busy tasks,

Turning waste into energy, leaf litter into soil again.

Gladys names things for me: “That oak,

That maple there, that sassafras, smell its roots.”

“Root beer!” I exclaim,

Her laughter peeling away into the hills. Later,

With Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study

On the table next to the unending jigsaw puzzle,

Gladys opens to “The Oaks,” reading or reciting:

“The symbol of strength since man first gazed

Upon its noble proportions…” Then she sings Virgil,

Full in the midst of his own strength he stands

Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands,

His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.

Leaves and acorns spread across the table,

Each divided to its source, as if cataloging specimens:

The white and chestnut oaks, red and scarlet,

Every oak in the neighborhood, sketching the leaves,

Tracing and coloring them. Then questions, such questions:

“Where did we see this one growing?” “How tall?”

“Are the branches crooked or straight?”

“Round leaves or pointy?”

And then a game of matching

Acorn to leaf; a most difficult lesson — as difficult

As those jigsaw puzzles for a boy lacking patience

Or attention…

Now Gladys was a unique person and I, as her protege, was as well. But like I said, each of us can probably think about someone in our lives that had a profound impact on us. It may be one of the things that brought you here, I suppose, because by being here – even if you’re just here for the food – you are showing that you care. By being here you may learn a lesson I hope is not as difficult as matching acorns to their leaves.

#

When I had children of my own, I really wanted to impart in them that sense of wonder Gladys had enlivened in me, to pass on her lessons in a way. In my work for many years with The Nature Conservancy, which took me from the Hudson Valley in New York to Alaska, to the desert southwest and the tall grass prairie of Oklahoma, to back here to Pennsylvania, as well as to Indonesia, Ecuador, the islands of the Caribbean, and many other places in between. I was always impressed by the local knowledge, the indigenous knowledge of the people with whom we were working to protect some of the world’s great places.

We’ve all read the reports about nature’s impact on our psyche. We need nature. I need nature, even though I live in a city. As my kids were growing up, I realized that while treks out to the wilderness, camping, hikes in the mountains, etc., were all great experiences for them (and me), it was equally important they learn about the nature in their own backyards, their own city block.

This “one square yard” philosophy, that learning about the nature in one square yard, really learning it and paying attention to the connections between species and the ecosystem as a whole, instills a sense of the importance of our own backyards and, in turn, will help us care about the natural world and our place in it and protecting it.

Today, all of us, but especially our children, are consumed by screen time. The average user spends 50 minutes on Facebook a day, according to recent data – and our kids are faced with numerous other social media distractions from Snapchat to Instagram to Periscope, whatever that is. Not to mention Candy Crush, Minecraft, and Angry Birds.

A few years ago, my sons were hooked on a mobile phone game where you rapidly identify corporate logos. I was horrified that they were so good at the game and disappointed I’d apparently failed in my mission to impart Gladys’s lessons. Nothing against corporate logos – some of them are quite good design – but that they could recognize more corporate logos than birds or trees really bugged me.

Yet, one day, walking in Carpenter’s Woods over in Mt. Airy, on the edge of Wissahickon Park with my twins, they got excited about the fallen trees on the forest floor and how they were decomposing. They noted the differences between the bark and the color and the consistency of the “saw dust” as the trees were returned to the Earth. It was a small victory – they still know more corporate logos than birds, I suspect, but what can I do?

I wrote this poem, called "Owl in the Gloaming," after a walk in those woods a couple of years ago that illustrates I’m not immune to apps myself…

Although real birders frown on it,

I play back songs of birds

trying to lure them out of the wood:

"scree-chee-chee" of song sparrow,

mashing notes of catbird, "what-cheer,

what-cheer, what-cheer" of cardinal.

This irritates the birds.

They fly reconnaissance

over my head. Catbird looping

furtive patterns above me,

crossing the path from tree to tree.

Sparrow chasing catbird,

thinking he's got too close,

although the interloper was me

in the unquiet afternoon

sloughing into evening.

Suddenly, a monotonous trill,

tremulous horse-whinny

of the screech owl--

unmistakable, hideous laughter.

Then, overhead, something large,

gray, all wing beat and bodily hum.

All other birds go silent,

in the owl's shadow.

Hidden in the trees,

his scaly, bark-like feathers,

can't be made out in the gloaming.

Now there's a distant thrumming,

not from the bird app on my phone.

Rather, from within my chest,

vibrating on this turning earth,

under an owl's wing.

#

Several years ago now, I was in India, working for Ashoka, which is a kind of social venture capital organization. One of the Ashoka Fellows I visited there was Kalyan Paul, who had started a very successful environmental organization called Grassroots, in the Indian Himalayas. Kalyan introduced me to some of the people from the village of Ranikhet, where he is based, including the Artisan’s Guild, a group men who were building and installing biogas stoves to repurpose cow dung and eliminate charcoal fires inside their houses for cooking.

And I met craftswomen who had created a profitable business making jams and preserves from local fruits, as well as hand-crafted sweaters and other garments for sale in local shops and around the world through online sales. Kalyan and Grassroots had helped set up this economic activity long before they tackled a single “environmental issue,” such as deforestation, erosion, and invasive species.

When I asked Kalyan what made him successful, he said, “I paid attention. I walked around and listened to the people. Their issues were economic and health-related, and I realized that until I helped them address those issues, and set them on a path towards greater self-sufficiency, I was never going to be able to address the environmental problems – the issues were linked.”

Today, I want to share a bit about my work with EY, which happens to be a sponsor of tonight’s event, so I may as well put in a plug for our work – because I think it’s pretty cool.

Electricity is a big issue on the African continent, as it is in many developing continents and countries, especially access, availability, and reliability. Working with a municipal utility in South Africa, our team helped design and implement a pre-paid smart metering program that addresses three problems the utility had: 1.) collecting revenue from their customers – some of whom wouldn’t pay their bills because they didn’t trust the billing systems; 2.) reducing electricity theft, not just in small villages, but in “gated communities” and even some commercial operations; and 3.) attracting investment to allow them to expand their network and improve reliability.

Now we’re looking at taking this same solution and exporting the idea out of Africa to other countries -- to India, Brazil, Mexico -- wherever there are similar problems this idea can address.

Both the Grassroots and EY solutions were about paying attention to what is going on around and creating opportunities out of the situation, which in turn creates greater value for others. Which reminds me of my poem,

“Opportunity,”

A wasp wrestles all day
with the false freedom
of a window pane.
Scaling the glass, then slipping
down, buzzing the cracked paint
of the old window frame.
As if thrumming wings faster
will pull it closer to the blossom,
just beyond its reach.
So determined in its struggle
to get in, to wrest pollen from
the exotic flower on the other side.
A spider sets its dinner table
in the corner of the pane—

My mother-in-law once commented about that poem, “I’ve witnessed that scene many times…only you noticed the spider in the corner.” I can probably thank my Aunt Gladys for that.

We can be single-focused, like the wasp, beating our heads against the glass until we’re unconscious or we can be patient and attentive like the spider to make things happen when the opportunity presents itself.

In my experience over the years, I’ve seen the environmental movement make progress being more inclusive regarding people and nature, reaching more diverse communities, and beginning to change the face of conservation by giving others the opportunity to be a part of the solutions.

Places like Riverbend help broaden the horizons of children and bring them into an understanding of the natural world around them – whether it is a nature preserve, a city park or their own back yards.

Make no mistake about it, this is important work, as important as big land conservation or global climate agreements, for it is our children, as caring citizens of the world, who will be tomorrow’s stewards of the lands and waters we need to sustain life on Earth.

And this is important because, as Robert Michael Pyle wrote in his book, The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, “People who care conserve; people who don’t know, don’t care.”

I don't know if I created any "aware, responsible and caring citizens" that night, but I hope so.

Back at the Helm...Because the Planet Needs The Green Skeptic

2016-11-15T18:21:00.000-05:00

The Green Skeptic back at the helm.

I've been away too long and look what happens? The lunatics are running the asylum.

Well, my hiatus is over. I'm ready to start blogging again and calling out horse dookey (as Mary Karr calls it) about the environment wherever I see it -- and hoping to learn some new things along the way.

Now more than ever, it's clear to me the planet needs the skeptical view -- on both sides of the coin. So, I'm pledging here to rededicate myself to the mission of The Green Skeptic: "challenging assumptions about how we live on the earth and protect our environment."

Watch this space.

7th Annual Mid-Atlantic Energy Technology Forum - Coming up April 8, 2015

2015-02-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

The Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic, an organization I co-founded with Kevin Brown of Hobbes & Towne, is hosting its 7th annual energy technology forum, once again in partnership this year with the law firm of Pepper Hamilton. More details to come, but I wanted readers to have this head's up.

The Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103
Wednesday, April 8, 2015 | 3:30 - 7:30 PM (ET)

Fostering investment and opportunity in energy technology…

The future of energy technology is now. Join us for thought-provoking sessions from experts and thought leaders on trends in venture and corporate investment in energy technologies, and a showcase of leading-edge Mid-Atlantic energy companies that offers a glimpse of what’s to come at the 7th Annual Mid-Atlantic Energy Technology Forum, hosted by Pepper Hamilton LLP’s Energy and Emerging Company Groups, in partnership with the Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic. This much-anticipated event is known for fostering in-depth discussions about the future of the energy industry, the impact of technology on industry growth, and the investment climate, so mark your calendar and plan to be part of the conversation.

Agenda3:30 – 4:00 PM | Registration 4:00 – 6:00 PM | Program6:00 – 7:30 PM | Reception

Ticket Pricing$50 Early Bird (on or before March 10)
$65 (on or before April 7)
$75 (at the door)

Call for Energy Technology Company Showcase
We are currently accepting applications for companies who wish to participate in the Energy Technology Company Showcase. Click here to download the application. Forward completed applications by February 27th to Jennifer Kuban at kubanj@pepperlaw.com.

Become a Sponsor

We are currently seeking sponsors to participate in this forum. Click here to download the sponsorship form and please contact Jennifer Kuban at kubanj@pepperlaw.com for more information.

Gold Sponsors

An Email from Santa Claus to Climate Skeptics: An Annual Green Skeptic Tradition

2014-12-22T08:30:00.000-05:00

Back in 2006, I published this email from Santa, which arrived on the night before the night before Christmas. Readers had so much fun with it, it's become an annual tradition. Enjoy!

Happy Holidays!

_______________________

TO: Global Warming Skeptics

FROM: Santa Claus

DATE: A few nights before Xmas

SUBJECT: My Christmas List

_________________________

This is Santa, writing from the North Pole. Soon I'll be gathering all the toys for all the good little girls and boys and packing them in my sleigh to begin our journey, our night of nights.

The reindeer, however, are starting to complain about hoof-rot. Apparently, they've been standing around in too much slush. This has put me in a decidedly prickly mood this Christmas.

You know me; I'm not a single-issue guy. I believe that as long as you are good, and I mean good for goodness' sake, you deserve some slack on the other stuff. I'm an equal opportunity distributor. I know whether you've been bad or good or just plain evil. You also know I'm not one to discriminate against one group of people or another, believers or non-believers.

But this year is different. This year, I'm making a few changes to my list. I'm checking it twice and have decided that the naughty include any one of you out there who do not believe in global warming. All you climate change skeptics out there, you are on the naughty list this year.

Oh, you know who you are. And I've got one special gift for you: Nothing but COAL. You like the stuff so much -- and it's such a big part of what's leading to climate change -- you might as well have bags and bags of it and nothing more.

Make no mistake. Global warming is happening. You don't have to show me any scientific reports, although some nifty ones have shown up in my email box lately, sent to me from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

No, you don't have to convince me; I'm a believer. All I have to do is look out my window to my back yard, what's left of it! It's a soupy mess out there.

We usually have a good bit of ice up here at the North Pole -- and early. That's important, too; you see, every year the elves and I construct a temporary workshop up here where we make the toys and assemble the other goodies. The earlier the ice, the sooner we get started.

Although I have figured out a way to deliver the entire shipment of gifts on my list in one night, I still haven't perfected the manufacturing process. I can't speed it up. (Some of that I blame on the unions.) We need all the ice we can get up here for there is no solid ground.

But this year, the ice cover was the lowest it's been in almost 30 years. And at least one of those science groups studying this stuff tells me that, according to their models, by 2040, we'll have mostly open water up here. (They sent me this short animation clip, which sends chills up my spine: Arctic Ice Melt.)

Mrs. Claus has even started looking for Houseboats on Craig's List!

So, dear boys and girls, you better not pout or cry or whine or deny climate change any longer. And I'm telling you why: because climate change is coming to town. Time's a wasting. We need to do something about this now, before it's too late. Or before I have to move all of my operations to the South Pole!

Here's wishing a carbon-neutral Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

S. Claus, North Pole

10 Favs; 10 Years: Caring, or A New Conservation Ethic

2014-12-17T08:30:00.000-05:00

My son Jasper tagging a saltwater croc,
Mexico, January 2005. Photo by the author.

This post originally appeared on The Green Skeptic in October 2005. It clearly demonstrates my concerns about the disconnect between people and conservation and articulates my view of the need for a new conservation ethic.

Over the past several weeks, in the conference centers of Monterey, the wilderness of Yosemite, and the halls of my company's offices in suburban Washington, our talk has been about drawing a closer connection between conservation and people.

We've come a long way, but still have miles to go before we can say we've expanded the boundaries of our own conservation ethic.

I've been thinking a lot lately about conservation ethic. One phrase that keeps coming back to me is Robert Michael Pyle's statement that "People who care conserve, people who don't know don't care." It's a powerful truism and one to which we should pay heed.

Our movement is often accused of being elitist and defeatist and, frankly, those criticisms are far too often accurate. Beautiful photos of pristine places beg the question, "What about the people?"

(Pyle's words came back to me during tonight's playoff battle of the Sox. It was late in the game, my beloved Red Sox had bases loaded and blew several chances to tie the game or take the lead. Johnny Damon was up, surely ready to play the hero. My nine-year old son, who learned to care about baseball -- and my team -- during the 2003 ALCS, was on tenterhooks: would Damon do it? When the Caveman struck out, stranding three base runners and turning the BoSox into WoeSox once again, my son was apoplectic. "Now I know you are a true fan," I told him. "You really cared." I haven't seen him that upset since he learned that polar bears were losing habitat to global warming!)

We need a new conservation ethic that clearly redefines the human + nature equation: that human beings are not apart from, but rather a part of nature. We need to articulate the real connections between conservation and restoration of the earth's natural functions -- also known as ecosystem services -- and their real implications for the people of the earth.

Moreover, that we care about people as much as the earth's other species. Without this, we will sink in a downward spiral of our own making.

Whether we're talking about food, fuel, fiber for clothing or paper or a myriad of other goods and services nature provides, we need to stop "seeing the natural world as a resource for the economy," as James Gustave Speth writes in his book, Red Sky at Morning, "rather than seeing the economy as nested in the natural world."

We have obligations to the world that go beyond our self-interest, to paraphrase Aldo Leopold, and until we own up to this our conservation ethic will ring false for the majority of the world's people. Our new conservation ethic must be as inclusive as it is pragmatic, and as interconnected to the other issues of our time -- poverty alleviation, terrorism, AIDS/HIV -- as to the natural world we hold dear.

We need to remember this whether we're on higher ground in one of this nation's important National Parks, the sterile corridors of an office in northern Virginia, or the cozy confines of that little bandbox of a ballpark that is Fenway.

10 Favs; 10 Years: What We Talk About When We Talk About Protecting and Saving

2014-12-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

This post originally appeared on The Green Skeptic in March 2008, when I was about to speak at the Aspen Environment Forum. It was a pivotal time for conservation and I think some of the strides that my former organization, The Nature Conservancy, and others in conservation have made are reflective of some of my espoused views. There's more progress that can be made, but it's a start.

##

Village children on Batanta Island, Indonesia. Photo by the author.

Everything we think about saving or protecting ecosystems and habitats is wrong.

This week, I'm at the Aspen Environment Forum, where tomorrow morning I'll be on a Panel called "Nature's Place: Saving Ecosystems and Habitats."

For the better part of 15 years I worked with The Nature Conservancy to save some of the world's "Last Great Places" around the world (I left in August; see my posts reflecting on my career at TNC
and here.

I consider myself a conservationist, not an environmentalist. What I mean by that is a conservative and prudent approach to our use of resources that requires us to manage them for the long-term -- for the benefit of people today and for future generations.

The Green Skeptic grew out of an increasing concern about our relationship to the natural world and how we protect it. I am a skeptic in the sense that I believe we need to constantly challenge the assumptions we have about "saving ecosystems and habitats."

In my view, we operate under four basic assumptions:

1. We can continue to "save" or "protect" ecosystems and habitats from harm in perpetuity;
2. We can ignore basic human needs and treat poverty alleviation as a separate issue from the environment;
3. We can entrust protection to governments and corporate NGOs;
4. We can't trust human ingenuity and community to manage its own resources.

First, I need to step back and look at the words we use. (I am a poet, so words matter to me.) Specifically, "protecting" and "saving."

Both imply we need to keep ecosystems and habitats from something. The American Heritage Dictionary defines protecting as "To keep from being damaged, attacked, stolen, or injured; guard." When we use the word protecting in terms of ecosystems and habitats, we are guarding nature from something or someone, presumably humans.

Saving is a little less problematic, as it implies a conservative approach to the future (as in saving seed corn for next year's sowing). Still, the AHD's first definition is "To rescue from harm, danger, or loss." It's not until definition number three that we get to the conservative impulse: "To avoid spending (e.g. money) so as to keep or accumulate it."

The question is not about what we should save, but how and for what purpose.

Is it hubris to assume we have protected or saved anything? We promote the fact that percentages of ecosystems or habitats are protected, but they continue to be encroached upon -- see the Amazon Rainforest for example.

What have we really saved if massive changes from climate change or the drive for much-needed economic development will have significant impact on the future status and makeup of places, habitats, and ecosystems?

Climate change will disrupt many ecosystems that exist today -- much as the Internet disrupted print media, the travel industry, TV, bookstores, you name it. It will change everything.

So the question is what are we really protecting when we talk about protecting ecosystems and habitat? Will the places we select for protection today be the same 10-20 years from now? Probably not.

Ecosystems are constantly changing, either from "external" (human) or "internal" (natural) forces. Change is inevitable and could, in the face of global warming, be dramatic.

Shouldn't we be preparing for the changes and begin to think about how we adapt to some of the most likely changes, those brought on by climate change or economic development or basic human needs, such as for food and energy?

Demand for energy and food will drive economic development for years to come and we can't continue to ignore these drivers to "save" the natural, non-human world.

This leads me to assumption two, which is about ignoring basic human needs. It's irrational for us to think that people in developing countries, many of whose basic human needs are not being met, will care deeply about the non-human natural world.

Yet, we continue to have blind faith in our cause and ignore the needs of real people.

I recently returned from India where the extreme poverty is evident almost everywhere you look. Also evident is a growing middle class that strives for the kind of lifestyle we have here in the west, specifically the US, with its inherent accelerated pace and impacts.

Who are we to say that people in developing countries have no right to the kind of lifestyle we have exported for decades? We can not convince, persuade or cajole or even pay people -- Americans as much as people in developing nations -- to "come around to our way of thinking," and yet this is what I hear whenever I talk to environmentalists.

And we can't ask poor people around the world to forgo the comforts of the lifestyle we have been living, and which they wish to copy, "for the sake of the planet" or to set aside their habitats and ecosystems for the sake of humanity. No country wants to become an ecological reserve for the world, especially if it means it cannot pursue economic prosperity.

Try floating this idea with people who go hungry every night for lack of food or money to buy food and see what kind of reaction you get.

In the end, poor people matter. And the governments of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and African countries must be concerned first and foremost with the well-being of their people. I'm not saying that human well-being isn't tied to ecosystem health; I'm a strong believer that economic growth is tied to those resources.

I believe we can no longer separate the issue of economic development and poverty alleviation from ecosystem health. We also can't expect that governments whose people aren't meeting basic needs to protect their habitats over the economic well-being of their people.

Which leads me to assumption three: increasingly, we are entrusting protection of habitats and ecosystems with the wrong people. Governments have a mandate to improve the economic health of their country and people.

Yet we continue to have faith that these governments will "do the right thing" and enforce laws protecting their forests or other ecosystems in the face of seemingly insurmountable economic obstacles.

Why do we think that is a good strategy? What indicators do we have that tell us this strategy will succeed where it hasn't in the past? Why do we think that the World Bank program to pay countries to "avoid deforestation" will be any more successful than their previous grand plans?

The same goes for NGOs. NGOs are basically corporations that serve a set of shareholders (donors in this case) who subscribe to a specific idea of Nature and a specific set of outcomes, outcomes that may not necessarily be shared by all stakeholders.

This idea of Nature has for a long time discounted the needs of people both today and in the future. To illustrate this, one only need look at the environmental community's approach to government debt.

Conservation groups (my old employers among them) have promoted using a country's debt as leverage to gain conservation protection. The debt-for-nature swap was an innovation of the past couple of decades and a noble one. But it was also painfully ignorant of the true nature of that debt -- in many cases "dictator debt" incurred by regimes that did not have its people's best interests in mind.

Now that we have a more clear understanding of how that debt was derived, and can no longer ignore its immoral origins, we need to give up or adjust the debt-for-nature swap concept and join the call for debt forgiveness. That will free some countries from having to exploit their natural resources to pay down that debt.

Yet, many in the environmental community continue to push the debt-for-nature strategy, because they can't let go of a good thing that advances their agenda.

How is this different from any corporation -- a sector many environmentalists attack -- that advances its agenda at the expense of people here and abroad? Can we really trust ecosystems and habitats to big government or big international non-governmental corporations?

In the end, wouldn't a better approach be to put our trust in the people and the communities where these ecosystems and habitats are found? They have the most at stake in managing these resources, as their needs and livelihoods are most closely tied to the lands and waters.

I believe human beings are basically good. I also believe that, given the opportunity, communities will manage their common interests and keep each other in check. This is the open-source community approach one finds in social networks and in business models such as eBay.

I also believe that human beings are the most creative and adaptable species on the planet -- just look at the variety of habitats, climates, and conditions we inhabit. Our resilience as a species is astounding. I argue that we need to embrace this resourcefulness and apply it to overcoming ecological shifts, climate change, and loss of ecosystems and habitats.

We need to unleash the power of human creativity to find new ways to "save" those places for future use by both human and non-human species.

Unleashing this human capacity will require suspending our assumptions. We will need to focus more on community-based or "commons-based" management (as Jonathan Rowe of the West Marin Commons in California calls it in a recent essay in The State of the World 2008).

We need a people-centered conservation that addresses the real needs of real people, and to empower individual entrepreneurs and communities to manage their resources cooperatively rather than impose grand plans from Washington.

We need to clearly draw the lines connecting economic prosperity with ecological health and human well-being.

And, finally, we need to unleash human creativity to find new technological solutions as well as new ways of living with nature.

This may, in the end, be our only hope to really save habitat and ecosystems – and, ultimately, to save ourselves.

10 Favs; 10 Years: The Coming Disruption - Lead It or Lose It

2014-12-10T09:28:00.000-05:00

Back in 2011, disruption was very much on my mind -- personally, professionally, and economically. Reading that post now -- in the wake of the current social unrest and new revelations about the banking system -- I wonder if plummeting down the same cliff. The questions I ask in this post still seem relevant and worth asking. The answers, alas, are still a way off. The disruption, I suspect, has already begun. Here is my post from October 2011 on "The Coming Disruption":

I feel like our economy -- our very way of life -- is in a simultaneous state of suspended animation and free fall. Like a cartoon character that has run off a cliff and hasn't yet realized there is no ground beneath it.

As I said in my talk at SXSW ECO a couple of weeks ago, I don't know whether we're going to go all the way down or we're going to catch ourselves and scramble back up top.

It seems clear we're headed for a major disruption. The question is, will we instigate that disruption or will we let it happen to us?

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests are indicative of this coming disruption. In many ways, it's a welcome and refreshing sign that Americans are no longer complacent, apathetic, hedonists whose sole purpose is to consume.

My fear is that OWS gets co-opted and becomes a kind of anti-Tea Party movement for the left. I fear that when I see folks like MoveOn.org, the unions, and extreme environmentalists jumping on board and trying to grab the reins.

Partisan ideology on both sides is getting in the way of facing the systemic problems of our way of life.

Our country is failing because we reward people who fail, cheat, and game the system. We bail out institutions that fail to add value to the world. And we let others create the world they want for us.

It's a perfect storm of deeply entrenched special interests, leadership incompetence, and redistribution of wealth. (Yes, that's right, I'm against redistributing wealth -- to either the one percent or the 99 percent. Wealth needs to be earned the old-fashioned way: by creating value and hard work.)

Some are calling for stronger regulation, which would inhibit financial institutions being innovative. Meanwhile, banks sit on their money and make big payouts to incompetent managers who are asked to leave and start charging fees for purchases made with debit cards to squeeze more revenue from customers.

How is that going to grow our economy?

Unfortunately, innovation in financial services is getting a bad name. The innovations of the past decade or so -- much of what got us in the mess we're in -- were driven by regulatory or credit ratings arbitrage, and were increasingly complex, opaque, and focused on quarterly results or success for those who could manipulate the game.

Now it's time for financial innovation that is conducive to sustaining economies – to value creation rather than value destruction, and that drives a new kind of prosperity.

I've been thinking about financial services as an engine of change because we're not going to make real and lasting change – or build a new economy – if money can’t be made while doing it. Altruism is great, but it won't trump greed.

So what if financial services firms clearly demonstrated their community, social and environmental impacts?

What if banks told their customers what they did with their money?

What if customers were rewarded for making sustainable choices?

What if there was a greater connection between money and values, and management was compensated for maintaining or growing that connection?

What if profit and purpose were more equitably connected?

What if sustainability wasn't an add-on, but was part of the DNA of our enterprises?

What if, instead of a triple bottom line, we talked about a single, redefined bottom line that encompasses all three: profitability, environmental health, and social well-being?

Is it even possible for us to make this shift without regulation or with better regulation or, better yet, with self-regulation?

Whatever the answer to the above questions, it's clear a disruption is coming. We need to decide whether we will lead it or lose it.

10 Favs; 10 Years: IMAGINE The Man Who Cared, John Lennon

2014-12-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

It was 34 years ago today John Lennon was shot to death outside his home on West 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York. Here's a post that I wrote on the 25th Anniversary of that horrible event in 2005:

John Lennon watercolored by the author.

I was hundreds of miles away when I heard about John Lennon's death from Howard Cosell. He announced the news during the New England Patriots game on Monday Night Football. I had just picked up John's "comeback" interview in Playboy, which had just come out earlier that day.

My stepmother Sandi called me as soon as she heard the news and we both cried into the phone. John's death struck home for a couple of reasons.

One, because John Lennon was a boyhood idol of mine and another because I was supposed to be there, in the apartment I shared on 72nd Street, a half a block west towards Columbus Avenue. I missed my ride back to New York that Saturday night. It was probably a gig or a concert that kept me away. No matter.

Had I been there, I might have been taking my usual night walk around the block at the precise moment John and Yoko were returning from the recording studio to meet their fate.

Could I have prevented it somehow if I had been there? The thought haunts me to this day.

There were always a number of faithful fans gathered outside the Dakota to catch a glimpse of John. They were nice folks and I would chat-up whoever was there, knew many of the regulars on a first-name basis, even brought them coffee from the Argos Restaurant up on the Columbus Avenue corner.

I remember one guy, a photographer named Michel from Montreal, whose pictures later showed up in one of the posthumous collections of images that appeared after Lennon’s death. He was a regular, whenever he was down from Canada, and had even managed to get some of his photographs in to John via the doorman; he showed me some of the images, mostly candid snapshots of the family taking a stroll.

John and Yoko liked to stroll around and in the Park – "It's John Lennon, I can’t believe it," he would say if he caught you staring at him. Michel was a real fan, not like the evil-doer-who-shall-not-be-named who took John down.

John & Yoko in Central Park, 1980;
altered by the author.

John and Yoko frequented Café La Fortuna on 71st, where I used to hang out writing poems and drawing. You could see the back patio from my building.

Across the hall from me was Benny Fine and his roommate Max, a doorman who used to play in The Circle (they had a hit in the Sixties with "Red Rubber Ball"). Benny used to point out the café from their window, mostly to complain about the smell of coffee waste in the garbage cans out back.

That night could have been different; John could have lingered in the neighborhood, gone around for a late night espresso. La Fortuna was an opera hangout, full of old opera buffs and ballet dancers drinking coffee and smoking Nat Shermans, most of whom didn't care much for Lennon's music.

Nobody bothered John there, it was an unspoken rule, but sprinkled among the photographs and album covers of famous opera singers on the walls, was a fair number of signed pictures and LPs from the famous couple.

But they didn't get a coffee that night; they went straight home, John still clutching the last recordings he made.

That was "the day the music died," as the old song goes, but it was more than that for those of us to whom John was more than his music. His was an example of what one could do with art, music, and fame beyond the art: he cared. And he taught me to care.

To a boy growing up in the shadow of the Nixon, John was like a beacon of hope. He stood for things. He wasn't afraid to play the fool. He spoke out – whether you liked what he said or not – and spoke up.

In the entire hullabaloo around Bono's promotion to end poverty and AIDS, has anyone noticed that "One" is a derivative of John's "Bag One"; his efforts of the late sixties-early seventies?

John climbed in bed for peace and was ridiculed, but brought attention to his cause. He zipped himself and his bride into a bag for peace, returned his MBE for peace, planted acorns for peace, and other silly acts of caring.

Even the white of the wristbands and t-shirts used to promote the One Campaign is reminiscent of the white clothes, balloons, and "WAR IS OVER" billboards John used for his cause.

"Imagine" at Strawberry Fields in Central Park;
photo by the author.

I can trace my caring to three people. Three people who shaped my ethos of caring and helped make me who I am today, who led me to do the work I do, and write what I write here on this blog and in my poetry: John Lennon, Roberto Clemente, and Gladys Taylor. (More on the other two later.)

John was an icon. He was also a fragile, insecure man – could even be an asshole, according to many reports and biographies. Nevertheless, he wasn't afraid to care. And caring is what it's all about.

IMAGINE that.

10 Favs; 10 Years: Falling Up --The Choices We Make May Be Our Own

2014-12-05T08:30:00.000-05:00

Letchworth Gorge by J. Stephen Conn, used by permission
.

Back in November 2011 I posted about the need for change in our economy and the way we approach that change. Here is my post "Falling Up -- The Choices We Make May Be Our Own":

When I was 15 years old I was hiking in Letchworth Gorge in upstate New York. (Here is a picture of the gorge, left.) A beautiful place.

Despite the warnings or perhaps because of them -- I was a teenager after all -- I got too close to the edge. And I fell. I fell for what seemed like a long way and a long time, but in reality it was perhaps just a matter of seconds.

Time dragged, however, like a cartoon character falling off a cliff – think of Bugs Bunny falling, eating a carrot, reading War and Peace, and filing his nails. I was remarkably calm, at peace, really. One with the fall, it was a true Buddhist moment.

And then it was over. Somehow there was a branch or root and my arm reached out to grab it – I remember the jerking feeling like a parachute opening…I was safe. I'd fallen but I didn't die. I had a second chance.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, I climbed back up to the top of the gorge.

That memory has been haunting me lately. I shared this story in my talk at SXSW last month and again with a group of leaders at a retreat last week.

Why am I reminded of this story now? Well, as I wrote in an earlier post on this blog, I think our economy is in free-fall and we seriously need to change.

The latest example of a society in free-fall is the news of a "celebrity marriage" failing after 72 days.

According to Twitter sources that include some celebrities allegedly close to the situation, the wedding earned the bride $17.9 million. Really? $17.9 million for a marriage that lasted 72 days?

No wonder people like Lawrence Lessig think our society could fall like Rome.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can change the outcome. We can adopt a new game plan.

But we can't change the world if we aren't first prepared to change within ourselves and live the lives we know we can live, be the people we know we can be, and take the actions we are compelled to take.

The choice is ours, but we must be conscious as we make our choices. We need to stop compromising in our lives, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And we need to deliver lasting value, to innovate, and finally, to inspire and be inspired.

When you're free-falling, you have two choices: keep falling to the bottom or grab the first available branch, scamper back up to the top and create a new path forward. Call it "falling up."

Which do you choose? And what are you waiting for?

10 Favs; 10 Years: "What Keeps You Up at Night?"

2014-12-03T08:30:00.000-05:00

Back in November 2009, Lou Rappaport of Blank Rome asked me a disturbing question at the MAC Alliance Conference in Philadelphia.

Here's the post I wrote in response to his question:

On the face of it, Lou's question was a simple one:

"What keeps you up at night?"

We were interrupted before I could answer, but Lou's question lingered with me.

In fact, it kept me up the past couple of nights.

By way of an answer now, here are seven things that keep me up at night:

1.) We will fail to embrace change and tackle the new green economy.

2.) We are so deeply entrenched in partisan politics that we will blow this opportunity to lead in a sector (alternative energy) that we invented.

3.) The Dems have made climate and energy a "left" issue and the right has ceded it to them. Where is the GOP leadership stepping up to fill the void on these issues?*

4.) Enviros and NIMBYs will kill the energy economy transformation by blocking efforts on clean coal, nuclear, natural gas exploration, and the new electric grid just as they did with wind farms and offshore drilling.

5.) We don't have time to dither, yet we are a nation of inveterate ditherers.

6.) While we dither and dawdle, China is ready to seize the day.

7.) I don't know Mandarin.

____________________________________________
*(Note: This is deeply disappointing for the party of Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, which once led on issues now considered clean and green – and that now seems blind to this incredible opportunity for wealth generation.)

10 Favs; 10 Years: Philanthropy & Environmental Change -- Should Social Capital Markets Take Over?

2014-12-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

Back in October 2007, I had an exchange with my friend Lucy Bernholz about philanthropy as an agent of change in the environmental sphere (I was still working for The Nature Conservany). Lucy, as it happened, introduced me to my (then future) wife, Samantha, via LinkedIn a few days after this post with the immortal words, "You two should know each other." Thank God for social media...

Here is my post on "Philanthropy & Environmental Change -- Should Capital Markets Take Over?"

I'm taking up a friendly challenge here.

Lucy Bernholz, who writes the excellent blog Philanthropy 2173, and I started a blogalog (Did I just coin that term?) between our blogs about the state of philanthropy and environmental change.

The author, Samantha, and Lucy in New York, 2012.

It began in response to Lucy's listing of green blogs in the wake of Blog Action Day last Monday, and her noting the lack of discussion of philanthropy on the sites listed (including mine).

My defense stemmed from a concern about philanthropy and its effectiveness as an agent of change in the environmental sphere, which actually was the origin of this blog. I have grown increasingly concerned about the ability of traditional philanthropy to effect lasting change at a pace commensurate with the global challenges we face.

I expressed this concern in my essay for GreenBiz, "Confessions of a Green Skeptic," several years ago about the Earth Charter.

Back then (March 2003), I wrote, "we need to demonstrate how profitable being green can be, and how essential it is to a truly global sustainability. If we can turn the greed motivation to green motivation, effectively turning it on itself, does the means justify the end? Hard to say. But if greed isn't going away anytime soon, we are left with trying to redirect the motivation any way we can. Guilt has worked, but only gets us so far. 'Envy trumps guilt' every time."

This sentiment was influenced by Thomas Friedman's thoughts on the subject expressed in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, that "if conservationists are going to get ahead of the greedy we need to move faster. 'For now, the only way to run as fast as the herd is by riding the herd itself and trying to redirect it,' Friedman writes. 'We need to demonstrate to the herd that being green, being global, and being greedy can go hand in hand.'"

And it was echoed by Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison in their book, The New Economy of Nature, from which I quoted, "the record clearly shows that conservation can't succeed by charity alone. It has a fighting chance, however, with well-designed appeals to self-interest."

Things have changed quite a bit since I wrote that essay -- the world has gotten flatter, green has become the new black, Al Gore won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for his work on climate change, and the herd has started to move to greener pastures.

But a lot hasn't changed. In Philanthropy, as Susan Raymond points out in a two-part piece called "Does Philanthropy Scale?," the "vast majority of American nonprofits are small; 60 percent or more...have less than $100,000 in annual revenue." And, Raymond notes, "the average foundation grant to nonprofits is on the order of $25,000."

Raymond also points out that "the number of nonprofits with $10 million or more in revenue has increased by 73 percent in the last decade," and asks, "when $25,000 is the average grant, is philanthropy the answer to organizational growth? Indeed, is it even relevant as a source of capital?"

I'm going to quote one more thing from Raymond's essay: "The evolution of microfinance teaches that, when what had been a philanthropic initiative matures and proves its worth, alternative capital sources step in and redefine the opportunity. Is achieving scale, then, the clue for philanthropy to either evolve or exit? And, if so, do we need to rethink what we mean by 'philanthropy' for large organizations or proven initiatives in social markets?"

I quote Raymond's piece at length because it corroborates some of my own thinking on this subject. She rightly points out that the biggest advantage of philanthropic capital is its "ability to take significant risk, to seed a promising idea and recognize that all promising ideas can be failures."

So risk tolerance or tolerance for failure, playing on the field of ideas and at at the edge of problems "where the probabilities of success are unknown, is the key playing field for philanthropy."

For many ideas, perhaps chief among them those addressing environmental issues, it may be time for other types of capital to be brought to bear. I'm particularly interested in what Raymond describes as "a multiplicity of approaches to organizational finance in the nonprofit sector...for self-reliance, sustainability, and (yes) profit" to come to the stage.

This is not far from what Lucy refers to as "tri-sector solutions," such as the B Corporation she has described or the bond purchase strategy Raymond describes in her piece. (In the latter, Raymond explains, "'Donors' took on the role of guarantor rather than funder, and the resources flowed at levels that donations would never have been able to sustain.")

Elsewhere in the web pages of onPhilanthropy, John Bloom of RSF Social Finance, posits that "social finance holds that the purpose of money and finance is to support human initiative and to foster the evolution of new community."

And, Bloom suggests, social finance recognizes "the human and environmental consequences of economic activities...[and] presents a picture of a healthier sustainable future -- and one that leaves behind the industrialist model of philanthropy..."

I will continue this dialogue here on The Green Skeptic, because I think it is an important one, and part of an ongoing, evolving thought process for me that started over four years ago and which led to this blog. Thanks to Lucy for calling me out about it and fostering this dialogue.

10 Favs; 10 Years: A Tale of Two Cleantech Companies -- One Failure, One Success

2014-11-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

Here's another favorite from the past decade. I did a deep dive on two cleantech companies for the IMPACT investor conference back in 2011. I looked at the examples of Solyndra and CPower and examined why one failed and the other succeeded. This post included my original slides via SlideShare:

I recently presented "A Tale of Two Cleantech Companies: A case study of what leads to a successful exit or a stunning failure" at the IMPACT 2011 Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic in Philadelphia, PA.

I told the stories of Solyndra and CPower and how they failed and succeeded, respectively.

Here are my slides from the presentation:

Scott Edward Anderson A Tale of Two Cleantech Companies from Scott Edward Anderson

And here is a transcript of my notes/talking points on Scribd: A Tale of Two Cleantech Companies

10 Favs; 10 Years: The Evangelical Environmental Awakening, Part 1

2014-11-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

I've long been concerned by the exclusiveness of the environmental movement and was especially struck by the suspicions aroused in the deep greens when the Christian right started getting interested in climate change and the environment, as if the environment was an exclusive club of left-leaning liberals. It's one of the reasons I agreed to go on Fox Business when they asked me. I didn't want to preach to the converted. I wanted to open the tent and let all the human family in.

Here's Part 1 of my post on The Evangelical Environmental Awakening from 2005:

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Several years ago I attended a conference hosted by one of the country's progressive environmental and cultural institutions.

Invited were writers and artists, environmental activists, conservation practitioners, and a host of others.

The event was held on the beautiful campus of the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, a venue which exists because a forward-thinking Republican from that state marshaled the resources necessary to bring it to reality.

I arrived on that first evening with a sense of excitement; we were in for a few days of intense dialogue, debate, and communion among the conservation concerned. After checking into my room and making a quick tour of the grounds, I walked up to the first evening's festivities, an invocation and series of readings by some of the nation's best and most influential "nature" writers.

After the reading, we all ambled up to a high point on the property for what was described as a "Summer Solstice Celebration." A bonfire was lit, a circle of the tribe gathered, and there was song and words of inspiration shared by the mostly white, mostly male participants, decked out in what ranged from outdoors uniforms to neo-hippy chic. This was the Birkenstock and granola crowd.

Bonfire

As the celebration continued it spiraled into what I can only describe as pagan ritual, with a few diatribes against those who were not in attendance – the despoilers of the land.

I had a sinking feeling that I didn't belong and started to move away from the crowd. This was despite the fact that I am both a writer who draws inspiration from the natural world and a professional conservation practitioner.

Why did I feel like an alien in my own land, among what should have been my tribe? As I observed the group from down the hill, its music and dancing seemed to take on a decidedly Gaia-worshipping tone, as participants gyrated and "grocked" to their own brand of eco-spiritual convergence.

The discomfort I felt at that celebration was that of a stranger in a strange land. I felt like an outsider, an interloper, like I didn't belong there. I almost left that evening, but the promise of four days of learning and connecting kept me from the road.

My feelings were compounded by questions that began to form in my head: What if I was an outsider, observing this ritual from another, differently held worldview? How would it appear to me?

"I see the pagans are at it again," said a voice off to my left.

I was a good hundred yards or more from the site and hadn't noticed anyone else around me. I didn't catch this fellow's name, but there he stood shaking his head between drags on a cigarette. He looked like a federal employee; at least, he was dressed like a park ranger.

"Why does every one of these gatherings have to kick off with rituals like this?" I asked.

"Because we think prayer circles are for psycho-Christians," my neighbor quipped. "Imagine if we tried to start a conference like this with a prayer circle, we'd be ridiculed – or stoned."

And, yet, I thought, we're comfortable with these types of displays, as if they are desirable because they are so patently other than more traditional, western religious practices.

In fact, anything but rituals adopted from Judeo-Christian traditions seemed to be completely acceptable, a matter of tribal integrity. What were the religious groups in attendance thinking? And where were they?

My companion for that brief, revelatory moment had disappeared, as if he were a visiting alien or a prophet in modern clothes.

His words stuck with me; in fact, his words came back to me a few days later when I listened to William J. Wade, the former president of ARCO, address the group in a plenary session.

He was talking about the impact of reading Barry Lopez’ Arctic Dreams as he prepared to take ARCO's top job in Alaska in the mid-eighties. Later, he got to meet Lopez and fly over the state's many natural wonders. He was a committed conservationist and was talking to us as one who had converted to the cause, like Saul on the road to Damascus, and was doing what he could to care for nature.

The audience reaction to having such an alien in our midst was tepid and suspicious. How could an industry representative – one of "them" – deign to speak to "us" about appreciation for the natural world? We were the keepers of nature not the despoilers. And yet, Mr. Wade's experience was among the most genuine and authentic of the entire conference.

The session was followed by the next speaker, Peter Matthiessen, who fired rude salvos at Mr. Wade, the oil industry, and all conservatives who wanted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. It was an embarrassing moment, but one cheered by the majority of the crowd.

Peter Matthiessen, Ed Betz/AP

I felt sick. Mr. Wade was a brave fellow who had wandered into "enemy territory" without even realizing it. How could we treat another human being this way? Where was our ethical integrity and respect for other human beings?

Had we welcomed Mr. Wade to the conference only to belittle his worldview, attack his politics, and make him a whipping-boy for our gripes against industry? Where was fairness and liberal morals? Clearly these were checked at the door.

After the conference, I wrote Mr. Wade a letter of apology and sent it to him care of ARCO. I'm not sure he ever received it.*

I was embarrassed by my own, some of whom I considered colleagues and even friends. If an environmentalist were to be invited to speak to a conservative group or association and was attacked like this, we would most assuredly cry "foul" and decry the manners of the group at large. And yet, we were not "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Perhaps we should have started with a prayer circle instead of a pagan rite; perhaps then we would have remembered the manners we learned in childhood.

I write this now because the environmental movement is confronted with a new "alien in our midst" - Evangelical Christians. Many environmentalists are suspicious and wary of this group's motivations and, indeed, some have questioned their sincerity in articles and the electronic print media.

This is wrong. We need to apply the same sort of tolerance and respect for diversity that we espouse in our daily lives and work. We need to adapt our liberal moral tendencies to be accepting of this group as a partner. They may not join our organizations and certainly will not put aside their moral visions or worldviews to fit ours, but they have an important voice and perspective on the work ahead of us.

We could learn a lot from their way of knowing this earth, despite what knee-jerk environmentalists might assume. We have not cornered the market on stewardship and care of the earth, regardless of whether you believe the earth as we know it exists through divine creation or evolutionary adaptation.

The diversity of human experience of the earth can be as diverse as the fabric of life itself. We must take heed of this still, small voice in the wilderness and nurture it, welcome it into the good fight.

___________________________________________
*Seven years after this was originally posted, I heard from Mr. Wade, who had found my post. It was nice to be in touch with him and to apologize again.

10 Favs; 10 Years: Kalyan Paul and Grassroots, Integrated Solutions in the Indian Himalayas

2014-11-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

In recognition of The Green Skeptic's 10th Annivesary, I'm hand-picking ten of my personal favorite posts from the last decade. Here's the first, from 2008, a post about a visit I made to Ashoka-fellow Kalyan Paul in the Indian Himalayas. --SEA

Kalyan and Anita Paul moved to the "hill country" -- Ranikhet is 1829 meters above sea level -- in 1987. Originally from Calcutta, Kalyan met his future wife and partner in social change, Anita, while both studied for a Masters in Social Work at Delhi University.

After facing numerous challenges and frustrations in urban settings and with more traditional development approaches, the Pauls decided to work with mountain communities. "Kalyan always wanted to live and work with hill folks," according to a source familiar with the situation. "Anita, a Himachali who grew up in the plains, egged him on."

Less than 20,000 people live in the area in and around Ranikhet, a high percentage of whom live in small hamlets and rely on natural resources for their livelihoods and sustenance.

"We got a grant from the Ford Foundation to literally just 'walk around,' and that's what we did," Kalyan says. "At first the local people were skeptical; they'd check us out and see what we were doing. When they saw us walking around like them -- and we walked all over, man -- they decided, 'He's probably okay.'"

That walking around gave the Pauls a clear sense of the integrated nature of the issues facing mountain people.

"They live totally off of what nature provides," says Kalyan. "If there's no water, they can't grow their food. If there are no trees, there is no water. It affects everything in their lives and some leave the mountains for more urban areas. That kind of life can be hard, man."

Enter Grassroots, which the Pauls founded in this area 16 years ago. They started by looking for the root causes of the mountain peoples' poverty: their lives and livelihoods are tied to the land and its natural resources.

Those resources have been dwindling as a result of changes to the landscape that started under British rule and continue in the Indian forestry bureau today. Basically, the foresters promoted non-native pine plantations and eucalyptus over native broadleaf deciduous trees.

Sounds like a simple thing, but it had two major impacts: the pines didn't help recharge the water sources, especially after harvesting, and the dead leaf litter was gone, which the farmers spread on their fields. Leaf litter is a natural top-soil maker. In contrast, the more acidic pine needles form a thick mat on the forest floor, preventing rainwater from seeping into the soils.

You can figure out what happened next. The water table, that feeds the springs that nourishes the crops that feed the people, kept dropping. Today, at winter's end, there is very little water in the aquifer and the springs are extremely low.

The Pauls, and the people who work with them, are addressing it by promoting native plant nurseries, replanting saplings from those nurseries, and developing rain water catchments to help regenerate the water supply.

That would be fine as a standard environment project, but Kalyan hasn't stopped there.

Grassroots determined that another factor in the forest decline was the villagers' own needs for firewood used for cooking in their homes. This use was not only denuding the forests, but was having health impacts as well: women cook with open wood fires in their homes (breathing in the smoke all day) and they have to walk farther and farther each day to find firewood, which they carry on their heads.

So, Grassroots introduced biogas stoves to their homes. The villagers now burn the methane generated by animal waste (cow and goat dung -- one thing of which they have plenty!) instead of firewood, and they use the slurry on their fields as an excellent fertilizer.

They also formed an artisan's guild to train local villagers as masons to build these stoves, thereby accomplishing three things in one: reducing forest cutting, improving the health of women, and providing jobs for at least 30 men in the area; at least 50 men have been trained as masons.

The Kumaon Artisans Guild promotes and builds appropriate technologies for rural development, including the biogas wells, twin pit outhouses, and infiltration wells for drinking water. (The infiltration well technology, developed by Dr. Tim Rees, is worth another post of its own.)

Members of the Guild, who are known as "Barefoot Engineers," told me they are now installing 300 biogas units annually, 60 water pumps a year, and 400 toilets.

In addition, Grassroots has organized a women's cooperative, called Umang, which means "inner strength" or "self-confidence." Umang now comprises a network of 2000 women spread over hundreds of villages and governed by reps from participating women’s "self-help" groups, with day-to-day functions managed by a group of women from the surrounding area.

Umang’s work includes savings and credit, but also enterprise development. They produce knitwear worth more than Rs.1.5 million each year, about a third of which accrues to the women as wages, according to sources familiar with the situation.

In addition, the Umang women engage in food processing, producing about 10 tons of product annually, especially pickled condiments made from local produce such as chilies, ginger, and garlic, along with fruit preserves and jams. (Their plum chutney is fantastic!) Umang also has an apiculture program that produces about 3 tons of honey every year.

To better understand the impact watershed-wide, Grassroots, together with UNESCO, is conducting a study of the hydrology of the Gagas River Basin, which covers 500 square kilometers and includes 360 villages.

Faisal K. Zaidi, a Post Doctoral Researcher in Hydrogeology who works with UNESCO in New Delhi, on the study says that the Gargas has been included in UNESCO's Hydrology for Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP) program. HELP, according to its website, "is creating a new approach to integrated catchment management through the creation of a framework for water law and policy experts, water resource managers and water scientists to work together on water-related problems."

Zaidi says that by the end of the monsoon season this year, likely around September, they should have the first water budget for the Gagas River Basin, based upon the data collected from this study. To date, they have set up rainfall and stream flow monitoring stations in almost 20 locations, and at least a half-dozen weather monitoring stations in the basin.

The true innovation in Kalyan Paul's work is the holistic approach to the root problems. I have seen plenty of economic development and environmental projects that are limited in their scope. Most projects, indeed most organizations attack one problem, and not always the root of a problem. It's often an either/or dilemma: either economic development or conservation; either livelihood or watershed protection. The Grassroots approach is integrated, holistic and more effective as a result.

Not bad for a guy who started out "walking around" 20 years ago.

It Was Ten Years Ago Today...and I'm Thankful

2014-11-24T13:47:00.000-05:00

Today is the 10th Anniversary of The Green Skeptic blog.

Whether you've been with me for ten years (and please do let me know if you have) or recently came across my blog for the first time I want to say

THANK YOU!

Hard to believe I've been doing this -- albeit, not very much recently -- for 10 years.

So much has changed in those ten years, not only in my life, but in the world in which we live.

On 24 November 2004, I announced this blog with the following intentions: "to create a web voice that is at once environmentally concerned, while remaining skeptical about our methods of communication and action. My blog will explore current environmental issues in a pragmatic fashion, debunking environmental myths, while supporting market-based solutions that compliment actions taken both locally and globally." I certainly think I've lived up to that intention over the past ten years, both here and in my three year stint as a commentator on Fox Business with Varney & Co. While I've slacked off a bit on the number of posts in recent years -- only that first year has fewer posts than the current one -- the need for such a voice is ever more relevant and necessary today.

As I wrote on the occasion of the 5th Anniversary of The Green Skeptic,

"People often ask me why I'm skeptical and what I'm skeptical about.

"Well, the answer is, I believe that skepticism is a hallmark of human nature. Without it, we are sheep. "I think we need to constantly challenge our assumptions about the way the world works or how others tell us it works. We must question even what our leaders tell us, regardless of what side of the aisle their derriere rests upon or what side of the issue they claim to represent."

As I mark our tenth anniversary, I will keep in mind the words I wrote on our seventh year together:

"I want to thank you again for reading. I hope to keep up my end of the bargain moving forward with good, informed writing about the issues, a healthy skepticism about both hyperbole and hysteria and, most of all, a respect for you, my readers."

Thank you again for reading and happy anniversary!

Nat Bullard's Four Moments in Cleantech Time

2014-10-31T07:30:00.000-05:00

My pal Nat Bullard of Bloomberg New Energy Finance kicked off EY's 4th annual Cleantech CEO Retreat, which I hosted a couple of weeks ago, with a look back.

Here is his post from his Sparklines email newsletter, reprinted with his permission:

Four moments in cleantech time

EY (aka Ernst & Young) hosted its annual Cleantech CEO Forum in Napa this week.

Below is my opening presentation to the 90+ CEOs of cleantech pure-plays and high-level senior executives: "Four moments in cleantech time."

Speaking to a group of cleantech executives in 2014 is exciting, because it is an exciting time for the sector – but when is it not? Boundaries shift, companies come and go, technologies evolve, but history matters.

Let me create a sense of where we are now, and where we may be going, with four moments in cleantech time over the past 60 years.

1954

This is the first moment – the Bell Solar Battery, invented sixty years ago. It is instantly recognizable today as a PV panel and a deep-cycle battery, simultaneously the first of its kind and an archetype. Why use this?

Even in its first year, the technology faced the same challenges it does today: forcing costs down, and efficiency up; deciding on best applications; incorporating storage if needed; choosing to manufacture in-house or through a contract manufacturer.

Just as important as what the tech was, is what it became after lowering costs by orders of magnitude: the prime mover of a distributed energy paradigm, driven by experience curves and innovative business models. Importantly, it was something both profound and easy to underestimate from its small base.

1974

Jump ahead 20 years, and we have the first oil price shock, with a quadrupling in one year. This shock gave us three things which are key to our thinking. The first is a national and international sense of urgency to thinking about the future energy mix and security of supply. It was also a time in which corporations (in particular oil companies) began to make solar PV in commercial quantities for applications other than satellites. And it was also when the US Department of Energy, and an entrepreneur named George Mitchell, began the first efforts of another extraordinary change driver in energy: hydraulic fracturing.

1994

Another 20 years ahead – in fact, 20 years ago yesterday – was the launch of Netscape Navigator, the first meaningful and universal human-system computer interface. It provided a way for everyone to use the internet, and also created the ability to start companies light. How many companies here, now, are web-based? How many are cloud-based? And what will another 20 years of the Internet bring us – an effortlessly connected world of smart and enabled devices?

2014

A final 20 years forward, to last week: Tesla’s latest, the dual-motor version of its Model S. I think it is the start to an alternate path to surface transport: all-electric, safe, quiet, very low-maintenance, over-the-air-updated…and with performance better than a supercar (or, perhaps it is a supercar with four doors). It eschews the traditional dealer network, a direct challenge to a very established mode of selling and inventory organisation. It is capable of autopilot; eventually, it will be fully autonomous.

A final thought, spurred on by the dual-motor Tesla. It’s still a puzzle to explain. Read the press, and the comments are "even with the extra weight of a second motor, the car has better performance and longer battery life." Well – the extra motor is only the size of a watermelon! It’s not like grafting another four cylinders onto a big-block V8.

To take it back to the start: there’s a thread connecting the Tesla to the first solar panel. Both are promising, experience curve-driven technologies. They are still a puzzle to some. They are just getting started at scale. The most important tool for thinking of where they will go in the future, is imagination.

--Nat Bullard

©2014 Bloomberg Finance L.P. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author.

Review: SUPERSTORM: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy by Kathryn Miles

2014-10-29T17:21:00.001-05:00

Two years ago tonight, Superstorm Sandy hit New York with a vengeance. Whatever you call her: hurricane, superstorm, Frankenstorm, Sandy was a massive, monster storm.

Sandy was the second costliest hurricane in recorded history. Only 2005’s Hurricane Katrina was costlier in terms of damages -- $68 billion and counting as of the spring of 2014 – and Sandy was responsible for at least 286 deaths in seven countries.

Sandy’s storm surge swamped New York City, flooding tunnels, subways, and streets; cutting off power to residents in and around the city.

At 49 feet above sea level in Park Slope, where we rode out Sandy, we were relatively unscathed, safely ensconced in our apartment building, tucked up on a little one-block, one-way Place, in city parlance.

Sure, we heard the howling winds and saw the rain ripping sideways like an overzealous carnival shooter trying to win the prize kewpie doll. And in the aftermath of the storm, we saw the downed trees scattered about the neighborhood, across blocks, on top of cars, or simply uprooted.

But down the hill – down the slope – in Gowanus and Red Hook, across the bay in Staten Island, and out on Rockaway, the devastation was stunning. While we had power, food, water, and even Internet access, many others had barely anything, forced from their homes or unable to return. We had shelters and help centers and volunteers. It felt far from the madness of the storm’s wrath.

As the days unfolded after Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, we began to learn about the devastation in her wake. We felt even more fortunate. The images and stories that emerged were at times horrific: an uncontrollable fire raging on Breezy Point, caused by rising sea water; a Staten Island mom who lost her twin boys in the storm surge; cars floating in the flood waters outside the Battery Tunnel; a couple crushed by a tree while walking their dog in Ditmas Park.

There were many other stories, as Kathryn Miles reveals in her new book Superstorm: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy, some familiar from the media coverage, others impossible to know unless you were living it. Miles first wrote about Sandy for Outside Magazine; her story on the wreck of the replica HMS Bounty was a powerful piece of magazine reportage.

But Miles proves, as she did with her previous book, All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, The Legendary Irish Famine Ship that she excels at long-form narrative. That earlier book was about the lone ship to sail during the famine years without losing a single passenger where countless others had failed. As in that earlier book, Miles writes well not just about the sea (she lives in Maine and is an avid sailor), but she deftly brings to light the lives of the people whose stories she tells.

Miles follows the storm as it first hits the radar of the National Weather Service and then National Hurricane Center, and builds as the storm itself metastasizes, swallowing up another storm to its north, and eventually colliding with not just land, but with a nor’easter plummeting down towards the coast from the north.

The result reads like an historical potboiler as she builds the narrative of the storm out of the lives of the people tracking it, trying to avoid it, and getting trapped in it.

There are the requisite colorful characters worthy of a novel: the Hurricane Hunters, who fly a C130 into the hurricane to collect data; Lixion Avila, torn between his two loves, storms and ballet, as he attends a ballet convention in Cuba at the time Sandy starts to build; Chris Landsea, whose name must have determined his profession; and Claudine Christian and Robin Walbridge, the former a late-comer to the crew aboard the Bounty who died at sea; the latter, the captain who is presumed to have gone down with his ship.

Readers familiar with Miles’ previous book will recognize her technique, which builds and swirls much like the hurricane it depicts, time-lapsed glimpses of each character as they try to understand what this storm will do and where it will go or how to avoid and get around it. Superstorm is a page-turner, as they say, and I couldn’t put it down.

The end result is a remarkable chronicle of Sandy’s impact, not just on the land, but on so many people, on the way such storms will be reported in the future, and about the need for resilience measures for our cities and coastal areas.

Superstorm is a gripping read and, despite a few very minor editorial flaws -- she doesn’t close the loop on a couple of stories she sets up, such as the fate of the couple in Ditmas Park and their dog who waited by its fallen caretakers, for example -- should be read by all who want to understand the storms of the past to help deal with or keep out of the way of the superstorms of the future.

As Miles herself writes in her afterward (sic): “Sandy was the worst-case scenario that was never supposed to happen. New York may have fared better than Haiti, but the storm show just how vulnerable we all are…But sometimes, that’s just not enough. Sometimes, Nature breaks all the rules. And it always plays to win.”

Hopefully, that's a lesson Miles can help us learn before the next superstorm hits.

Top 10 Reasons You Won't See Me at the People's Climate March

2014-09-19T16:05:00.004-05:00

"This is an invitation to change everything."

Right.

So says the notice about the (so-called) People's Climate March. It goes on to say,

"In September, world leaders are coming to New York City for a UN summit on the climate crisis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is urging governments to support an ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global warming pollution.

With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities."

Blah, blah, blah. Yet another UN summit on climate change that will result in a lot of hot air and empty promises, grand-standing, and long-winded proclamations and "commitments" that will never be fulfilled. No accountability, no solutions, just a lot of blah-blah and rhetoric and well-meaning folks taking to the streets.

Go ahead and march if you want. Hopefully, it's a nice fall day and you can enjoy being outside. And hopefully, the NYC Police Department will be on its best behavior and won't choke-hold marchers or tear-gas them.

Don't you know you can count me out. Why? Don't I believe that climate change is real? Am I really that much of a skeptic?

Yes, I believe the climate is changing, in some ways irrevocably and with consequences we'll have to deal with in the near- and long-term, and in other ways we have no way of knowing what we've set in motion or how to stop it. I've witnessed it first-hand in places near and far.

But marches and UN summits will never solve this problem, and the strident, petulant voices leading the charge will never be heard. It's just wasted energy (and wasted carbon from all that travel) that could be better spent finding, supporting, and investing in solutions.

"Bend the course of history"? I'm sorry People's Climate March, you won't even succeed in bending anyone's ear long enough to make a modicum of difference.

So here's my Top 10 Reasons You Won't See Me at the People's Climate March in New York City on September 21st:

10. Because even though John Lennon is one of my heroes, "Power to the People" was never one of my favorite Lennon songs.

9. "People, Planet and Peace Over Profit." I'm not an either/or kind of guy. Besides, without profit, no change is a-coming, people. Find a way to make it profitable, and the change you seek will be the change we get.

8. One word: "portapotties."

7. The Patriots-Raiders game is on CBS at 1:00 PM Eastern.

6. The last time a UN summit on climate change accomplished something tangible and lasting was...was...anybody?

5. I actually have to be in Brooklyn with three of my six kids. (Whoa, before you shout me down, these three are stepchildren!)

4. Because I really don't mind telling my grandkids that I wasn't at "the largest climate march ever." It may be that, but it will only be a blip on the radar screen of history.

3. "Hope Not Heatwaves." Seriously, they are still hanging on to that Hopey-Changey-Promisey stuff. How exactly did that work out again?

2. Because the whole world may not actually be watching, but some folks from the NSA may be and they'll be taking GPS coordinates on your ass from that day on.

And, finally, the Number 1 reason you won't see me at the People's Climate March:

I prefer to focus on solutions and meaningful, measurable, and sustainable action on climate change rather than hot air, empty promises, and acerbic rhetoric.

"To Change Everything, We Need Everyone," says one placard produced by the PCM. But they don't really believe that any more than the Koch Brothers believe they are a "model company for a clean environment."

Just more empty rhetoric and hot air. March on and turn your lights off, people, and try not to trip over your own naivete.

We all want to change the world, but this march isn't going to change anything.

My Top 5 Reasons Cleantech Is Alive and Well

2014-07-16T15:18:00.001-05:00

Here's My Top 5 reasons cleantech is alive and well:

1.) China. China finally seems poised to address its outrageous pollution problem. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection estimates it will cost China upwards of $800 billion to clean its air. $800 billion. Cleaning up Beijing alone could cost as much as $163 billion. And its water doesn't fair much better: seventy percent of the groundwater in the north China plain is unfit for human contact. Not just consumption, contact. And only half the water sources for Chinese cities are safe to drink. The Chinese government says it will commit 1.7 trillion yuan ($277 billion) to combat air pollution over the next five years, which is a start, but until then we'll keep seeing scenes like the "LED sunrise" on Tiananmen Square that went viral.

LED sunrise on Tiananmen Square. Credit: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

2.) Google bought Nest for $3.2 billion. This is a cleantech success story. I don't care whether Nest Labs ever considered itself a cleantech company since its founding in 2011. If cleantech is the set of new technologies and business model innovations that help use natural resources more efficiently, effectively, and responsibly, then Nest, which took a ubiquitous, yet poorly designed technology (the thermostat), made it smart and fun to save energy in homes because its cool and easy to use. That is cleantech.

Nest thermostat. Photo: Nest Labs

3.) Solar, distributed solar. I know, solar was a dirty word for some investors, including the American tax payer, who got burned by solar 1.0. But there's a new game in town now that solar panels are cheap and financing distributed solar has become easier thanks to innovators like SolarCity, Sungevity, and the like. Installations are on the rise and investment is pouring back in.

4.) Tesla Model S. Motor Trend Car of the Year. 2014 Detroit News Readers' Choice Award as North American International Auto Show Most Innovative Vehicle. Yes, D-E-T-R-O-I-T News. Tesla announced earlier this year it had sold 6,900 of its Model S in the fourth quarter -- twenty-five percent higher than the previous quarter and roughly twenty percent more than expected. And they recently announced the Model 3 (formerly, Model E, but it turns out Ford owned that), which will sell for about $40,000, Tesla is in line for growth and more growth. That's for a company with $27.25b market cap.

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Tesla Model S. Photo: SEA

5.) Many more innovations are needed. Energy efficiency, recycling, water use, as well as purity and scarcity, and food are all ripe for cleantech disruptions, innovations, and solutions. There are still plenty of opportunities out there for entrepreneurs, investors, and others to tackle resource scarcity, use, and management. We've only just begun to address the issues our planet faces. And the need for innovative financing to enable these solutions is also going to grow. Call it what you will, "cleantech" is going to be a growth engine for many years to come.

Cleantech isn't dead. It hasn't crashed, it hasn't lost its value, and it has only grown more important and necessary. Cleantech is alive and well.

(NOTE: This is a slight, updated edit of an earlier post I wrote on The Green Skeptic.)

Ideas on Energy: Mid-Atlantic Energy Technology Forum Looks to the Industry’s Future

2014-04-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

(Note: This is reposted from my friends at Pepper Hamiliton LLP, co-hosts of the Mid-Atlantic Energy Technology Forum with the Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic, of which I am co-founder.)

The future of the energy industry; the technologies with the potential to impact energy exploration, delivery and efficiency; and the energy industry investment climate were on the agenda at the 6^th Annual Mid-Atlantic Energy Technology Forum.

Pepper’s Energy and Emerging Company Groups hosted the April 3, 2014 event in Philadelphia, along with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (which served as the event venue) and the Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic. Nearly 300 energy industry professionals were in attendance.

The Forum kicked off with an investor panel moderated by Pepper partner Thomas P. Dwyer that discussed the current strategic and financial climate and what to expect in the energy sector in 2014. The featured panelists were George Coyle, manager, investments technology ventures, ConocoPhillips Company; Bill Kingsley, managing director of EnerTech Capital; Michael Smith, vice president, head of Constellation Technology Ventures at Exelon; and Annie Theriault, vice president of the Northwater Intellectual Property Fund.

Dwyer asked the panelists how the long-term viability of energy technology is perceived in the marketplace, to which Coyle responded, “Energy technology has always been there and will continue to be. While we saw a drop in cleantech investment, we’re still invested in a number of cleantech companies, including the first commercial carbon capture plant in Texas.”

“Oil and gas are booming, and those industries continue to drive the need for technologies that help them to be more efficient and sustainable. It’s difficult to supply energy and it takes energy to do that, so there’s no shortage of need for technology that streamlines those processes,” Coyle said.

Smith said that as an electric power provider, his company is seeing a paradigm shift in how businesses and individuals make and use power, which will likely change the way energy and related services are provided going forward. “Disruption in our industry is coming from the outside. People are making devices to make buildings smarter, and those innovations are coming from technology people, not energy people,” Smith said.
Dwyer then posed a thought-provoking question to the panelists: Will there be a Google or Apple of the energy space, or is the industry too regulated for that to happen?

Kingsley said, “It won’t happen in the next two or three years. The utility system in the United States is brilliant in the way it was set up in the 1920s and 30s. But, that investment model is now creaky. Everyone is looking at doing something with natural gas – there wasn’t much going on in that space 15 years ago. Utilities can’t plan effectively in that environment.”

“That’s right from my perspective,” Smith said. “Customers increasingly determine their fate, and we’re seeing an erosion of the energy paradigm that’s been around for 100 years.”

Coyle added, “We’re seeing a reversal of roles. Instead of creating more devices to take power off the grid, we’re seeing new ways of putting power back on the grid.”

Dwyer asked the panelists about trends in exits in the energy space, and Theriault said that exits involving IP in the software space are doing well. “On the M&A side and public company exits, energy is still a tricky market and will continue to be challenging,” she said.

Kingsley said, “We had people who walked away from the cleantech sector who are now coming back, so it’s a cyclical market. I like it – there are fewer investors, so the deal prices are better.”

The discussion closed with the panelists’ thoughts on opportunities and challenges for energy technology in the Mid-Atlantic region. Coyle said that while there are many very good energy technology professionals in the region, the challenge is getting the best and brightest minds to care about energy and see it as a career path, as it is seen in Houston and other parts of the country where the energy sector is more dominant. He also said that perspective may change now that Pennsylvania is one of the largest energy production states, thanks to the Marcellus Shale.

“There is no dearth of activity in this region, and I am not at all concerned about the viability of energy technology in the Mid-Atlantic,” Smith said.

A company showcase followed the panel discussion, and featured five innovative companies, which each presented a snapshot of their company’s energy-focused technologies. Kevin Brown of Hobbes & Towne introduced the presenting companies:

Applied Communication Sciences has developed an innovative grid technology product that is getting traction in the marketplace. For example, the company’s utility pole sensors are deployed in the Sacramento Utility District to better monitor its network.
Essess is a mobile thermal imaging technology company that can map a building’s energy loss – identifying leaks in a building envelope undetectable by the human eye – and provide remediation services.
Infinite Invention LLC provides the ConnectDER, an electric power meter that mounts between a standard utility meter and the meter case to provide a quick, safe, inexpensive way to connect solar homes to the grid.
Preferred Technology, LLC provides environmentally friendly resin-coated sand products to the fracking industry; coated sand prevents wells from clogging during the fracking process.
Solar Grid Storage LLC “makes solar better with batteries,” providing a containerized storage solution that changes solar power into grid power by adding batteries to solar photovoltaic installations.

Scott Anderson of Ernst & Young’s Global Cleantech Center then introduced keynote speaker Bob Inglis, a former congressman from South Carolina and executive director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative (E&EI) at George Mason University, to close out the program.

Inglis founded the E&EI in 2012 on the conservative principles of free enterprise and economic growth, limited government, liberty, accountability and reasonable risk avoidance to solve the country’s energy and climate challenges.

“At E&EI, we believe that free enterprise can fix climate change,” Inglis said. “Our proposal involves cutting income taxes and replacing it with a carbon tax – in effect, reducing taxes on income, which you want more of, and taxing something you want less of.”

The event program is available online at http://www.pepperlaw.com/pdfs/Energy_Tech_Forum_Program_Book_2014.pdf.