SELECTED WRITING

Planet 2025 (New York Review of Books) — on the ways in which a Trump 2.0 administration would gut US climate policy and environmental protections, and how Trump’s war on reality aligns with his planned war on the administrative state

Why the Oil and Gas Industry is So Afraid of Kamala Harris (The New York Times) — on fossil fuel executives’ biggest fears: 1) that investors see their industry as entering a period of terminal decline, and 2) that a Harris administration might govern in a way that takes climate change seriously

Slowly but Surely, U.S. School Buses are Starting to Electrify (Yale Environment 360) — on the current state of electric school bus deployment in the US, obstacles to wider adoption, and how advocates propose to accelerate equitable access to this new technology

The Campaign to Downplay a Pipeline’s Steep Risks (Undark Magazine) – on one company’s relentless efforts to get the US Forest Service to permit a risky pipeline through landslide-prone mountains of central Appalachia (book excerpt)

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a Story of Regulatory Failure (Richmond Times-Dispatch) – on state and federal regulators’ wholesale failure to investigate whether the Mountain Valley Pipeline is in the public interest

We Can Get the Electricity We Need Without Frying the Planet (or Our Pocketbooks) (The New York Times) — on the need to reform the incentives driving electric utilities to build more fossil gas plants instead of low-carbon, low-cost solutions to rising electricity demand

At 11,500 Feet, a ‘Climate Fast’ to Save the Melting Himalaya (Yale Environment 360) — an interview with Sonam Wangchuk, one of India’s leading climate activists, on his 21-day fast to press for protections for the people, glaciers and fragile ecosystems of his native Ladakh

The Crash to Come (New York Review of Books) — on the insurance companies fleeing fire- and flood-prone parts of the country, pricing climate risk into homeowners’ premiums, and bringing us all a step closer to the bursting of the next housing bubble

Even ‘Safe’ Places Are Experiencing Climate Chaos in America (The New York Times) — on floods in my home state of Vermont and the dangerous delusion that anyone can insulate themselves from the intensifying impacts of climate change

Congress is Turning Climate Gaslighting into Law (The New York Times) — on the perilous precedent set by the 11th-hour legislative rescue of the Mountain Valley Pipeline

Après-Ski (New York Review of Books) — on what’s being lost, beyond mere fun on the slopes, as climate change makes winters shorter, warmer and more erratic

No Smoke, No Fire (New York Review of Books Online) — on the real story behind the culture war discourse over gas stoves: public awareness of the long-overlooked health risks of cooking with gas is growing

The Groaning Grid (New York Review of Books Online) — on the investor-owned electric utilities dragging their feet in the transition to renewable energy, and the power of public utility commissions as a climate action lever

How U.S. Gas Exports to Europe Could Lock in Future Emissions (Yale Environment 360) — on the geopolitical imperatives, and climate risks, of expanding infrastructure in the US for exporting natural gas

Reasons for Concern (New York Review of Books Online) — on the Working Group II contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report and why it is the most suspense-filled document in human history

The Unimaginable Touch of Time (New York Review of Books) — on the search for meaning in geological rupture

Cities Confront Climate Change: How to Move from Gas to Electricity (Yale Environment 360) — on the debate over how to decarbonize the oldest and largest municipal gas utility in the U.S.

Cliff Notes on Rural Education (Seven Days) — on the fiscal crunch facing Vermont’s small town schools and one community’s fight against a plan to close its beloved elementary school

The Limits of Disturbance (APF Reporter) — on one family’s fight to protect their maple sugaring business, the abuses of eminent domain, and mounting calls to reform the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s process for approving natural gas pipelines

Amid Covid, the Air Hazards of Gas Appliances Draw New Scrutiny (Undark) — on the health risks posed by indoor pollution from natural gas appliances, how they compound the risks of COVID-19, and federal health and safety regulators’ failure to act in response

The New Dominion (APF Reporter) — on a long-running battle over a natural gas pipeline in Virginia, and how it transformed the state’s political landscape, climate legislation and biggest utility company

Kirk R. Smith (The Lancet) — on the profound health and environmental science legacies of pioneering air pollution researcher Kirk Smith

How Overreach by Trump Administration Derailed Big Pipeline Projects (Yale Environment 360) — on the grassroots forces and legal and financial factors that led to the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Pandemic Journal: Lincoln (New York Review of Books Daily) — on life in rural Vermont during “mud season” and the early days of the pandemic lockdown

A World Without Ice (New York Review of Books) — on the accelerating melting of the world’s ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost

To Cut Carbon Emissions, a Movement Grows to ‘Electrify Everything’ (Yale Environment 360) — on the widening movement to “electrify everything” and phase out natural gas appliances in new construction

Vermont Doubles Down on Wood Burning, with Consequences for Climate and Health (InsideClimate News) — on the health, climate and economic tradeoffs of Vermont’s plans to increase the use of wood for space heating

Can a Wave of New Technology Slash Natural Gas Leaks? (Yale Environment 360) — on the drones, lasers and other new devices being developed to sniff out methane leaks from oil and gas operations

Answering the Climate Call (MIT Technology Review) — on three young energy and climate change researchers shaping the policy discourse on how to respond to the climate crisis

Our Lethal Air (New York Review of Books) — on three new books about the global scourge of air pollution, and EPA’s dangerous disregard for settled science on the health risks of particulate matter

Could Renewable Natural Gas Be the Next Big Thing in Green Energy? (Yale Environment 360) — on the recent growth of the U.S. biogas industry

Take Your Marks (Land and People) — on the conservation, and unique community, of Vermont’s iconic Catamount Outdoor Family Center

The Methane Detectives: On the Trail of a Global Warming Mystery (Undark) — on the race to understand what’s driving the recent surge in global methane levels

Does the Path to a Low-Carbon Future Run Through a Global Grid? (Harvard-China Project) — on China’s push to build a global super-grid to move renewable energy between continents

Across a Century of Change, the Gift of a Baseline (Breakthroughs) — on the legacy of pioneering California naturalist Joseph Grinnell

The Unfinished Work of Vanu Bose (MIT Technology Review) — on one man’s tireless efforts to bring cell coverage to a billion people

The Slow Death of Ecology’s Birthplace (Undark) — on the cerrado, Brazil’s vast savannah, and its conversion into monocultures

The Path From Paris (Harvard Center for the Environment) — on the prospects for the Paris climate agreement

The Power of Peer Pressure (Slate) — why the best lessons in climate diplomacy come from Himalayan villages

China and India’s ‘Crazy Bad’ Smog has Been Masking Global Warming (Quartz) — on the climate-cooling conundrum of sulfate aerosols

E.O. Wilson on Saving Half the Earth (Breakthroughs) — the legendary biologist unveils his plan to save half of Earth for non-human life

Pope Francis Would Love the Obscure Theories of This Dead Romanian Economist (Quartz) — on forgotten visionary economist Georgescu-Roegen

The Carbon That’s Killing India, and How California Can Help (Los Angeles Times) — on the health impacts of, and solutions to, black carbon

Skiing Old Trails of the New Deal (New York Times) — on the still-thrilling backcountry ski trails carved in the 30s and 40s by the Civilian Conservation Corps

A Dangerous Fixation (Slate) — on a hundred years of synthetic nitrogen fixation and its consequences

Fighting for the Future (Harvard Center for the Environment) — on climate activism on Harvard’s campus

India’s Coal Power Plants Kill Tens of Thousands Every Year, Study Says (New York Times) — on the hidden health damages of India’s power sector

Scientists Ask Blunt Question on Everyone’s Mind (Slate) — on scientists getting freaked out enough about climate change to cross over into activism

Burning Desire (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine) — on a clean cookstove entrepreneur and his breakthrough invention

Kashmir’s Raging Rivers (Slate) — on the prospects for the Indus Waters Treaty, peace and conflict between Pakistan and India in a warming world

A Himalayan Highway, but Only in Winter (New York Times) — on chadar, the ancient trek on a frozen river that is a lifeline for the people of Zanskar

On the Edge (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine) — on the unlikely skiing opportunities to be found in India’s far northern region of Ladakh

When the Glacier Left (Boston Globe) — on one Himalayan village’s response to the vanishing of their life-sustaining glaciers

The Climate Change Defense (New York Times Magazine) — on a novel use of the necessity defense against carbon-spewing infrastructure

Rewriting the Books in Ladakh (Cultural Survival Quarterly) — on SECMOL, an innovative educational reform organization in Ladakh, India