Ideas & Opinions
- I just published a story in the New York Times Book Review on environmental literature for children and a new book called The Story Of The Blue Planet for readers age 8-12 (but my 4-year-old loved it) by Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason: “The Story of the Blue Planet” follows Brimir and Hulda, best friends on a small planet that resembles Earth in every way but one: It is inhabited only by children who never grow old. It is a beautiful place where “wind swayed the grass and flowers, while waterfalls tumbled from high mountains” and the children sleep in grassy beds under the stars. It is also filled with lions and tigers and bears, and the kids scavenge fruit, club baby seals for their meat and suckle milk from she-wolves. They enjoy it all. “Each day was so full of danger and excitement that no grown-ups could have lived there ...
- HuffPo just did an article on Ad Your Voice, the unofficial ad campaign for Obama's reelection-- a project I started with Alex Kerry, my college roomate. We are crowdsourcing grassroots political ads that can help Obama clinch a second term; the top ads will be voted on by Bill Maher, Scarlett Johannson and others on a panel of judges. The best ad will get a $10K honorarium and broad distribution on TV/online. The project also got picked up on Rachel Maddow, Politico and Daily Beast. Our goal has been to offer Obama supporters a way to influence the election beyond making $56 micro-donations to the campaig. There's another kind of voter capital we should be leveraging and that's the ideas--the stories and voices--of Obama supporters. A huge portion of any campaign budget goes to messaging, and Ad Your Voice is trying to demonstrate that messaging, in addition to funding, can come from the people. It's a place whereObama supporters can "donate" ...
Hiatus, Explained: Why I Vanished
6/25/2012Well, folks, I've been on an unannounced hiatus from my blog and website updates for a couple reasons: 1) baby 2) book. My second kid was born last November, and my second book was due in late April (a ghostwriting project on the sustainable food movement).
Top Women of Cleantech
7/29/2011After a hiatus from blog posting (I've been deep in the throes of my second book project) I'm back, with a story about a hopeful trend in innovation: While the cleantech sector is very much a boy's club, women are starting to break down the clubhouse door. Meet 12 of the most savvy and accomplished interlopers. Some are building their own start-ups, others are climbing the ranks in big companies, still others are plowing millions into new clean-energy endeavors via venture-capital firms. All of them, we hope, will inspire more women to get involved and take charge in industries that are changing how we power our lives, how we get around, and ultimately how we cope in a climate-changed world. Check out my essay "Dudefest No More? Women are Infiltrating Cleantech" and profiles of the Top 12 Women of Cleantech. The Forbes.com version of both pieces is here.New York Times Op-Ed Runs Today
3/9/2011My Op-Ed in today's New York Times, "Making Every Oil Calorie Count", proposes a solution to energy obesity in America. It imagines a high-tech labeling system dubbed "Decal" (for daily energy calories) that would track the consumption of energy in all aspects of our lives, and make it easy to use less. Here's an excerpt: Americans use more oil than people in any other developed country, about twice as much per capita, on average, as Britons. Indeed, our appetite for petroleum, like our fondness of fast foods, has spawned a kind of obesity epidemic, but one without conspicuous symptoms like high blood pressure and diabetes. And because we don’t see how much energy goes into the products and services we purchase, we’re shielded from knowing the full extent of our personal energy demands — and unprepared when rising fuel prices increase the cost of everything else. This illusion stems, in ...- Check out the second installment of my Forbes.com blog, "The Envaya of the World: What the Internet Needs to Truly Go Global"-- a fascinating story about a digital breakthrough that could change the way the world understands and responds to global crises. Here's a snapshot: "Less than a year ago, in mid-2010, Stern co-founded envaya.org, an online network designed, at the most basic level, to connect third-world populations to the web. Even people who live hundreds of miles from a cable, a phone line, or a paved road, and who subsist on a few dollars a week, can use Envaya’s ultra-light platform to establish websites. The site is geared toward community organizations working to address issues ranging from deforestation and climate change to sexual abuse and special-needs education. It links these groups to each other, to potential funders, and to the rest of the world. Envaya’s larger mission is not ...
Forbes.com blog launch
1/9/2011I recently launched this monthly Forbes.com blog, "Power Trip," tracking the emergence of the clean-energy economy. The debut column is on the greening of professional sports. Could sports teams do more than politicians to stop global warming? Could green strategies be a financial windfall for professional sports? I explore: As the San Francisco Giants celebrate their 2010 World Series triumph, they're quietly coveting another, humbler feat -- one that's perhaps no less historic in the long run. The Giants are one of the greenest teams in professional sports, and they're proving that sustainable practices fatten the bottom line even as they ease the burdens on the planet. Their stadium, AT&T Park, which accommodates about 45,000 fans, runs its scoreboard on solar power, recycles and composts nearly 50 percent of its waste, sources eco-friendly napkins, containers, utensils, toilet paper, and the like, and has enough efficiency features to cut the stadium's ...- On Nov 8th Christian Science Monitor published the following interview about America's energy addiction and how it can be cured. "It’s easy to point the finger at the government and wealthy oil tycoons. But the truth is, when it comes to irresponsible energy consumption, we’re all to blame. Journalist Amanda Little spent 10 years criticizing the US government for failing to promote energy alternatives. But when Little studied her personal consumption patterns, she began to realize how reliant she was on these same elements. She wore clothing made of synthetic plastic, took notes with petroleum-derived ink, and ate cereal made from whole grains that had been treated with oil-derived fertilizers. I recently had the chance to talk with Little about her new book Power Trip: The Story of America's Love Affair with Energy. What have we learned from this year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? My concerns ...
- Big thanks to planet-crusaders of Southern Cali! On Nov 6, Santa Monica Library awarded Power Trip The Green Prize For Sustainable Literature. "The Library wishes to encourage and commend authors who produce quality books for adults and young people that make significant contributions to, support the ideas of, and broaden public awareness around sustainability. The City of Santa Monica's Sustainable City Plan defines sustainability as meeting current needs - environmental, economic, and social - without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same." Here's my corny acceptance quote: "Thank you for this honor! My research for Power Trip took me from deepsea oil rigs to NASCAR speedways and into the guts of the electricity grid. But by far the most exciting places I went on my journey were libraries. There I discovered story after incredible story about how oil and coal built the American superpower; and there ...
THE HUMAN ENERGY CRISIS
10/26/2010In the four weeks since the Power Trip paperback came out I’ve been traveling to different cities once or twice a week, helping burn tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel en route to speaking events. It’s fun but—like most of our frequent-flyer lifestyles-- exhausting. Even more exhausting is returning home between 24-hr trips and chasing around my two-year-old, rushing to catch up on deadlines, cooking, cleaning, playgroups, appointments, emails, tweets, etc. Which is to say, I’ve been drinking lots of coffee. Not just coffee-- power bars, power foods, EmergenC, wheatgrass, black tea, Diet Coke, and whatever other forms of legal non-prescription human jet fuel I can get my hands on. I’m averaging about 6 hours of sleep a night and trying (often in vain) to make time for meditation, running, even standing on my head to maximize production of adrenaline, seratonin, endorphins and whatever chemicals course through our ...