In recent talks and gatherings about climate change and carbon management, the emotion I encounter most frequently is fear. Fear — which manifests as anger, or anxiety, or numbness. Fear, which begets hatred and disgust, or which becomes the basis for paralysis or righteousness. In these gatherings, the most common…

A commonly asked question with respect to climate change: What should we do? A better question to ask: What can we do? All proposed solutions face challenges — economic, technical, operational, political, and cultural. These challenges should not limit ambition or prevent action. Still, making progress requires respecting these challenges…

Sunrise at Mount Pinatubo, Philippines. Image courtesy of Wallpaper for Tech. “You gotta ac-cent-tu-ate the positive, e-lim-i-nate the negative…”** The dire situation of the climate crisis is just that — dire. This makes it hard to remain optimistic. Nonetheless, two books of speculative fiction — both triumphs — have done…

Co-author: Colin McCormick, Georgetown Univ. & Carbon Direct. It’s exciting to see CEOs of major corporations publicly commit to achieving net-zero emissions. Just in September, we saw AT&T, Walmart, Facebook and Morgan Stanley make commitments, with over 70 companies declaring their intention to achieve carbon neutrality at some date. They…

Blogs are a great place to share unfinished thoughts. They’re not proper scholarly publications or formal commentary — more like musings or expanded one-sided discussions. In that spirit, I’m capturing some of my evolving thoughts around climate change, carbon emissions, and the role of the oil and gas industry. Gird…

India, Coal, and Carbon Two fundamental viewpoints frame my thinking as a Carbon Wrangler. The first is arithmetic. As I’ve said before in several blogs (here here and here), the arithmetic of climate change drives an agenda focused on rapid and profound CO2 reductions. This arithmetic is unforgiving and reveals…

The Burning Question: How to Handle Industrial Heat You probably don’t go to the store to buy 10,000 tons of concrete or steel. This means you’ve probably given little or no thought to how much energy is used to make cement or iron or glass, how these materials are bought…

The Secret Origin of Carbon Wrangler Sometimes is just hits you over the head. Sometimes, there’s an epiphany. I came home from the 22nd Conference of the Parties in Marrakesh, where the Paris Accord was ratified. I kissed my wife and declared “I know what I do. I’m a Carbon…

Climate Giving: Carbon where it counts I’m off to COP24 in Katowice, Poland this week. It’ll probably suck. I expect a lot of dejected faces, since we’re doing so terribly on the climate front (see here,here, and here). I expect pointless ranting and political dodgeball. I expect righteous anger without…