Mat McDermott
Mat edits the Business and Energy sections of TreeHugger, as well as writing about resource consumption, animal welfare issues, and the response of religious communities to our current environmental problems.
Driving his work are two main convictions: 1) Our current environmental problems—climate change, biodiversity losses, peak fossil fuels, natural resource over consumption—are but symptoms of the greater problem of fetishizing material economic growth; and 2) only by first changing our minds, recognized the literal and metaphorical interconnected nature of all life, will we make the lasting external changes required to create an ecologically sustainable civilization.
In addition to his work with TreeHugger, Mat is an Advisor for The Bhumi Project, "a worldwide Hindu response to the environmental issues facing our planet...faciliated by the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies."
Beyond writing, Mat's creative output consists of documentary photography and filmmaking, with photographs appearing in a number of national and international print publications, as well as being exhibited in solo and group shows in the United States, France, and the United Arab Emirates. His last film, for which he was cinematographer, was Above Brooklyn and examined the dwindling but passionate pastime of pigeon fancying in New York City and Long Island.
He holds a Masters degree from New York University's Center for Global Affairs, where he concentrated in environment and energy policy. His Bachelors degree from Burlington College (Vermont) is in Writing & Literature, with research focused on the work of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali devotional poetry, and the Beat Generation.
Mat currently lives in New York City. ૐ
In addition to Twitter and RSS below, you can also follow Mat on Facebook, and Flickr.
Latest Stories from Mat McDermott - Page 2
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100 More Colleges Join Fight to Divest From Fossil Fuel Companies
350.org's Fossil Free campaign is getting more backing, had a few early victories, and shows the maturation of the green movement.
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Polar Ice Sheets Melting 3 Times Faster Than Two Decades Ago
Since the early 1990s melting of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica has contributed one-fifth of observed sea level rise.
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Grand Canyon May Be 65 Million Years Older Than Thought
New research shows that the Grand Canyon may have already been eroded to within a few hundred meters of its current depth 70 million years ago. Making it 14 times older than conventionally thought.
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Photo of the Day: Gulmarg, India
Want to ski or snowboard terrain off the highest gondola in the world? Head to Kashmir.
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China Now World's Largest Importer of Illegal Timber (Video)
A new investigation shows that China imported $3.7 billion worth of illegal logs and timber products in 2011.
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House of Reps' Science & Tech Committee Head is Climate Skeptic
Not only that, but Lamar Smith is also author of the much maligned Stop Online Piracy Act.
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Kerosene Lanterns an Overlooked Source of Global Warming Pollution
It turns out that we've been underestimating the black carbon pollution from kerosene lanterns by a factor of twenty.
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Largest Supermarket Chains in Australia Saying No to Factory Farmed Animal Products
By the middle of next year Coles and Woolworths will have phased out pork and eggs from animals raised on factory farms.
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Photo of the Day: Carrizo Plain, California
It's the largest native grassland in the state, located about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
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Obama's Secretary of State Candidate Has Significant Financial Stake in Tar Sands Companies
Should she get the job, Susan Rice would preside over approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, being developed by a company in which she owns $300,000-600,000 worth of stock. Conflict of interest much?
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New York State Revised Fracking Rules May Come Before End of Year
This would mean the revised rules would come without the promised reassessment of the health impacts of fracking.
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EPA Threatened With Lawsuit to Force Cap on Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The Institute for Policy Integrity hopes to force EPA's hand in mandating a cap on greenhouse gas emissions by using the Clean Air Act.
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Solar Power Installation Prices Fell Up to 14% in Past Year, Even More in California
New stats show that there have been significant declines in the cost of installing solar power last year, with large regional variations.
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Sea Levels Rising 60% Faster Than Expected
Rather than being alarmist, the IPCC projections on sea level rise are less than what the latest satellite data shows is actually happening.
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India's Wind Power Installations "Falling Off a Cliff"
Solar power may be still booming in India, but wind power is a much different thing.
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$300 Million Raised by Ecuador to Leave the Oil in the Soil
Most of that comes in the form of pledges, but it's still a significant step forward for the Yasuni project.
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$29.4 Billion: Superstorm Sandy's Estimated Damages to New Jersey Alone
The final tally of damages from Superstorm Sandy may be a ways off, but the way it's going the storm is on track to be the second most-costly storm in US history.
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From Pardoning Turkeys to Black Friday, How Did Thanksgiving Get So Off Track?
This is how we now give thanks: Systematically slaughtering 46 million birds, offering a pardon to one or two of them as a token gesture of our magnanimousness. And then being told to shop like there's no tomorrow.
