Energy | Mary Catherine O'Connor

Outside: Terry Tempest Williams’s Dark Love Letter to the National Parks

June 2, 2016 by mcoc

The acclaimed nature writer’s portraits of 12 parks go beyond perfect postcard tributes, and the resulting book couldn’t have come at a better time. Outside I had expected Terry Tempest Williams’ latest book, The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (MacMillan), would be a string of tributes to the sacred spaces within […]

Categories: Action Sports, Climate Change, Energy, Oceans, Policy, Recreation, Wilderness • Tags: Bakken, Centennial, Grand Teton National Park, National Park System, Terry Tempest Williams, Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Can you put a price on nature? A Californian nonprofit thinks it can

March 13, 2016 by mcoc

Chemical giant Dow is testing new software that crunches data to help assign monetary value to the natural world and calculate the environmental impact of its work The Guardian Everyone agrees that nature has value. It clothes, feeds and shelters us – and provides a spectacular playground. Yet we have never put a value on […]

Categories: Climate Change, Energy, Oceans, Policy, Technology • Tags: earth genome, natural capital, the nature conservancy

‘Tools for Grassroots Activism’ Is Patagonia’s Guide to Saving the World

February 25, 2016 by mcoc

Yvon Chouinard thinks environmental activists could learn a thing or two from businesspeople, even if—as he puts it—businesspeople are sleazeballs. Outside Outdoor recreation can be a gateway drug to environmental activism. It certainly was for Patagonia founder and co-owner Yvon Chouinard, as he writes in the introduction to Tools for Grassroots Activism, a book the adventure […]

Categories: Climate Change, Energy, Oceans, Policy, Recreation • Tags: NGO, Patagonia, Tools for Grassroots Activism, Yvon Chouinard

A Norwegian company’s plan to make ice cubes out of glaciers unsettles some

April 4, 2015 by mcoc

A tiny coastal town in Norway is about to become home to an ambitious enterprise that will turn a diminishing glacier into a high-end cocktail cooler. Is there cause for alarm? The Guardian April 4, 2015 Glomfjord, Norway, is a coastal town of 1,120 residents just north of the Arctic Circle. For decades, it was […]

Categories: Climate Change, Energy, Lifecycle, Oceans, Policy, Transportation • Tags: climate change, glacial melt, glaciers

Visualizing the Stories Data Can Tell

December 15, 2014 by mcoc

Scientists and technologists are turning numbers about everything from condors to ocean-floor contours into visual representations of environmental issues. Ensia December 16, 2014 We’re living in an era of Big Data, but too often it’s nothing more than a fire hose of numbers and data sets that most would have difficulty understanding. Increasingly, though, entities […]

Categories: Climate Change, Energy, Oceans, Policy, Technology • Tags: climate data intitiative, energy, GIS, landsat, mapping, open data, open-source software, water, water pricing

What Drones Are Learning from Insects

October 14, 2014 by mcoc

Large, unmanned aerial vehicles, aka UAVs or drones, look like regular (albeit, menacing) airplanes. But there are also small drones that look like big insects, and they’re being programmed to act like them too. Insectile drones could evolve into useful minions to track, map, and respond to climate change. Climate Confidential October 31, 2014 Since […]

Categories: Climate Change, Energy, Technology • Tags: and Perception, Automation, DRONES, General Robotics, insects, Sensing, stephen pratt, uav, University of Pennsylvania, vijay kumar

It’s a Hardrock Life

June 1, 2014 by mcoc

In Wisconsin’s picturesque Northwoods, a big battle over iron-ore extraction is pitting environmentalists and Native Americans against mining companies and their political allies. Earth Island Journal Summer 2014 The cab of Bill Heart’s Ford Ranger is cluttered with pamphlets and fishing gear, and as we pull out onto Highway 77, just north of the high […]

Categories: Energy, Lifecycle, Policy, Wilderness • Tags: dnr, epa, gogebic taconite, gtac, iron ore, mining, northwoods, penokee hills, scott walker, wisconsin

Squeezing Cleaner Energy from Coal’s Waste

October 21, 2013 by mcoc

Coal mine methane could soon transform from problematic waste to valuable fuel Smithsonian In a Colorado valley where miners have harvested coal for more than a century, a second fuel—methane—escapes from the thick black seams of the Elk Creek mine. A system of boreholes and pipes around the mine funnels methane-rich gas to a modified […]

Categories: Climate Change, Energy, Policy, Technology • Tags: aspen ski company, carbon pricing, coal power plant, colorado climate change, elk creek mine, methane to energy

The Dangers of Kickstarter

February 8, 2013 by mcoc

Kickstarter has become the go-to funding source for serious expeditions and boondoggles alike. And that has some benefactors wanting their cash back. Outside Magazine, February 2013 Last May, Andrew Badenoch, a thirtysomething former Internet marketer in Oregon, set off on a 7,000-mile solo expedition from Bellingham, Washington, with a jumbo-tired fat bike and a pack […]

Categories: Action Sports, Climate Change, Energy, Gear, Recreation, Wilderness • Tags: andrew badenoch, fatbike, kickstarter, packraft, zero carbon

Mary Catherine O'Connor

Independent Journalist

Category Archives: Energy