My story begins in the soot-covered Czechoslovakia in the 1970s where I was a budding dissident and environmentalist. This was the time of 5-year plans focusing on heavy industry, time of acid rain, strip-mining for lignite, rivers that occasionally caught fire. While I couldn’t put it quite together I knew there was something wrong with trying to enjoy yourself in the middle of the summer with sun struggling through a sulphur haze, sitting on the shore of a hideously polluted dam, cowering in the shadow of a power plant. All this and more eventually led to a nocturnal departure over the hills to Austria in the Orwellian year 1984, a year in a refugee camp by Vienna and an arrival at O’Hare as a pimply and wide-eyed 18 year old with not much more than a thirst for a new beginning. First time back in the homeland was in early 1990 when I was an interpreter for the US Congressional delegation monitoring the first free elections. Much followed but the subsequent journey came to something resembling a full circle when, after a long detour through Wall Street and the City of London I have landed at NRDC, applying financial skills to doing away with a myriad of bad environmental habits that still plague us wherever we look.
Posted April 17, 2012 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Solving Global Warming
It seems that every week brings a new piece on food these days, whether it’s the ills of pink slime on the bad end of the debate, or the benefits of organic foodstuffs on the other side of the spectrum. ...continued→
Posted February 28, 2012 by Peter Malik in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
John Fullerton of Capital Institute and I have penned the below piece as a continuation of dialogue on the future of capitalism and finance. It is appearing in a few publications in parallel, and we certainly hope that it will...continued→
Posted September 20, 2011 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming
This is a very exciting week for CMI. Our High Performance Demonstration Project, first described in this blog went public tonight. In style. The project was chosen as one of the leading commitments for the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in...continued→
Posted August 19, 2011 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably
I just returned from a wonderful conference titled Financing Sustainable Water Infrastructure at Wingspread in Racine, WI, under the auspices of The Johnson Foundation and co-sponsored by CERES and American Rivers. It was a unique gathering of experts from several cross...continued→
Posted August 11, 2011 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming
The last few days have seen enormous upheaval across the globe, from incredible volatility in stock markets worldwide to riots in the streets of London. There is no doubt that we are living in times of change, and times of...continued→
Posted July 15, 2011 by Peter Malik in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Solving Global Warming
People have been replacing single-pane windows with triple-pane ones for decades. Insulating, changing light bulbs and adding extra layers of glass are not rocket science. So, credit markets don't have that excuse for treating energy retrofits as if they...continued→
Posted June 16, 2011 by Peter Malik in Living Sustainably, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
I have just returned from a trip to the Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador. More than just a vacation, the objective was to learn about the indigenous people there, their lifestyle and worldview. And specifically, to see what they may...continued→
Posted June 1, 2011 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming
The other day, I went to Duane Reade to replace my old razor, which I must have left in my hotel room on my last business trip. Having had it for at least 10 years, I fully expected to...continued→
Posted May 23, 2011 by Peter Malik in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Solving Global Warming
When I returned to the United States after a 15-year hiatus last year, I was dismayed to find that the New York prewar building in which I bought a co-op kept the heat on at full blast from October to...continued→
Posted May 16, 2011 by Peter Malik in Green Enterprise, Solving Global Warming
By now it is becoming common knowledge that around 40% of energy is consumed by the built space in the United States. (In New York, the nation’s densest living space, the figure is 80%). It is also broadly accepted that...continued→
Posted April 18, 2011 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil
I caught Tony Malkin on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning. Tony is of course not only one of the most influential real estate developers in New York and beyond, but also a close collaborator with NRDC in general, and the...continued→
Posted April 4, 2011 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
The other day I picked up an article in the April issue of Fast Company, detailing Bloomberg’s reporting of companies’ ESG data, or Environment, Social and Governance. Curtis Ravenel, Bloomberg’s sustainability director, has done a great job in mainstreaming the...continued→
Posted March 14, 2011 by Peter Malik
The explosion happened suddenly. There was concern, confusion, and then a steely calm forced by an unavoidable realization: we had little food and days remaining before our plane was scheduled to pick us up. Our location? Ellesmere Island, 82 degrees...continued→
Posted December 1, 2010 by Peter Malik in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise
Last Friday I was standing in line at my local grocery store when I heard these famous song lyrics: “I’m dreaming of a White…Christmas…Just like the one I used to know.” I cringed. For many, there is nothing that evokes...continued→
Posted April 20, 2010 by Peter Malik in Health and the Environment
I have been struck by conflicting emotions during the current Mt. Eyjafjallajökull saga. While I feel sorry for the scores of stranded passengers I cannot escape a sense that what is happening is actually beautiful. A natural event can throw...continued→
Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.
