Peter the Journalist

With schooling in journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I shifted from being a high school sports writer (and vicious football player nicknamed "Freight Train") to editor of the Fine Arts section of The Daily Cardinal, a radical left wing college newspaper that made headlines during the anti-war movement in the late '60s.

As The Cardinal's Arts Editor, I covered the burgeoning punk and New Wave music scene in the late '70s. I blame my freshman room mate from Great Neck, New York for turning me into a Dead Head and a fan of Jerry Garcia's experimental guitar work. I also performed in my first concert in 1978, playing guitar parts in an Electronic Music Concert that were inspired by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, my other top guitar hero. These were crazy times. Anarchists attacked leftists, and I was in the middle. I also thought I was some sort of Hunter Thompson/Jack Kerouac/William Burroughs hybrid. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, I went into shock. I had been living in an island of liberal extremism!

I just packed up a U-Haul and headed to California without a job and a handful of prayers. My first paid employment was writing arts reviews for The Davis Enterprise,. Then I sold ads and served as an editor for Winds of Change, a funky "underground" monthly that included the famed Robert Crumb as staff cartoonist.

In 1984, I published my first political commentary in the Oakland Tribune., bemoaning the special interest influence on the Democratic Party, the so-called "party of the people."  Shortly thereafter, I received my first grants to investigate campaign financing of elections. Working with organizations such as the Center for Investigate Reporting in San Francisco, I began to publish a series of hard-hitting stories on links between money-and-politics for The Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News and, ultimately, virtually every major newspaper in California.

I shifted to environmental issues in the late '80s, my first investigative piece being written for Greenpeace magazine. It revealed the Reagan Administration's plans to burn the nation's most dangerous toxins in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California. In my research, I bumped into Bruce Piasecki, who had just written a book demonstrating how German industries had saved money and reduced toxic waste liabilities. Bruce got me thinking about solutions. We went on to write a Simon & Schuster book together entitled In Search of Environmental Excellence. The rest, as they say, is now history.

My Books...

In September 2006, I signed a book contract with the University of California Press to write a book entitled Introduction To Energy, the fourth in a series of books in a Natural History Guide series. Unlike many of my past books, this one will steer clear of politics and direct advocacy, and instead will delve into the science of our energy supplies, and the pros and cons of each source of our electricity and transportation fuels. The Forward was written by Art Rosenfeld, the guru of California's energy efficiency programs, and the Afterword is written by Arthur O' Donnell, who frist hired me to cover energy in the late '80s. The book is now completed and will be released in Spring 2009.

I was also employed by Bruce Piasecki as the prime ghost-writer of his forthcoming book entitled World, Inc: How The Growing Power of Business is Revolutionizing Profits, People, and the Future of Both  (Sourcebooks, February 2007).  This books explores the evolution of "social response product development" by focusing on Toyota's emergence as the world's most progressive and profitable auto company. It also examines Hewlett Packard's aborted attempts to engage in a "bottom of the pyramid" business model, and its far-reaching efforts to upgrade the environmental and social performance of its immense supply-chain. The book concludes with a look at the growing role third-party rating agencies are playing in fostering reforms in the financial sector.

Here are descriptions of my previously published books:

The Patriot Test (Patriotic Press, 2004).

The Patriot Test was the only book on the market during the last presidential election campaign that allowed readers to make up their own minds on who was the better patriot, President George Bush or Senator John Kerry. Quotes and the policy records of Bush and Kerry are presented on 27 different questions. Readers then gave both candidates a grade on each question and then an accumulative score. This book has become a collectors item as it was a novel campaign tool reaching out to evangelical Christians, asking them to think independently about how their votes aligned with their moral values.
   

Reaping the Wind: How Mechanical Wizards, Visionaries and Profiteers Helped Shape our Energy Future (Island Press, 2001).

The book chronicles the emergence of wind power technology as the fastest growing power source in the world and the key near-term solution to global climate change. The book's release attracted significant California radio and TV coverage, including KRON-TV in San Francisco, Michael Jackson at KLAC-AM and Adelphia Cable TV's Week in Review. NPR's Marketplace Morning Report, which is aired on over 1,100 stations, reached a significant national audience as well.
 

Reinventing Electric Utilities: Competition, citizen Action and Clean Power (Island Press, 1997).

Co-authored with Ed Smeloff, formerly of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District; forward written by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. The book has gone into its second printing and is used as a textbook in graduate level university energy courses. The book chronicles the evolution of not only one of the most successful transformations of a public power entity - the Sacramento Municipal Utility District -- but also the parade of events that led up California's highly controversial deregulation law.

 
In Search of Enironmental Excellence (Simon & Schuster, 1990).

Co-authored with Bruce Piasecki, this book was released in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. The Christian Science Monitor picked this book, which sold over 18,000 copies, as the best political book about the environment in 1990. Gregg Easterbrook also recognized it as one of the most important books on the environment in the 20th century. The book also won recognition from The Nature Society and was distributed through Rodale Book Club.

Print Article Inventory

I have published articles on corporate social responsibility, sustainable energy policies, environmental challenges and political and campaign reforms in major daily newspapers, magazines, alternative news outlets, news syndicates and business trade publications.

Daily Newspapers:
New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, The Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, San Diego Union-Tribine, Oakland Tribune, Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesman, Dallas Times Herald, Seattle Times, Wisconsin State Journal, Baltimore Sun, and many other newspapers throughout California and the nation.

Magazines and Journals:
CRO/Business Ethics, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ethical Corporation, Home Power, green@work, NRDC's Amicus Journal, E Magazine, California Journal, The Electricity Journal, Electric Perspectives, Public Utilities Fortnightly, In Business, Journal of Corporate Environmental Strategy, At Work, Solar Today, Common Cause magazine, Renewable Energy World, ReFocus, Earthlights, In These Times and others.

Weekly "Alternative" Newspapers and "Business" Journals: 
Los Angeles Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, Sacramento News & Review; Sacramento Business Journal, San Jose Business Journal, San Francisco Business Times, and the Los Angeles Business Journal.

News Syndicates and On-Line Services:
New York Times syndicate, Los Angeles Times syndicate, AlterNet, Pacific News Service, America's News Syndicate, Grist, GreenBiz.com, Energy Central's EnergyPulse and RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

Trade Press:
Served as Sacramento stringer for McGraw Hill's energy and waste management business trade newsletters (Electric Utility Week, Utility Environment Report, Independent Power Report, Demand-Side and Telecom Report, Power Markets Week and Nucleonics Week) between 1987 and 1997. During that same period of time, I also covered energy issues for California Energy Markets, California's leading authority on state energy issues, focusing much of my reporting on the successful effort to close the Rancho Seco nuclear reactor.

Between 1995 and 1998, I was also U.S. stringer for Windpower Monthly, an international wind power trade magazine.