Dr. Joseph Romm

Author & Physicist

Joseph J. Romm is an American author, blogger, physicist and climate expert who concentrates on methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency, green energy technologies and green transportation technologies. In December 2008, Romm was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In March 2009, Rolling Stone magazine named Romm to its list of “100 People Who Are Changing America.” In September 2009, Time magazine named him one of its “Heroes of the Environment,” calling him “The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger.”

Romm is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he founded their climate blog, Climate Progress, part of their Think Progress website. In 2008, Time magazine named Romm’s blog one of the “Top 15 Green Websites.” In 2009, Thomas L. Friedman, in his column in The New York Times, called Climate Progress “the indispensable blog,” and in 2010, Time included it in a list of the 25 “Best Blogs of 2010.” Romm also writes regularly for several energy and news websites.

In the 1990s, Romm served as Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. Romm has published several books on global warming and energy technology. Technology Review wrote that his December 2006 book, Hell and High Water, “provides an accurate summary of what is known about global warming and climate change, a sensible agenda for technology and policy, and a primer on how political disinformation has undermined climate science.” Romm’s 2010 book, Straight Up, released in April 2010, is a selection of his blog postings since 2007. His 2012 book, Language Intelligence, concerns persuasion and the effective use of rhetoric. Romm was the Chief Science Advisor for the 2014 Emmy Award-winning documentary series Years of Living Dangerously.