Joe Romm
Joseph J. Romm is an American researcher, author, editor, physicist and climate expert, who advocates reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency and green energy technologies. Romm is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2009, Rolling Stone magazine named Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America", and 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 Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media. In 2019, he founded, and served as the first Editor-in-Chief of, progressive news aggregator Front Page Live. He has written for various energy and news sources, and he was the Chief Science Advisor for documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, which won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. At the Center for American Progress, where he was a Senior Fellow, he founded the blog Climate Progress in 2006, which became part of the Think Progress website. Time magazine named Romm's blog one of the "Top 15 Green Websites". In 2009, Thomas L. Friedman, in The New York Times, called Climate Progress "the indispensable blog", and Time included it in a list of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010".
In the 1990s, Romm served at the U.S. Department of Energy including, for six months, as Acting Assistant Secretary. He has published 10 books and many articles on global warming, clean energy and communications. His 2006 book Hell and High Water summarized observations and forecasts of climate change, discussed technology and policy solutions, and criticized political disinformation used to undermine climate science. His 2015 book, Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, covers basic climate science in a Q&A format. He has also written books on how scientists and activists can communicate more persuasively to explain science and policy to the public. His 2012 book, Language Intelligence, concerns the effective use of rhetoric, and his 2018 book, How to Go Viral and Reach Millions, discusses how to tell scientific stories in ways that draw attention and connect with people emotionally. His 2025 revised edition of The Hype About Hydrogen decries what he calls "false promises" made by the fossil fuel industry and sets forth the solutions that Romm says can save the climate.
Biography
Early life and career
Romm was born and grew up in Middletown, New York, the youngest of three sons of Al Romm, managing editor of the Times Herald-Record newspaper, and Ethel Grodzins Romm, an author, journalist, project manager, CEO of an environmental technology company and, later, chair of the Lyceum Society of the New York Academy of Sciences. Romm's brother David was the host and producer of Shockwave Radio Theater on KFAI-FM, and his brother Daniel is a retired physician. His uncle is physicist Lee Grodzins, and his aunt was library science expert Anne Grodzins Lipow. Romm graduated from Middletown High School in 1978.Image:MIT Main Campus Aerial.jpg|thumb|left|The campus of MIT, where Romm earned his Ph.D in physics in 1987.
Romm attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 1987, both in physics. In 1987, Romm was awarded an American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellowship for the U.S. House of Representatives, where he provided science and security policy advice on the staff of Representative Charles E. Bennett.
From 1988 to 1990, Romm worked as Special Assistant for International Security at the Rockefeller Foundation. From 1991 to 1993, he was a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute. He co-authored the 1994 Rocky Mountain Institute Report, Greening the Building and the Bottom Line: Increasing Productivity Through Energy-Efficient Design. For the Global Environment and Technology Foundation, he performed the first environmental analysis of a system integrating cogenerating fuel cells, fly wheels, and power electronics aimed at achieving very high-availability power.
In 1992, Romm published The Once and Future Superpower, a book about America's economic, energy and environmental security. In 1993, he wrote Defining National Security: The Nonmilitary Aspects, for the Council on Foreign Relations. His 1994 book, Lean and Clean Management, discusses management techniques that can reduce the impact of manufacturing and other industries on the environment while increasing productivity and profits. He co-authored, with Charles B. Curtis, "MidEast Oil Forever," the cover story of the April 1996 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which discussed alternative energy strategies. The same year, he co-authored a paper for the ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings on "Policies to Reduce Heat Islands". In 1999, Romm published Cool Companies: How the Best Businesses Boost Profits and Productivity by Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Service at the U.S. Department of Energy
Romm served as Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, in charge of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for six months in 1997, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the rest of the period from August 1995 through June 1998, and Special Assistant for Policy and Planning from 1993 to July 1995. This office, with an annual budget at the time of $1 billion and 550 employees, assists businesses in the industrial, utility, transportation and buildings sectors to develop and use advanced clean energy technologies to cut costs, increase reliability, and reduce pollution.As Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Romm was in charge of all policy and technology analysis and programmatic development for the Office, which was then developing PEM fuel cells, microturbines, advanced cogeneration, superconductivity, building controls, photovoltaics and other renewables, biofuels, and hydrogen production and storage. Among other projects, he initiated, supervised, and publicized a comprehensive technical analysis in 1997 by five national laboratories of how energy technologies can best reduce greenhouse gas emissions cost-effectively, titled ''Scenarios of U.S. Carbon Reductions.''
1998 to 2006
Romm was, for several years, the executive director and founder of the non-profit Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, which helped businesses and U.S. States adopt high-leverage strategies for saving energy and cutting pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. He was also a principal of the Capital E Group, which consulted on technology assessment and sustainable design services for clean energy technologies.File:2009-2012 Toyota Prius i-Tech liftback.jpg|thumb|Romm has written that hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, BEVs and PEVs, are more effective in reducing greenhouse gases than hydrogen cars.
During these years, Romm wrote widely on global warming and energy technology solutions. His 2004 book, The Hype about Hydrogen, argues that delaying the implementation of current green technologies in favor of waiting for technological breakthroughs in hydrogen cars is a dangerous distraction from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The book was named one of the best science and technology books of 2004 by Library Journal. In reviewing the book, Daniel I. Sperling, then a member of California Air Resources Board, offered dissenting views. Also in 2004, Romm wrote the National Commission on Energy Policy's report, "The Car and Fuel of the Future", which was rated the #1 Hottest Article on Energy Policy by ScienceDirect. He was also the principal investigator for the National Science Foundation project, Future Directions for Hydrogen Energy Research and Education. Romm is interviewed in the 2006 documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car?, in which he argues that the government's "hydrogen car initiative" was a bad policy choice and a distraction that delayed the exploitation of more promising technologies, such as electric and hybrid cars that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase America's energy security.
Romm's 2006 book Hell and High Water projected a limited window of opportunity to head off the most catastrophic effects of global warming by using emission-cutting technologies. Tyler Hamilton, in his review of the book for The Toronto Star, wrote: "Romm's book presents overwhelming and disturbing evidence that human-caused greenhouse gases are the primary ingredients behind global warming alarming detail on how the U.S. public is being misled by a federal government that is intent on inaction, and that's also on a mission to derail international efforts to curb emissions." Technology Review wrote that 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."
''Climate Progress'' and later years
In 2006, Romm became a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he founded their climate blog, Climate Progress, which focused on climate science, policy and reporting. In 2008, Time magazine named his blog one of the "Top 15 Green Websites", writing that it "counters bad science and inane rhetoric with original analysis delivered sharply.... Romm occupies the intersection of climate science, economics and policy.... On his blog and in his December 2006 book, Hell and High Water, you can find some of the most cogent, memorable, and deployable arguments for immediate and overwhelming action to confront global warming." In 2010, Time magazine wrote, "Viewing climate change through the prism of national security, Romm analyzes breaking energy news and the relevant research... he challenges the beliefs and conclusions of the mainstream media on climate-change issues." Romm contributed to the site until 2019. He also wrote for other energy and news sites, including The Huffington Post, Grist, Slate, CNN, and Salon.com. His 2012 New York Times opinion piece was called "Without Carbon Controls, We Face a Dust Bowl". After Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022, Romm urged Charles III to continue his climate advocacy as a non-political, moral imperative.Romm has testified before congressional committees about how government action can curb global warming. For example, in July 2012, he testified before a Natural Resources Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives on the 2012 U.S. drought and wildfires. In March of the same year, he testified before the House Energy & Commerce Committee on "The American Energy Initiative" and rising gasoline prices. In 2010, he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on how to optimize "Energy Tax Incentives Driving the Green Job Economy", and in 2007, he testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology on the subject of "Fuels for the Future", specifically the use of liquid fuel from coal and its potential to accelerate global warming. He lectures on energy technology, global warming and how the media portrays climate change.
TreeHugger describes Romm's 2010 book, Straight Up, as "a whirlwind tour through the state of climate change, the media that so badly neglects it, the politicians who attempt to address it, and the clean energy solutions that could help get us out of the mess." His 2012 book, Language Intelligence, concerns persuasion and the effective use of rhetoric, presenting "Solutions the reader can use for speeches, social media, or just winning the debate around the kitchen table." Romm's August 2012 article for Time used the research from Language Intelligence to analyze whether Mitt Romney or Barack Obama was the more effective communicator. Romm encourages scientists to use the principles of effective communication outlined in the book to better explain the dangers of, and solutions to, climate change to non-scientists and the media.
Romm was the chief science editor for the documentary TV series Years of Living Dangerously, about the impact of and solutions to climate change. The first season of the series in 2014 on the Showtime network won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Romm wrote "Climate Change 101: An Introduction", for the series' website. A second season ran in 2016 on the National Geographic Channel. In 2015, The Weather Channel included Romm as one of "the world's 25 most compelling voices" on climate. That year, Romm also wrote the book Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, a primer on the topic. Ralph Benko in Forbes magazine wrote that the "book... lucidly presents the case both for deep concern and optimism". In New York magazine, David Wallace-Wells cited the book as an "authoritative primer". Romm's 2018 book, How to Go Viral and Reach Millions, "teaches everything from word choice to how to recast your scientific stories in ways that connect with people emotionally".
In June 2019, Romm founded a progressive news aggregator, Front Page Live, together with Carl Cameron, Laura Dawn, Sunny Hundal, Helen Stickler and others. Romm was its first Editor-in-Chief. In 2023 he became a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media. He received a 2024 Ban Ki-moon Award for Environmental Leadership. Romm began a weekly podcast in 2025, together with his daughter, called Decoding Taylor Swift: A Storytelling Revolution, analyzing Swift's storytelling techniques and the use of poetic rhetoric in her lyrics to communicate and persuade. It has ranked as high as number two in the music category on Apple Podcasts. The same year, he was lead author on the study "Are Carbon Offsets Fixable?" The study found that 90% of carbon credits fail to achieve real-world carbon reduction, and the credits' "intractable problems have persisted despite more than two decades of efforts at market reform and seem unlikely to be resolved"; it suggests that because they create a false sense of progress, they serve to delay policy action to reduce emissions.