Website: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pbull/

Profile: Pierre Bull is an Energy Policy Analyst at the NRDC in New York City. Read Pierre''s blog at NRDC's Switchboard.

I advocate for clean energy and energy efficiency in states and utilities throughout the Eastern Seaboard; keeping in mind the larger implications of these policies at the national (energy independence and good domestic jobs) and international level (solving global warming).

Prior to working at NRDC, I was a project manager for 2 ½ years at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), running efficiency and demand response incentive programs for commercial buildings. I received my M.S. in Natural Resources and Environmental Policy from the University of Michigan and B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I thoroughly enjoy the discovery and greater understanding of the geographic, social, and economic diversity of our nation. During my time in school, I had the opportunity to gain diverse insights into how different groups of people define and address their environmental challenges through summer internships that included working for the USDA -- Iowa Natural Resources Conservation Service, Red Oak Field Office, Illinois EPA -- Pollution Prevention Office working at St. Mary’s Hospital in East St. Louis, IL, and TVA -- Public Power Institute in Norris, TN.

When not at work, I am home with my fiancee Ariana and fickle but friendly cat, Preston. I enjoy "slow travel" where I have the opportunity to experience new places by walking, biking, and canoeing.

Roots in: Kansas City and Chicago (suburbs); and sprouts in the Northeast -- D.C., Albany, and New York

Favorite place: Isla Isabela, Galapagos, Ecuador

Why "environmentalism" matters: Ask me again in another decade or two when I’ll be able to provide a more thoughtful personal response -- I guess I need more of that “life experience” stuff.

For now, I'll borrow a favorite quote of mine comes from a Professor of history at the University of Washington in his essay, “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?” published in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon (1996):

…environmentalism…links us to each other, and it links us to nature. It unites issues as diverse as workplace safety and grazing on public lands; it unites toxic sites an wilderness areas. In taking responsibility for our own lives and work, in unmasking the connections of our labor and nature’s labor, in giving up our hopeless fixation on purity, we may ultimately find a way to break the borders that imprison nature as much as ourselves.