• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Sustainable Pittsburgh

Sustainable Pittsburgh

  • About Us
      • Team
      • History
      • Board of Directors
      • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
      • Sponsors & Supporters
  • Search Icon
  • Priorities & Progress
  • Resources & News
  • Take Action
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
  • Priorities & Progress
      • Carbon Reduction
      • Social Equity
      • Past Initiatives
  • Resources & News
      • Why Sustainability?
      • Decarb Digest
      • Blog
      • Press Coverage
      • Webinars
      • Toolkits & Case Studies
      • Newsletters
      • Reports
  • Take Action
      • How to Get Started
      • Recognition Programs
      • Networks
      • Events
  • Resources & News
  • Why Sustainability?
  • Decarb Digest
  • Blog
  • Press Coverage
  • Webinars
  • Toolkits & Case Studies
  • Newsletters
  • Reports
Home > Resources & News > Blog

Featuring Bill O'Driscoll, arts and entertainment editor and environmental journalist, Pittsburgh City Paper

July 20, 2017 by Ginette Walker Vinski

In addition to his role as Arts and Entertainment Editor at Pittsburgh City Paper, Bill O’Driscoll pens the “Green Light” column, offering observations, analyses, and information covering a range of environmental topics including energy and climate change.  In this week’s Insider, Bill shares insights gleaned from his years of engagement in the field.

– In covering sustainability matters around the region, what stands out as points of progress, and also challenge areas, in the uptake of accepting and addressing the issues?

 Awareness of environmental/sustainability issues has grown tremendously in the past couple decades — but it started out at such a low level that it still has a long way to go. In particular, I think there’s a belief that (1) “they” (the engineers, etc.) will take care of sustainability stuff for us, when in fact it’s everyone’s responsibility, and also that (2) voluntary individual initiative — recycling, turning down the thermostat — is enough when in fact our responsibility is to pressure our leaders to address issues like urban sprawl and global warming, which are too big for individuals to tackle on their own.

– How is your approach to journalism evolving with the changing demographics in our region?

I came to Pittsburgh in 1991, and the metro area is now trending younger and better educated. Surveys show that younger people tend to be more sensitive to issues like global warming. But I sense that they’re looking not to continue generations-old debates, but for solutions, so I try to be cognizant of that in my writing.

– Where does the mainstream media stand to improve in covering sustainability matters?

We simply need more, and more cogent, coverage from an environmental point of view. Too often, for instance, in business stories, the effects of our actions on the environment, and of the environment on our actions, are not noted at all, or are included only as afterthoughts. That awareness should be built into everything we write. I’d also like to see more attention paid to the “prevention” and conservation side of things — for example, in discussions of energy, more thought about not just how we generate energy, but how to waste less.

Sustainable Pittsburgh

307 Fourth Avenue, Suite 700
Pittsburgh, PA 15222 USA

412-258-6642 (phone)
info@sustainablepittsburgh.org


  • Priorities & Progress
    • Carbon Reduction
    • Social Equity
    • Past Initiatives
      • Allegheny Eats
      • Choose Local
      • Plastics Collaborative
      • Straw Forward
  • Resources & News
    • Why Sustainability?
    • Blog
    • Press Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Toolkits & Case Studies
    • Reports
  • Take Action
    • How to Get Started
    • Recognition Programs
      • FAQs
      • Restaurants
      • Shops
      • Workplaces
      • Business & Organization Directory
      • Communities
      • Sprints
      • Program Login
    • Networks
      • CEOs for Sustainability
      • DISCOVER
      • Sustainable Community Development Network (SCDN)
      • Clean Energy Workforce Roundtable
    • Events
      • Events Calendar
      • 2024 CEOs for Sustainability C-Suite Summit
      • 25th Anniversary Celebration
  • About Us
    • Team
    • History
    • Board of Directors
    • Careers
  • Contact Us
    • Donate
    • Program Login
    • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Sustainable Pittsburgh. All rights reserved.