DREW PENDERGRASS is a writer, activist, and climate scientist whose work imagines how humanity can democratically govern itself under a worsening environmental crisis.
Drew is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University, where he also earned a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Mathematics. His research uses satellite, aircraft, and surface observations of the environment to correct supercomputer models of the atmosphere. Drew is currently working on a system that uses satellites to estimate real-time global emissions of methane. He is the lead developer of CHEEREIO, a free, open-source software used by scientists to characterize the sources of a wide variety of pollutants, including the true scale of emissions from the 2023 wildfires in Canada.
Drew is co-author of the book Half-Earth Socialism (Verso, 2022), along with historian Troy Vettese, with whom he has also co-written articles for Architectural Design and International Labor and Working-Class History. In addition to his scientific publications, Drew has authored various pieces of popular environmental writing for outlets including Harper’s, The Guardian, Jacobin, and Current Affairs. Drew and Troy are currently at work on another book on ecological democracy.
To find out more about Drew, check out his: