Michael Buchsbaum is a German-U.S. American energy and industry journalist,
photographer and podcaster. After earning a master’s in English, he began taking
both pen and camera underground to document the coal mines and coal cultures of
North America and Europe. Assignments from dozens of magazines, trade journals,
institutional and corporate clients sent him to myriad coalfields, gas patches and
industrial centers. But after witnessing so much human and natural destruction, he
now uses his tools to advocate for a just, renewable energy transition. Relocating to
Europe in 2015, since then he has written and edited for Power Magazine, IRENA,
the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogs, Deutsche Welle and Europe Beyond Coal while
serving as the lead writer for the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Energytransition.org
platform. The recipient of an International Journalist’s Programme Fellowship-
Romania, Clean Energy Wire Cross-Border Grant and Major Illinois Humanities
Council Grant and co-recipient of an Investigation Grant for Environmental
Journalism, Buchsbaum also teaches English, Holocaust history and is a founding
member of the Stolpersteine Memorial Initiative Wüstensachsen.