about peter byck

Director + Producer + Writer + Public Speaker + Professor of Practice

Peter Byck is a professor of practice at Arizona State University, in both the School of Sustainability and the Cronkite School of Journalism. He is the director, producer and writer of carbon nation. He is currently helping to lead a $5.3 million research project focused on Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing; collaborating with 20 scientists and 10 ranchers, focused on soil health & soil carbon storage, microbial/bug/bird biodiversity, water cycling and much more. Byck has currently completed a feature-length documentary (in 10 parts) focused on regenerative grazing: www.carboncowboys.org and is in production on a long-form documentary on the AMP grazing research project.

filmmaking experience

Byck has over 25 years experience as a director and editor. His 1st documentary, garbage, won the South by Southwest Film Festival, screened in scores of festivals and played at the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center. Byck’s 2nd documentary, carbon nation, has screened all over the world; it won the IVCA Clarion Award, the GreenMe Global Festival, and was runner-up for the EMA Award. Byck has directed shows for MTV starring Will Smith, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Drew Barrymore, Gwyneth Paltrow & David Duchovny. In addition, he has edited documentaries for Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” and “King Kong,” as well as documentaries and promotional shorts for Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, MTV, Vh1, BBC, Disney and MGM, including “The West Wing,” “The Matrix,” “Scrubs,” “ER” & many more.

public speaking agenda - insights

Byck’s public speaking engagements highlight his most unique discovery since starting carbon nation in 2007: liberals and conservatives in the U.S. are not nearly as polarized as the popular press presents. Through Byck’s humor, curious mind and respectful approach, he gets to the core of people’s beliefs – listening carefully for common ground. And in the realm of energy and soil health, he’s realized that if the subject of climate change is tabled, there is vast agreement on how the country should approach our use of energy and agricultural lands: people are chomping at the bit for clean energy, energy efficiency, smart land use & healthy food. A large portion of Americans are willing to make sacrifices to get us to a low carbon economy – they’re just waiting for someone to lead. And, regarding soil health, people trust nature - no matter their political affiliation.

public speaking experience

TV & Radio:

Byck has appeared twice on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher & NPR’s Science Friday. As a public speaker, Byck has presented at Google, Facebook, McDonald’s, Boeing, Nike, Microsoft, Shell, Walmart.com, Cargill, SC Johnson, TetraPak, St. Gobain (& more companies).

Conferences

Aspen Ideas Festival, Greenbiz, Chicago Ideas Week, Urban Land Institute, AAAS, BSR, SXSW ECO, EcoAmerica, Conservation International, Pew, NetImpact (& many more).

Government Agencies

White House OST & CEQ, World Bank, Prince Charles’ B.E.P. program @ Cambridge University, House of Commons & U.S. Embassies in London, Berlin and Vienna, various U.S. Consulates in Scotland, Ireland and Germany (& more across the U.S.).

Universities

Stanford, Yale, Duke, UC Davis, Arkansas, Washington State, Rice (& more across the U.S. and internationally).

Byck has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts. He is married with 2 young sons.