Pat Murphy is Research Director of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions (Community Solutions), a non-profit organization in Yellow Springs, Ohio, whose primary focus is achieving sustainability by reducing energy consumption in the household sectors of food, transportation, and housing – sectors that account for about 70% of energy consumption and CO2 generation. Pat is the author of Plan C – Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change (New Society 2008).He was the co-writer and co-producer of the organization’s award-winning documentary film, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006), and helped organize five Community Solutions conferences on Peak Oil and Climate Change. He has authored and self published two other books, The Green Tragedy: LEED’s Lost Decade, which points out the limitations of so called “Green Building” and Spinning Our Wheels, a treatise on the limits of electric cars.

Prior to taking on his current position, Pat was the Executive Director for Community Solutions. Before that Pat had a long career in computer applications in transportation, construction and energy industries. Pat was the founder of a software company that developed a “design for manufacturing” program for residential building, which greatly reduced waste in the construction process and provided a computerized model for building energy analysis. He designed and built low energy homes during the energy crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was the first board president for Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS), the organization bringing the German “Passiv Haus” (Passive House) technology to this country. Passive House buildings use 80-90% less energy than conventional buildings. He is co-producer and co-writer of the upcoming film, The Passive House Comes Home.

Pat recently created this website, PlugInScam.org, where he writes regular blog postings and white papers addressing vehicle electrification. The main purpose of this website is to expose government misrepresentation of the miles per gallon (MPG) ratings of plug in cars. The high – and very misleading  – MPG ratings are achieved by excluding the energy and CO2 emissions costs used to generate the electricity for plug-in cars. Pat believes conventional gasoline hybrids combined with dynamic ride sharing, represents the best approach for the nation to significantly reduce its use of gasoline. He and his wife own a Toyota Prius and a Honda Insight.