John Blair

Evansville, Indiana, United States

John Blair is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer. He resides in Evansville, Indiana, the center of the largest concentration of coal plants in the world.

As president of the environmental/health group Valley Watch Blair has been an activist in coal and energy issues for more than 30 years, earning both respect and derision from people in his region.

Valley Watch has been leading the national fight against new coal plants for the last ten years, working closely with other regional groups as well as national groups like Sierra Club.

Recently Blair was asked to give the keynote address at a coal conference in Houston in which he related the historical perspective on fighting coal from cradle to grave.

As a TCP presenter, Blair has given his adaptation of the slideshow called “Indiana's Inconvenient Truth” to more than 600 people in some 16 venues from Evansville to Indianapolis.

His presentation includes slides that show the enormous Hoosier release of more than 134,000,000 tons of CO2 each year, as well as extremely large volumes of toxic chemicals that are also released from coal plants in southwest Indiana. Duke Energy's Gibson power station emits more "toxic" emissions than the combined populations and industries of San Diego and Los Angeles Counties in California, Cook County (Chicago) in Illinois and all the counties that make up New York City –COMBINED.

When he is not fighting for a cleaner planet and community, Blair ekes out a living as a commercial and aerial photographer. Blair earned his Pulitzer Prize with a photo of a mortgage banker being held hostage at the end of a twelve-gauge, sawed off shotgun by an insane kidnapper who had borrowed money from the banker to build a shopping center.

Blair holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Economics and Public Policy from Indiana University and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Ball State University. He is married and has two grown children.

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