Policy Analysis, Research and Consulting in Science, Technology and the Environment
Michael from 2005. Michael passed away due to a car accident in February 2013.
E-mail: michaelb@igc.apc.org
Michael Black is a policy analyst and an environmental historian who writes about issues confronting the arid western United States, economic planning and sustainable development, the social impact of science and technology, and the environment. His articles appear in journals and anthologies and cover diverse topics including land use planning, endangered species, western water policy, industrial policy, the demilitarization of science and technology policy, international trade and the environment, and global political economy.
- Black is co-editor of an anthology (with Frank Fischer) on comparative national approaches to environmental policy (Greening Environmental Policy: The Politics of a Sustainable Future, New York: St. Martin's Press, and London: Paul Chapman Press; 1995). He is currently writing California's Last Salmon: The Unnatural Policies of Natural Resource Agencies (Berkeley: University of California Press), a book exploring the history and policy responses to diminishing Western salmon runs on California's Sacramento River. He is also co-authoring (with Maarten deKadt and Daniel Watts) Toward a Durable Future: Case Studies in Environmental Decision Making, a work which depicts the United States' fifty-year transition from a throw-away society to one based on principles of pollution prevention, materials management, and design for the environment.
- Black has served on the governing board and is past chair
(1991-1993) of the subsection on Science and Public Policy of the New York
Academy of Sciences. He now serves on the board of the California Studies
Association.
- Black has taught on Government faculties at a number of colleges and universities including Harvey Mudd College, in Claremont, California, Mills College, in Oakland, California, the State University of New York (at Albany & Plattsburgh), and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York.
- Black also consults as an independent policy analyst. with business,
government, and non-profit clients on economic planning and sustainable
development, environmental politics, and science and technology policy.
Former clients include: the California Academy of Sciences, the Hazardous
Substance Management Research Center, the Massachusetts Attorney General's
Office, The New Jersey Department of Transportation, Pasqua Coffee Company,
Restoring the Earth, SRI International, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, and the World Policy Institute.
Selected research publications include:
- Frank Fischer and Michael Black, ed., Greening Environmental Policy: The
Politics of a Sustainable Future, New York: St. Martin's Press and London:
Paul Chapman Press, Ltd., 1995
From the book cover: "Sustainable development has become the primary focus
of national and international environmental policy. Designed as a common
global strategy for industrial and industrializing countries, some see it as
offering environmental protection without sacrificing economic growth. But
sustainability has become a hotly contested concept. As its critics point out,
sustainable development seeks to achieve environmental protection without
confronting the tough choices facing modern corporate-industrial society and
its consumption-driven way of life. To what degree is the existing system
itself responsible for the environmental crisis? Can we achieve a sustainable
future merely by tagging environmental requirements onto the existing
industrial order? Or must we address the political-economic system itself?
Broadly committed to the goals and values of a green political perspective, the chapters in this book show the environmental crisis to be essentially a political-economic crisis. The pursuit of sustainability cannot proceed without significant changes in our economic enterprises, public institutions and personal lives. Reaching beyond the contradictions of sustainable development, the authors explore the kinds of political arrangements needed to throw open sustainability to wide-ranging debate, both national and international. they advance alternative environmental policymaking processes designed to forge a genuine political consensus around these questions, as well as institutional, cultural, and behavioral strategies capable of translating it into effective policy solutions. Fundamental to these strategies, a progressive commitment to participatory democracy is seen to provide the surest footing for both the articulating and realization of a sustainable future." (from the authors)
Selected Articles:
- "Searching for a Genius of Place: The Ambiguous Legacy of Golden Gate Park," forthcoming in proceedings of "The Environmental Spirit: Past, Present, and Future," April 11-15, 1995, University of California, Berkeley
- "Tragic Remedies: A Century of Failed Fishery Policy on California's Sacramento River," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 64, No. 1, February 1995, pp. 37-70
- "Toys in the Reservoirs?: A Century of Failed Western Fishery Policy," Illahee: Journal for the Northwestern Environment, Vol. 10, No. 4, Winter 1994, pp. 275-278
- `"Avoiding NIMBY Gridlock: Community Stewardship and Social Learning," Industrial and Environmental Crisis Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1994, pp. 387-403, (with Steven Siroky)
- "Recounting a Century of Failed Fishery Policy Toward California's Sacramento River Salmon and Steelhead,"Conservation Biology, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1994, pp. 892-894
- "Desertification and Salinization in Ancient Mesopotamia," in Gerald Haslam, Stephen Johnson and Robert Dawson's California's Great Central Valley: Heartland in Transition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, p. 183
- "Targeting National Needs: A New Direction for Science and Technology Policy," World Policy Journal, Spring 1990, pp. 251-288, (with Joel Yudken)
- "Democracy and Disaster: The Crisis of (Meta)Planning in America," Industrial Crisis Quarterly, Vol. 2, July 1988, pp. 33-51, (with Richard Worthington)
- "Casting Lots in the Information Age," Kairos, Volume 2, 1988, pp. 113-130
- "Technology, Values and Public Policy: A Mediation Approach to Learning," in Bette Haigh, ed., Proceedings of the American Power Conference, Chicago: Illinois Institute of Technology, 1981, (with Richard Worthington)
Chapters in Books:
- "History," in Jonathan Collett and Stephen Karakashian ed., Greening The College Curriculum: A Guide to Environmental Teaching in the Liberal Arts, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995, (with John Opie)
- "The Unnatural Policies of Natural Resource Agencies: Fishery Policy on the Sacramento River," in Frank Fischer and Michael Black ed., Greening Environmental Policy: The Politics of a Sustainable Future, London: Paul Chapman Press, Ltd., and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995
- "Towards a New National Needs Agenda for Science and Technology Policy: The Prospects for Democratic Science and Technology Policy Making," in Gregory A. Bishak, ed., Towards a Peace Economy in the United States, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991, (with Joel Yudken), pp. 160-201
- The Center for Industrial Innovation at RPI: Critical Reflections on New York's Economic Recovery," in Morton Schoolman and Alvin Magid, eds., The Reindustrialization of New York State: Strategies, Implications, Challenges, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986, pp. 257-280, (with Richard Worthington)
- "Democracy and Reindustrialization: The Politics of Technology in New York State," in Paul T. Durbin, ed., Research in Philosophy and Technology, Volume 8, New York: JAI Press, 1985, pp. 37-66, (with Richard Worthington)
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Last updated on February 28, 2013 . Mail comments to: Stephen Johnson