Richard B. Norgaard

Richard B. Norgaard (born August 18, 1943) is an American professor emeritus of ecological economics in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, the first chair and a continuing member of the independent science board of CALFED (California Bay-Delta Authority), and a founding member and former president of the International Society for Ecological Economics. He received the Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award in 2006 for recognition of advancements in research combining social theory and the natural sciences. He is considered one of the founders of and a continuing leader in the field of ecological economics.

Personal life

Norgaard was born on August 18, 1943, in Washington D. C., and raised in Montclair, an East Bay neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area of California.

At an early age, he was interested in white water rafting, and was introduced to the sport by a friend, whose father, Lou Elliott, worked for the Sierra Club coordinating river trips. When he was 15 Norgaard started working for H.A.T.C.H River Expeditions as a pot washer, and was based in Vernal, Utah, near the confluence of the Green River (Colorado River) and Yampa Rivers. Norgaard continued in the business of white water rafting, quickly becoming a head boatman, and bounced around many guiding companies including one that Lou Elliott eventually founded after his career at The Sierra Club. His commitment to and involvement in the environmental movement began when he served as a river guide to David Brower, then executive director of the Sierra Club, for the Glen Canyon stretch of the Colorado River in the early 1960s. Norgaard also worked shortly as a professional photographer prior to his career in academics.

Since 2004, following the election of George W. Bush to a second term, Norgaard has been seen wearing only black colored attire, a silent yet visible protest against the folly of American electorate and the rise of anti-government, market fundamentalism, and "know-nothingism". He has four children and is married to Nancy A. Rader, the Executive Director of the California Wind Energy Association (CALWEA). Norgaard continues river rafting every summer with his family.

Academic career

Norgaard received his B.A. in economics from University of California, Berkeley, a M.S. in agricultural economics from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1971. That same year, at the age of 27, he was an advisor for President Richard Nixon as part of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. During the 1970s Dr. Norgaard was one of the nation's leading experts on the leasing of petroleum rights, especially on the outer continental shelf, as well as a leading expert on the economics of pesticide use and biological control of pests. He published an influential paper in 1975 that showed that farmers who hired an independent pest-control expert had higher profits and used half as much pesticide as those who relied on the advice of agribusiness representatives.

Dr. Norgaard became a Professor at U.C. Berkeley at the age of 27 in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Thereafter he helped found the field of Ecological Economics, and also helped initiate the interdisciplinary Energy and Resources Group Costanza, Robert, John Cumberland, Herman Daly, Robert Goodland, and Richard B. Norgaard. 1997. An Introduction to Ecological Economics (intermediate level college text). International Society for Ecological Economics and St. Lucie Press, Florida. Dryzek, John S., David Schlosberg, and Richard B. Norgaard. (eds). 2011. The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. Oxford University Press. Oxford. Dryzek, John S., Richard B. Norgaard, and David Schlosberg. 2013. Climate-Challenged Society. Oxford University Press.

Selected journal articles Hall, Darwin C., and Richard B. Norgaard. "On the timing and application of pesticides." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 55.2 (1973): 198–201. Norgaard, Richard B. "Coevolutionary development potential." Land economics 60.2 (1984): 160–173. Norgaard, Richard B. "Environmental economics: an evolutionary critique and a plea for pluralism." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 12.4 (1985): 382–394. Howarth, Richard B., and Richard B. Norgaard. "Intergenerational resource rights, efficiency, and social optimality." Land economics 66.1 (1990): 1–11. Mcneely, Jeffrey A., and Richard B. Norgaard. "Developed country policies and biological diversity in developing countries." Agriculture, ecosystems & environment 42.1 (1992): 194–204. Howarth, Richard B., and Richard B. Norgaard. "Environmental valuation under sustainable development." The American economic review 82.2 (1992): 473–477. Norgaard, R. B. "Ecology, politics, and economics: finding the common ground for decision making in conservation." Principles of conservation biology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA (1994): 439–465. Norgaard, Richard B., and Thomas O. Sikor. "The methodology and practice of agroecology." Agroecology, the Science of Sustainable Agriculture (1995): 53–62. Lélé, Sharachchandra, and Richard B. Norgaard. "Sustainability and the scientist’s burden." Conservation Biology 10.2 (1996): 354–365. Lélé, Sharachchandra, and Richard B. Norgaard. "Practicing interdisciplinarity." BioScience 55.11 (2005): 967–975. Norgaard, Richard B., and Paul Baer. "Collectively seeing complex systems: The nature of the problem." BioScience 55.11 (2005): 953–960. Norgaard, Richard B., and Paul Baer. "Collectively seeing climate change: The limits of formal models." BioScience 55.11 (2005): 961–966. Norgaard, Richard B. "Bubbles in a back eddy: a commentary on “the origin, diagnostic attributes and practical application of coevolutionary theory”." Ecological Economics 54.4 (2005): 362–365. Sneddon, Christopher, Richard B. Howarth, and Richard B. Norgaard. 2006. Sustainable Development in a Post-Brundtland World. Ecological Economics 57(2):253–68. Norgaard, Richard B. and Xuemei Liu. 2007. Market Governance Failure. Ecological Economics. 60(3):634–641. Norgaard, Richard B. "Deliberative economics." Ecological Economics 63.2-3 (2007): 375–82. Norgaard, Richard B. "Finding hope in the millennium ecosystem assessment." Conservation Biology 22.4 (2008): 862–869. Norgaard, Richard B., and Ling Jin. "Trade and the governance of ecosystem services." Ecological Economics 66.4 (2008): 638–652. Norgaard, Richard B., Giorgos Kallis, and Michael Kiparsky. "Collectively engaging complex socio-ecological systems: re-envisioning science, governance, and the California Delta." environmental science & policy 12.6 (2009): 644–652. Norgaard, Richard B. "Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder." Ecological Economics 69.6 (2010): 1219–1227. Kallis, Giorgos, and Richard B. Norgaard. "Coevolutionary ecological economics." Ecological Economics 69.4 (2010): 690–699. Gual, Miguel A., and Richard B. Norgaard. "Bridging ecological and social systems coevolution: A review and proposal." Ecological economics 69.4 (2010): 707–717.

Articles about 1992. The Price of Green. Economics Focus. The Economist (May 9): 87. 1992. Warsh, David. Economics, Ecology: Twin sciences of the 21st century. Economic Principles. The Boston Sunday Globe (May 24): 29–30. 1992. Interview titled: Wirtschaften für unsere Enkelkinder? WEINER BLÆTTER 05/92 pages 19–21. 1992. Interview titled: Richard B. Norgaard. Options International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. (September):14-15. 2004. “Richard B. Norgaard”. Chapter 8 in The Changing Face of Economics: Conversations with Cutting Edge Economists. Dave Colander, Ric Holt, and J. Barkley Rosser. Ann Arbor. University of Michigan Press. 2005. “Return to a lost world of upside-down mountains”. Barry Bergman. Berkeleyan 34(6):8 (September 22). 1992. Taking Future Generations into Account. Lynn Atwood. Berkeleyan20(12): 2010. “Co-Evolutionary Economics (main originator: Richard Norgaard)”. Chapter 9 in Integral Economics: Releasing the Economic Genius of Society.London. Gower Ashgate. 2011. “Richard Norgaard”. Chapter 6 in The Wildness Within: Remembering David Brower. Kenneth Brower. Berkeley. Heyday Books.