John Berger (author)

In 1966, John J. Berger earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Stanford University.[1] Prior to his work on energy and the environment, Berger was an innovator in journalism. In 1970, he co-founded Alternative Features Service, Inc. to support the development of alternative and college newspapers and radio stations in the U.S. with syndicated press materials that highlighted the creation of alternative institutions, such as free clinics, people's banks, free universities, and alternative housing.

In 1976, after publishing his first book, Nuclear Power: The Unviable Option, with an introduction by Nobel Laureate Dr. Linus Pauling and a foreword by Senator Mike Gravel, he was invited by David Brower to become Friends of the Earth's Energy Projects Director in San Francisco.:[1] In 1977, as a consultant to Stanley A. Weiss, co-founder of American Minerals, Berger and Judith Johnsrud conducted field research for what was to become the Nuclear Information and Resource Service which Berger designed and directed in Washington, D.C. from 1978 to 1979. In 1979, he became a technical editor at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California[1] and enrolled in the Energy and Resources Program at the University of California, Berkeley where he was awarded a Master's degree.[1] In 1980 and 1981, Berger taught courses in energy technology and policy at Vista College and the University of San Francisco. In 1984, Berger began two years of postgraduate research on land-use policy in Sacramento at the University of California, Davis.[1] In 1985, he published Restoring the Earth: How Americans Are Working to Restore Our Damaged Environment and became the executive director of Restoring the Earth, an environmental organization based in Berkeley, California.[1]

The group convened the 1988 Restoring the Earth Conference, which at the time was the most comprehensive meeting ever held on the repair of environmental damage and the re-creation of disrupted ecosystems. The meeting brought together environmental leaders, restoration practitioners, corporate executives, scientists, government officials, labor, media, grassroots activists and concerned citizens from throughout the U.S. to discuss and plan the restoration of all types of damaged natural resources and the plannning of sustainable uban area. The conference drew national attention to examples of successful ecological restoration and to the potential of restoration technology to heal prior environmental damage. More than 150 scientific papers and poopular talks were presented on topics ranging from the restoration of forests, rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, estuaries, prairies mined lands; wildlife and its habitats; to prevention, management and containment of toxic wastes.

Berger later went on to receive a PhD in Ecology from the University of California, Davis in 1990[1] and served as visiting Associate Professor of Environmental Policy at the Graduate School of Public Affairs of the University of Maryland[5] and Professor of Environmental Science at the University of San Francisco.[2] In addition to his teaching and leadership of environmental organizations, Berger has been a journalist specializing in energy, environment, climate, and natural resources, and he is currently (2023) the U.S. Correspondent for Sustain Europe.

His awards include the 2015 International Book Award for Science; a Switzer Foundation Environmental Fellowship for graduate study: a year-long fellowship for study at the University of Tunis in Tunisia: a summer writing fellowship at the Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondacks; and selection to participate in a summer-study program at the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory for Genetic Research. Berger is also an independent energy and environmental consultant. He was an Affiliated Research Fellow at UC Berkeley's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Pacific Institute of Oakland, California. Additional information