Part 1: Looking ahead from 1992
Predicting and preparing for Michigan’s environmental risk
In 1992, Michigan set a new course for environmental regulation and protection.
Two decades after the environmental awakening that saw the EPA’s creation and the first earth day, after the environmental disasters of the the decades previous, Michigan would take a clear-eyed look at the challenges of the coming years. Looking forward, they’d head off environmental harm, lessening the blow before it fell.
This clear-eyed look became Michigan’s Environment and Relative Risk, a report that ranked the most pressing environmental risks facing Michigan.
Some saw it as the return of Michigan as a national environmental leader. Others saw it as another step toward environmental deregulation.
Listen below to my conversations with one of the report’s architects and a long-time environmental advocate. They provide differing views on this 1992 report and help us understand in a new light Michigan’s relationship to its environment.
Sometimes looking back helps you see today in a different light.
In this episode:
Bill Rustem
Bill Rustem spent years in two Michigan governors’ offices and decades in public policy consulting at his company Public Sector Consultants. Public Sector Consultants prepared Michigan’s Environment and Relative Risk.
David Dempsey
David Dempsey spent decades working on Michigan’s environmental issues. He worked for Michigan’s Governor James Blanchard, Michigan Environmental Council, Clean Water Action and, currently, FLOW, a nonprofit working to protect the Great Lakes.
William Cooper
William Cooper was a Michigan State University professor in the Department of Zoology. His work on environmental risk with the US EPA led him to push for a similar project in Michigan, which became Michigan’s Environment and Relative Risk.
