EPA: May is Sustainability Month

In what feels like an extension of Earth Day (Month), the Environmental Protection Agency has declared May to be Sustainability Month. EPA scientists and administrators will engage the public through in-person events and online communication, all aimed at teaching people how to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Some of the included events/bloggy goodness are a “Science of Sustainability” Flickr project, Twittering the May 19 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and blogging by EPA scientist Alan Hecht, among other things. Acting assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development Lek Kadeli said in a press release, “Sustainability Month is a great opportunity for EPA scientists to share their knowledge and commitment on how to better conserve and reuse valuable natural resources with the public, and to hear from citizens their ideas for a sustainable future.”

COPUS Year of Science

Sustainability Month is a part of the Year of Science 2009, created by the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science. The “12 month celebration of how science works, why science matters, and who scientists are” falls under the category of “disappointingly necessary” to me, as we have spent so much of the last eight years trying to dismantle science into pure ideological pieces.

Of course, President Obama has very clearly indicated a mandate to separate science from politics and ideology, and has already begun setting that course with a number of welcome measures; these included his move to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, as well as a reversal of a Bush midnight regulation that attempted to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. I wish that all years could be a “Year of Science,” but the idea is welcome nonetheless. One of the year-long event’s stated goals is to “create new forums for communication and to develop new opportunities for engaging the public with science.” Well, consider me engaged.

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