IBS Lecture & Conversation: Gary Machlis

Join in person at IBS 155 or via Zoom, email ibs-contact@colorado.edu for the password.
*Light lunch served at 11:45, please RSVP.

Title: Sustainability for the Forgotten: Bringing the oft-forgotten into the core of the sustainability movement.

Abstract: Opening with the extraordinary story of a young French priest working in 1968 amongst impoverished villages of northeast Brazil, struggling to bring sustenance, sustainability, and hope to these disregarded and willfully ignored communities, this book asks a broad and far-reaching question that challenges the contemporary sustainability movement: What about sustainability for the forgotten?

Sustainability for the Forgotten is an incendiary book that confronts the history, policies, and practices of sustainability. With examples that range from the coffeelands of El Salvador to the coal country of American Appalachia, from the streets of Detroit to refugee camps in Greece and the upscale metro centers of the affluent, sustainability is examined with a critical eye and an emphasis on insuring that the forgotten are heard.

Well-researched and passionate, wide-ranging and sharply focused, Sustainability for the Forgotten is unlike any other book on the sustainabil- ity movement. Written with a distinctive voice that is reasoned, unflinch- ing, and often poetic, the book challenges the sustainability movement to follow “a just and necessary path.” The result is a provocative statement on the future of sustainability and a call to action that is ultimately hopeful.

The publication of Sustainability for the Forgotten is an opportunity to engage with faculty, students, and the interested public on the core themes of environmental and social justice, and the role of the sustainability movement in advancing sustainability for the forgotten.

Bio: Gary E. Machlis is a professor of Environmental Sustainability at Clemson University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability and its Board on Environmental Change and Society. Gary has had a fascinating career including as Science Advisor to the Director of the U.S. National Park Service from 2009-2014, during the Obama administration. He has also long been active in resource conservation initiatives and received the Department of the Interior’s Conservation Service Award, one of the highest awards of the Department granted to private citizens. He has written widely on issues of conservation, science policy, and sustainability.