Bozeman Magazine

Environmental sustainability expert Gary Machlis will speak at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies’ Hager Auditorium on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. Machlis is a professor of environmental sustainability at Clemson University and author of the recent book “Sustainability for the Forgotten.” The event is free and open to the public.

The event is sponsored by MSU’s Institute on Ecosystems, Department of History and Philosophy, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, and the Department of Earth Sciences.

“Machlis postulates that the drive for sustainability has lost its moral compass, co-opted by corporatist values and consumerism,” writes Andrea Berardi in her review published at Science.org. “With vivid and contemporary examples from all over the world, the book describes how the most marginalized and vulnerable in society are repeatedly forgotten in the narratives and strategies of decision-makers.”

Machlis holds a doctorate in human ecology from Yale University. According to his faculty webpage, he was science adviser to the director of the U.S. National Park Service from 2009 to 2014. During that time, he also co-led the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Strategic Sciences Group, which conducted scientific assessments during major environmental crises such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Sandy.

According to the book’s publisher, University of Utah Press, Machlis’ book “interrogates the usefulness of current sustainability approaches for the poorest of the poor, the chronic underclass, victims of natural disasters, refugees, the oppressed, and asks, how can we do better?”