PEOPLE's EPA: WHY WOULD REPORTING ON "FOR PUBLIC GOOD" ACTIONS HELP FUTURE ACTIONS TO ADDRESS PUBLIC PROBLEMS?

Activities for “the-public-good”, are no longer just that, or result of good intentions by longhaired activists with big hearts. Today in what is a post-industrial information society, “not-for-profit” and “for-the-public-good” actions: employ a sizable number of specialized actors and institutions (e.g. technocrats, managers, organizers, and transnational corp.); they command a sizable amount of public resources and political power; and like any young-industry, with its growth has come an increase in corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, political coercion, economic cooption, incompetence, and dangerous errors.
Unlike normal industries where eventually the market would expose performance problems. Here corruption/failures can warrant a positive feedback, as the need for more “public good” work increases. Moreover because here, the “client” and sometimes "victim" is everybody, and thus: no-body specifically. The “product or service” like the “client” are not-clear and often utterly subjective(un-definable), given the inherent complexity of the problems like “climate change” or “encouraging innovation”. Whilst some think this is a small problem, and hope academia and Institutions like the EPA will eventually provide and enforce real standards. UNESCO and others have made it clear that “research as usual” will not even provide a map to help people understand and respond adequatly. Furthermore Pres. Trump in defunding the EPA, has shown the fragility of even the strongest of institutions. The unprecedented Marches for Science in 2017, have put Citizen Action in the center as we move forward.

The People’s EPA is attempt to make clear what is a real “public-good-action” and what is a clear waist and theft of public resources. In short, a crowdsourced way to call bullshit, to report an environmental white-collar crime and better yet to bring the spotlight to quality endeavors.

It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities .
- (Sir Josiah Stamp, speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1934)

Global environmental change is a challenge to traditional disciplinary research practices. The scale, rate, magnitude and significance of changes to the global environment have made it clear that ‘research as usual’ will not suffice to help individuals and groups understand and respond to the multiple, interacting changes that are now occurring..”(Karen O’Brien, UNESCO 2010 World Social Science Report).