Greenversations

Marcus Peacock is EPA’s Deputy Administrator.

My mother was born two weeks before Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. She has witnessed amazing changes in her life: the advent of air transportation, the proliferation of television, the near eradication of scourges like small pox and polio, men walking on the moon, the internet. Yet when I asked her how she felt about these changes, I did not get the response I expected. She shrugged. “Yes, things have improved a lot.” That was it.

Deep in middle age, I now understand that answer. The time scale our brains work with is easily swamped by the broader march of technology. After a dash of initial wonder, we just assimilate advances and move on. A few decades ago, every Christmas Day my family would crowd around a phone in our house and have hurried static-filled ‘long distance’ conversations with relatives in other lands. Two weeks ago one of my kids got a call from a friend. My daughter was walking in the woods. Her friend was sitting in a cafe in Florence, Italy. This does not amaze them. It no longer amazes me. In fact, I can’t really remember how we got to this place. It just happened.

Today the Administrator signed a proposed rule modifying how EPA determines the Air Quality Index for fine particle pollution. As proposals go, it is not terribly notable. And yet . . . this will be the first proposed rule issued by a federal agency that will allow the public to comment on the rule using a blog. The blog will be open from March 2 to March 11 which corresponds to public hearings on the proposal. Stay tuned to Greenversations for more information on how to participate. Mark it as a small step on the way to what I believe will be a dramatic change in the way the federal government crafts rules and regulations. A small step, but one that, with others, will accumulate to the point where the government will be able to produce better quality rules much more quickly than in the past.

We live in the Information Age. It is sweeping over us like advancing waves on a beach. Federal agencies can either seize the tools that are coming from this change or just let the tide pick us up and deposit us in a new place. EPA is choosing to seize the day. We are not doing this because we want to amaze people with whiz-bang Web 2.0 technology. We do this because when someone in the future is asked about the changes they have seen in the environment, they will just shrug their shoulders and say, “Yes, things have improved a lot.”

Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.

Happy New Year! I will drive more efficiently. I will start a compost pile. I will read pesticide labels. I will …

Share what YOU will do in the coming year to help protect the environment.

What are your New Year’s resolutions to help protect the environment in 2009?

About the author: Yolanda DeLilly, an Information Technology Specialist, joined EPA in 1988 and is currently working in the Office of Web Communications.

Back in August of this year I had the privilege of having lunch with Jeffrey Levy, Director of the Office of Web Communications, to discuss me doing a short assignment in his office to design a mobile website for EPA.

My first day, September 9, was a hectic one considering it was the launch of EPA’s new and improved homepage, in which I got pulled in to do some QAQC. In spite of that I still managed to do some research to see if there were any federal government mobile websites already out there in cyber land. I found that there are not a lot of federal government agencies with mobile sites. This made getting started a little difficult.

I did manage to find that usa.gov has a link to its mobile website mobile.usa.gov. This site has an A-Z index of all available state and federal agencies with mobile websites. Then I had an ah-haa moment.

Once I began thinking about what information would be useful on an EPA mobile website I began to build it. To my surprise it was not that difficult to build the site using my web editor. The most difficult part of the building the site was thinking about the beneficial important information.

The really cool thing about creating this mobile site was not only making EPA more visible to people on the go but also knowing that I was creating a site that will go down in history as the first mobile site for EPA.

Here is what you will find on EPA’s mobile site:

• How to contact EPA
• Find information by ZIP code
• EPA news releases
• Greenversations blog, including the question of the week, and
• Links to other government mobile websites.

I was able to test the site on a Blackberry and an iPhone and it looks great on both. It would be helpful to hear feedback from all mobile device users on:

• What you think about the site, and
• What can we do to improve it.

About the author: Jeffrey Levy joined EPA in 1993 to help protect the ozone layer. He is now the National Web Content Manager.

Two weeks ago I wrote that we’d hit 300 people following us on Twitter. I invited them to mention us, to see whether our follower count would jump, and promised a follow-up.

Only one person did tweet us, as far as I could find on Twitter search. Thanks, wingy22!

Yet in the past two weeks, we’ve picked up another 100 followers. Six months from 0-300, two weeks from 300-400. Errr … 401 … 402 … umm … wait a sec … 403 … make that 408. Anyway, @wormlady was #400. I put her name in the title because that’s about all that actually shows up in Twitter’s 140-character posts, so I’m hoping she’ll notice her name the next time she logs in.

Anyway, the sudden jump amazes me. Was it as simple as noting we’re on Twitter in a post, as opposed to just having the link on the right?

Let’s try the same thing on Facebook and MySpace. We’re not doing much there yet, but we have big plans, and knowing there’s interest helps. If you want to know when we do get going, friend us on Facebook and MySpace.

How to engage the most people isn’t an idle question. The first time, for example, that we take comments on a regulation via social media, we’ll want to get the biggest bang for the least effort (efficient use of your tax dollars, doncha know).

What do you suggest?

About the author: Larry Teller joined EPA’s Philadelphia office in its early months and has worked in environmental assessment, state and congressional liaison, enforcement, and communications. His 28 years with the U.S. Air Force, most as a reservist, give him a different look at government service.

I think you’ll understand why, as a Jewish father, my thoughts late last month were a bit more lofty, maybe more cosmologic, than usual: After two weeks of religious holidays that commemorated the birth of our planet and our purpose on earth, my family celebrated my daughter Miriam’s bat mitzvah, when she became responsible as an adult to follow life’s rules. Coincidentally and adding to what distracted me that week, which portion of the Torah did Miriam read from? The first portion of the first book (commonly known as Genesis), both called Bereisheet, describing creation of the heavens and earth, the flora and animals, and our traditional early generations.

You don’t have to be an environmentalist, and certainly not a believer, to appreciate how the first words of Miriam’s reading (“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) — with its endless, hopeful possibilities — contrast with the last (“The Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth, and his heart was saddened.”) Colorful, provocative, judgmental language, yes?, and what’s more human and easier to understand than receiving a nurturing, pristine garden of eden and promptly squandering it?

What a profoundly disappointing shame, just pages after “In the beginning….”! And what an apt metaphor for what we face today, but with our greatly enhanced tools for assessing, preventing and countering what we’ve done to Mother Nature! Responding to this challenge is what crosses my mind when friends and colleagues (lately, more frequently—is it the thinner, grayer hair?) ask if I’m getting ready to retire from EPA (no, not even close). Thinking of our stewardship of earth and people – Tikun Olam, our mandate to improve the world – doesn’t just sustain my devotion to EPA’s mission. It’s also a big part of why I was all verklempt (choked up—remember SNL’s Linda Richman?) while Miriam embodied the future as she invoked our origins three weeks ago.

About the author: Jeffrey Levy joined EPA in 1993 to help protect the ozone layer. He is now the National Web Content Manager.

Ever notice that link on the right of our blog pages that says “Follow us on Twitter?” Twitter.com lets people get short, real-time updates from other people who are also on Twitter (it’s called “microblogging,” and there are other sites besides Twitter). Most of it is friends chatting or colleagues sharing tips. And that seems to be the best possible use for microblogging.

But another way to use it is to post your headlines. It’s like RSS plus: no feed reader needed and you get everyone’s feeds in one window.

Our friends at usa.gov put post titles from their blog, GovGab. on Twitter a few months ago using their RSS feed. It took them only a few minutes to set up, and then it ran by itself. That seemed like an easy way to check out this system, and it’s free, so Greenversations has been on Twitter ever since. And boy, were we surprised at what happened.

With no advertising, 25 people started following us, making us wonder what would happen if we made it easier. So we added the link on the right. On Wed., the 300th Twitterer started following us: @thegreenscene. And a few more pile on each day. With that success, we decided to try our news release headlines on Twitter, too.

This is a great example of using a Web 2.0 tool to put information where the people are, instead of making them come to us (speaking of which, have you seen our Question of the Week widget?). As of today, most of our blog’s traffic is people reading on this site. But between Twitter and our RSS feed, I think that will change.

Changing gears a bit, I’d like your help if you’re a Twitterer. You all have people following you, and some of you have hundreds or even thousands. Let’s try an experiment, to see whether people who already follow us influence people following them. If you’d like to help:

1. Please tweet us (post on Twitter). It could be as simple as “Check out EPA’s blog on Twitter: @greenversations” or “EPA’s tweeting its news releases: @usepanews”
2. Leave a comment here introducing yourself.

And whether you’re on Twitter or not, tell us how you use Web 2.0 to stay in touch with what’s going on with EPA, this blog, and environmental protection in general.

I’ll be checking our numbers and will report back with what happens.

Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.

Here on the blog team, we try to come up with Questions Of The Week that are relevant and engage reader interest. But we also want the questions to be balanced and avoid leading the reader to any particular conclusion. What question would you ask?

If you could ask the public one question about the environment, what would it be?

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En español: Cada semana hacemos una pregunta relacionada al medio ambiente. Por favor comparta con nosotros sus pensamientos y comentarios. Siéntase en libertad de responder a comentarios anteriores o plantear nuevas ideas. Preguntas previas.

Aquí en el equipo del blog, tratamos de elaborar Preguntas de la Semana que sean relevantes y generen el interés del público. Sin embargo, también queremos que las preguntas sean equilibradas y eviten encauzar al lector a una conclusión en particular. ¿Cuál pregunta haría?

¿Si pudiera plantear al público una pregunta sobre el medio ambiente, cuál sería?

About the author: Kelly Leovic has worked at EPA for 21 years and manages EPA’s Environmental and Community Outreach Program in Research Triangle Park, NC. She is also EPA’s Federal Women’s Program Manager in Research Triangle Park. On occasion, she can be seen in EPA’s Fitness Center - just another one of EPA’s family-friendly options.

I’m sitting in my kitchen doing email and glance up from the laptop, noticing a good-sized cobweb between two pottery pieces on an upper shelf. I’m working at home this morning as part of EPA’s telecommuting or flexiplace program.

Over 80% of employees at EPA in Research Triangle Park use flexiplace or other family-friendly work options such as flexible work hours, part-time employment, or a compressed work schedule (working 9 hour days, with 1 day off every other week). These flexible work options make work more enjoyable because they allow employees to balance work and personal lives. For me, that would be three kids who span elementary, middle, and high school.

Employees aren’t the only ones who have taken notice of EPA’s family-friendly “environment.” This is the 4th year that our EPA campus has been named to the NC Family Friendly Top 40 which is sponsored by Carolina Parent Magazine. We celebrated on September 17 at a breakfast which honored awardees. Check out the picture…our group of eight even had two EPA guys join us, so you can see that workplace flexibility and family friendly isn’t just a female thing.

In addition to each other’s company, we also enjoyed the keynote speaker, Pamela Stone, who shared data and insights from her research on why well-educated women often opt out of the workforce. In summary, most of the women in her study who “opted out” after having children did so not because of “family” but because their employers didn’t offer them the opportunity to balance their work with their family. I feel fortunate to work at an Agency that does offer a gourmet “menu” of flexibility options as well as for a supervisor who walks the talk with regard to supporting employee flexibility. As a result, I love my job and work hard at it because I love it.

So, what do I do now? Jump out of my seat and get the extended handle duster or stay at my computer and type this Blog? Reflecting on how the web could look by the end of October (say the 31st) and considering what an environmentally-friendly decoration a natural spider web would be, I stay seated and appreciate that I am able to telecommute.

About the author: Larry Teller joined EPA’s Philadelphia office in its early months and has worked in environmental assessment, state and congressional liaison, enforcement, and communications. His 28 years with the U.S. Air Force, most as a reservist, give him a different look at government service.

With decades of EPA service under my belt, I’ve been a part of, and sometimes led, dozens of workgroups aimed at improving how EPA does business. Almost all bore fruit—some with longer shelf-life than others—and it’s easy for me to say that EPA is a good place to raise and lend a hand.

Our initial experience this summer producing the Mid-Atlantic region’s series of podcasts shows what a talented group can do, from scratch and on a shoestring budget. We carefully chose the name “Environment Matters” for our podcast series, knowing that “matters” is both a noun and a verb: we’re providing diverse information about the environment and, we hope in an interesting way, convincing people that what they do everyday makes a difference.

What’s a podcast? Webcontent.gov says it’s “a way of publishing MP3 audio files on the web so they can be downloaded onto computers or portable listening devices, such as iPods …. ” (Please note that they can be video, too.) A best practice to grow an audience is to publish the podcasts regularly. We started on July 25 about saving gasoline, followed on successive Fridays with a unique environmental program for students, water quality monitoring at beaches, a baseball stadium built on a brownfields site, and back-to-school advice for the green-minded. We expect to post two or three a month, and so far there’s been no shortage of topic ideas (and if there’s a little healthy competition among our environmental programs to feature their topics, good).

Back to the collaboration that’s made our quick learning possible. I know, there’s an element of show biz that must be at work here. But “Star Wars” this ain’t, so that intriguing factor can’t explain the enthusiasm and creativity that a dozen people have brought to this environmental education project. The jobs and roles of our podcast team reveal the skills needed to launch “Environment Matters”: senior management for the go-ahead and (surprisingly modest) budget; managers in public affairs and IT to energize and select people for each podcast; communications experts to write scripts, host the podcasts, and coach subject expert speakers; web developers to design and feed our multimedia website; transcribers who make the content accessible to deaf people; and one aspiring movie director with an IT day job; he and his boss are audio editing mavens. (You don’t know your colleagues’ hidden talents until you ask.) And help from our headquarters gave us some needed encouragement. Most of us have known each other for years, but our podcasting has quickly boosted our teamness. Do I sound a bit gushy, after all these years?

Two requests of you: ideas for making better podcasts, and topics you’d like us to cover.

About the author: Marcus Peacock is the Deputy Administrator of EPA.

In 1940 Nazi Germany was consuming Europe. The United States was doing its best to stay neutral. In fact, it was illegal for a US citizen to join a warring power’s military or even ‘hire someone for the purpose of traveling outside the United States to enlist in a foreign country’s military.’ The penalty for doing so was a $10,000 fine and five-year jail sentence.

Despite this, dozens and dozens of US citizens tried to leave the country and join the fight against the Nazis. They included Billy Fiske, who a few years before, at age 16, was the youngest American to ever win an Olympic gold medal. They included a budding poet, John Magee, Jr., who gave up a full scholarship to Yale to fly for the Royal Air Force (see poem below).

And then there was Art Donahue. Art grew up on a farm in Minnesota and at age 19 became the youngest qualified commercial pilot in the state. War broke out when he was 27. The bumper corn crop that year didn’t obscure his view of what was going on. He said, “I felt that this was America’s war as much as England’s and France’s, because America was part of the world which Hitler and his minions were so plainly out to conquer.” In July of 1940 Art wangled his way to London believing it was his mission to defeat what he called barbarism. He saw first hand the courage and composure of the English people. “To fight side by side with these people would be the greatest of privileges,” he said.

Over the next two years Donahue fought all over the world. He flew in England, the Mediterranean, and Singapore. He was shot down twice and horribly burned. Yet he returned to fight again. On September 11, 1942 he went out on a mission over Ostend, and didn’t return. His body was never recovered.

High Flight
by John Magee, Jr
killed December 11, 1941

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds…and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space…
…put out my hand, and touched the face of God.