Michael Long, Professor, Department of Sociology; and Director, Center for Insecurity and Inequality Research 

"Finding Socially Sustainable Solutions for a Resilient Oklahoma Environment"

Oklahoma faces a number of environmental challenges related to gradual changes in the climate; these include increasing wildfires, water quality and quantity concerns, increases in severe weather and weather whiplash (rapid weather changes). Science-based solutions to many of these concerns have already been developed or are well within reach. However, for these solutions to be adopted in Oklahoma, they need to be “socially sustainable.” In other words, the solutions must be ones that Oklahoma policy-makers and citizens are willing to adopt (and pay for!). An on-going statewide project, funded by the National Science Foundation, has been tackling this very issue for the past four years and counting. The project not only resources researchers to develop and refine solutions to these problems, but also brings together social scientists to regularly gauge the views of Oklahoma’s policy-makers, opinion-leaders and citizens-at-large to assess which of these solutions are acceptable...and therefore sustainable. This edition of OSU Research on Tap will discuss how this grand experiment has unfolded over the last several years and highlight the ways that social scientists are bridging the gap between the scientifically possible and the socially viable.