Because a few have asked what it means, I think I figured it all out:
“I study intertemporal choice with respect to environmental decisions.”- He studies how the change of time correlates with changes in environmental decisionmaking (i.e. changes the general view on the environment and what needs to be done to fix whatever environmental problems may be seen)
“I wish to develop socially based interventions to help moderate excessive discounting.”— I’m pretty sure there is a word missing between moderate and excessive but this seems to me to be that he tries to find ways to start social movements (i.e. community organizing) to help speed up social recognition of what he sees as environmental problems; i.e. use community organizing to get people to not “discount” the “severity” of environmental problems.
“I am also especially interested in the organizing of research information for public use, and open access use of ideas for problem solving.”- creat free technologically based systems to provide information about the environment to individuals and what they can do to save any ills he sees in the environment.
In other words:
1. Find ways to pretend that those who don’t agree with his views are dumb/stuck in the past/ignorant
2. Find ways to start community organizing people behind his ideas
3. Give free resources to the organized people
I think you're spot-on. But I don't believe there is a word missing between "moderate" and "excessive." I think he's using "moderate" to mean "temper." In other words, change people's behavior with regards to dismissal of the "Green Apocolypse." I think he must have been stoned during the entire semester of "Syntax 101."