[ponygirl]

“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 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."

[wrhssaxensemble]

Ah, it does make more sense when you take the term “moderate” in that manner... it was the use of “help moderate” followed by “excessive” that I think threw me off... It probably should read something like “My work seeks to develop socially based interventions to assist in the moderation of excessive discounting” but I guess less clarity in his writing makes it easier for him to hide his nefarious motives...