Contemporary environmental public health practitioners in the United States are educated on the premise that their major professional functions are rooted in assessment, assurance, and policy development. While fragmented approaches to this remain true, society has entered the Anthropocene era in which the health, safety and economic prosperity of the United States will increasingly benefit from uniform efforts rooted in motivating and activating civil society to reduce risk at the local level. The profession should consider reinventing itself to address the threats of our era.