Dr. Simon Nicholson"King of SIS Construction"
1. Think about the environment-themed conversations you had over the Thanksgiving break. What did you learn? Is it best to be provocative, conciliatory, or something else? Which arguments and framings from our readings and discussions resonated best with the people you talked with? What did your conversation teach you about how best to generate constructive change?
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2. Look back at the "Leverage Points" piece that you read for Tuesdays class, and to our class exercise. What does the future look like for the environmental movement? What is it going to take to generate positive, lasting action?
As always, click "comments" to read or join in the discussion!
Quote of the Week:
"Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they're killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? 'Sweetheart, let's make up. Have this deceased squirrel.'"
- The Washington Post
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ReplyDeleteFor starters, over this break, I learned that my father is to blame for all environmental harm. Well, not really, but when talking with him about consumption and reduction, I understood why current environmentalists get caught up in trying to convince others. It is hard to walk away from a conversation accepting that a person is choosing to continue living the way he or she does, especially when they are your relatives and you just made some stellar points. But I am going to latch on the Maniaties idea that we do not need to convince everyone to do something for the environment. We need to focus on those that are on the border or already concerned; that would be my mother and aunt.
ReplyDeleteWhen talking to them I learned it worked to make them feel guilty about certain actions, like not buying locally or leaving things on when they weren't being used and then providing a way to correct it, which they jumped at. My aunt definitely understood the point of view of the story of stuff, as did my mother considering they are related to an excess consumer and they both agreed there needs to be a change within the system, so that people like my father have no choice but to limit their in take. Or if not limit their in take, use products that are safer for the environment either along the biological nutrient or technological nutrient lines.
Also another point discussed was McKibbens idea of one child families. My aunt has no children, but her and my mother grew up in large families and so I estimated the cost of their five sibling household if it existed today in monetary value of the idea that it takes 250,000 dollars to raise a kid and then college (38,000/yr), which put them over TWO million dollars. And that isn't even considering the external costs of food or traveling. And originally I thought my mom would not concede to the idea of one child families, because her background is from a big family and we have a lot of cousins,etc., but surprisingly she said putting it into data she can see and the impact it makes she would understand and practice the idea of one child, basically giving me the okay to only give her one grandchild, as long as she gets one. I also, tried to demonstrate so examples of changes she could make around the home, like with motion sensors or something by telling her our neighbor has them. You know trying to use that idea of friendly competition, but with my mother she also said to me as a child, "I don"t care what __ has, we aren't them." Nonetheless, my mother is a unique person and so I think if that didn't work on her it would most definitely work on other people. I know that over the summer I worked as a canvasser for a bit and I always used that to get people to join the organization or give.
When reflecting back on my conversation I think the best way to generate constructive change, is to put the numbers in people's face, so that they ask for change. Maybe with evening news show, right after the update on the stocks, put up some numbers about how much energy that home city generated that day and compare it to something known. Just like that electric company that sends a sad face and a smiley face to let you know how you are doing in comparison to your neighbor, we have to constantly display the impact we are having and be open with the data because then people feel guilty and do not take it as some distant idea, but instead a danger they are creating for themselves and which they can prevent.
And that picture is priceless.
Wow. What an awesome, unexpected picture to see when I sign onto the blogging site! I'm going to talk about the what I learned through the discussions I had at thanksgiving. When I started this class, I thought that the only thing that mattered with environmental politics was the actual policies that result. However, there are certainly other subtleties that at first seem like minor and unimportant elements of environmental politics, but in actuality are very influential in determining the entire environmental debate.
ReplyDeleteThe one that I have realized to be the biggest impediment to effective environmental policymaking and debate is the dichotomous discourse between republican/conservatives and democrat/liberals. Coming from a relatively conservative family, when I asked them their opinions towards the environmental debate, they reacted in a way that we have discussed in class. They actually never even answered my question, but were just more amused by the fact that I had moved to DC and became "one of those G** Damn liberals!" Although their response and the brief discussion afterward about my "becoming a liberal" was harmless and playful banter, it spoke volumes about the number one obstacle (I think) preventing effective policy form being made. Political affiliations have prevented voters and politicians from being able to critically think about the environmental problem and the relevant costs and benefits of potential policies. One cannot be a republican if he supports drastic measures to reverse environmental degradation. One cannot be a democrat if he thinks that an environmental policy would be too burdensome on taxpayers or corporations. The discourse that politicians use to discuss environmental issues establishes and perpetuates the dialogue and overarching statements associated with individual political parties. Any hope of saving the environment must come from the collaboration of different political parties and their ability to speak honestly, frankly, and less politically about the issue.
THIS IS FROM FRANZISKA ECONOMY A.K.A FRANZ
ReplyDeleteOver Thanksgiving, I had a conversation about environmental issues with my dad. He is a really big conservative and although he acknowledges that global warming might be real, but he remains unconvinced that it is due to anything that humans are doing to the planet – he thinks it is part of the natural cycles of the planet. Something I learned was that even though he holds this view, he still thinks that pollution and other such acts of environmental degradation are bad and should be reduced, even if they don’t contribute to global warming.
One thing I found really frustrating, however, was that I was having this conversation with my dad in our living room at home, so the rest of my family was all around. Normally, this would not be a bad thing, but they are all pretty liberal minded and completely disagree with my dad on many different issues. Because they were around and heard us having this conversation, they or course had to come over and put in their two cents. Before long, they had completely politicised the issue and eventually the conversation drifted away from the environment and toward other political issues. While frustrating because this cut our conversation short, I thought it was interesting to see this happening right before my eyes because this is something I think frequently happens in law and policy making forums – the issue becomes something political so no consensus can be reached and eventually other issues come up and take precedence.
In terms of affecting change, I learned first hand what Mike Maniates was talking about – that we need to take advantage of people that fall in the middle of the spectrum in terms of being concerned about the environment, because even though these people might not be on board with the entire environmental movement, they might still care about the environment to be willing to make changes.
FRANZISKA ECONOMY
Hmm. I'm not sure that a hardhat is a good look for me. I'm enjoying your posts, though ...
ReplyDeleteOver the break I had a number of discussions with my mom and stepdad. Before this class I had never questioned my parent's lifestyle or considered their frugality a real step at an environmentally friendly lifestyle. But in fact, they live a pretty green life. Well more accurately they are doing all those "individual" actions that Maniates kind of debunked as truly useful in the long run. Regardless I'm still impressed with their measures. For instance: we have a large garden all summer that they parent more than me. My mom makes preserves and freezes all the leftovers and they eat it all winter long. My mom hates shopping, always has but we can't grow all our food so when she must she shops at a nearby Coop where 98% of the food is organic and or local. She has a pretty impressive compost going that feeds the garden. All our light bulbs are the compact florescent variety, we don't own a dryer, and we only mow 1/4 of our small lawn in the summer and let the rest run wild. We do have a gas heater, VT gets damn cold, but it never goes past 65 so when I visit I always have at least two sweaters on. Mom has a hybrid, etc etc so as you can see they're doing all those little steps and they feel good about it. When I talked about this class to them and suggested how doing the small individual steps weren't really a solution they got a little defensive and said something to the effect of "it's better than doing nothing, and it's not really up to us aside from electing representatives who will address the issue on a larger scale". They have a point. They both work full time, have kids, family, social activities to engage in and they do what they can, what's been offered to them to do. Unless they took time out of their other pursuits and lobbied the control isn't within their grasp. We need stronger leaders to take this cause seriously. Maniates emphasized how winning over everyone to the cause wasn't necessary; we already have a significant number of people concerned. If the issue were to be taken more seriously at the governmental level bigger changes could occur. In addition to government, if businesses also took the issue more seriously climate change initiatives could really make some headway. We need bigger systematic changes as the Cradle-to-Cradle guys suggest.
ReplyDeleteAs I did not see my family over Thanksgiving break, I had a conversation with my friend Eftychias instead. "Efty", as he is called (at least among those of us who don't speak Greek), is an ardent republican and vehemently opposes climate change, which he considers nothing but a "liberal scare tactic." Needless to say, it was an interesting conversation as our views on this issue are almost polar opposites.
ReplyDeleteI spent almost half an hour listening to Efty rant about climate change, which included everything from Al Gore to the 2008 Presidential Election. Fortunately, the scandal involving the scientists who published in Nature had not happened yet (or at least he had not heard about it), otherwise he would surely have gone on longer about that as well. I think Efty was surprised that I listened so attentively to his entire rant without interrupting or arguing, as he is used to the "tree hugging hippies", as he so eloquently referred to environmentalists, being combative.
There were a few distinct things I noticed about his argument. First, he always referred to the issue as some permutation of "man-made global warming." He did not seem to realize that global climate change refers to shifts in climate patterns that can result in cooling as well. This seems to be a hallmark of the politicization of the issue. "Global warming" is the political term, while "global climate change" seems to be for those who understand the science. Efty was clearly speaking only from a political point of view. Second, he always used the word "manmade", inferring that it is possible for the climate to be changing, but if so it is only the result of a natural cycle.
After he finished, I pointed out the disparity in language, and of course argued that the IPCC consists of some of the world's top scientists with no political agenda. He could not seem to believe that any scientific claim could be apolitical, which worried me. I then asked about evidence of climate change, such as climate refugees from the island of Tuvalu and countries such as New Zealand recently changing their immigration laws to accommodate these "climate refugees." Efty has no response, other than claiming I was again using a scare tactic.
I then presented my favorite argument from the class, Bill McDonough's Cradle to Cradle philosophy and the idea that waste equals food. This interested Efty a lot more, and he then began to lecture me about free-market economics. We eventually came to consensus that if the Cradle to Cradle economy could be implemented using free-market ideas (and we both agreed this was possible), that it was a good idea. He made the point, however, that this had nothing to do with climate change and only with intelligent economics and resource depletion.
What I took away from this conversation was, most importantly, that you cannot merely scream at people to get your point across. This seemed to be what Efty expected, and because I was able to listen to his argument we were able to finally agree on something. What worries me the most is that many are not able to separate the science and politics of this issue, which will impede progress. Also, that even those opposed to climate change can still be receptive to other environmental issues if they are framed through a lens with which they relate. Some elements of our conversation showed me that constructive change is entirely possible, while others showed that a real paradigm shift in our thinking will be necessary to implement needed change.
Overall, this was a great assignment and I look forward to holding more such conversations when I encounter people who disagree with mainstream climate change thought.
quotes:
ReplyDelete1. "The only way to fix a system that is laid out wrong is to rebuild it."- Meadows
2. "Don't let any job you take get in the way of the work you need to do."- Professor Simon Nicholson