Environmental Psychology: Individual change

How effective is change on an individual level as far as addressing climate change? This is a topic that has come up a lot in my course so far that I'd like to explore. Oftentimes sources of information on climate change include sections on "what you can do" and include many suggestions for changes that you can make to your daily life to improve your carbon footprint. I also remember going to the "Inconvenient Truth" movie awhile back and the last part the movie lists a lot of ideas for things to change such as buying fluorescent light bulbs. I think there were many other wider-reaching ideas too, I just remember that there was a long list of possible things you could do and some of them were individual behavior changes. I also fully admit that I have been one to embrace individual changes. Maybe its just because I'm always attracted to self-improvement projects and also enjoy the "do-it-yourself" nature (hence, this blog) of some of these changes. I find it empowering to find ways that I can make small changes in my lifestyle and I am also attracted to the idea of exercising power through consumer choices. Another side to this is that when I'm feeling concerned about the environment (which is a lot of the time these days), I appreciate that there are simple tasks that I can do, that I have control over, that can make me feel somewhat better. Plus, admittedly, these changes are much easier to undertake then trying to enact changes on a more large scale level.

However, as I'm learning more about human behavior and climate change, I'm realizing that focusing on individual level changes is short-sighted. The reality is that without an organized approach supported by some over-arching framework or reinforcement, individual level changes are not going to be enough. Of course part of this is that some people refuse to make any changes, particularly people who do not believe in climate change, but another part of it is that even if you do want to live a "greener" existence, this can be an incredible up-hill battle when everything around you is set-up for you to live in an unsustainable manner. And, according to what I've learned in class, whining to people to change their lifestyle is probably more likely to make them not want to talk to you anymore, rather than make changes (which is a hard pill for me to swallow, given that I'm prone to want to do this). Basically, when all the momentum is for people to maintain their current lifestyle, some people will go against the current, but greater incentive is needed to create a large scale lifestyle change. For example, creating economic incentive for curbing energy use is likely to be more effective than a public service message telling people to care about the environment and take shorter showers.

Another piece of this is that some "green" products and lifestyle changes are out of reach for some people. Products that have less chemicals and may be safer are usually more expensive. It also takes time and resources to research products and make lifestyle changes. This means that richer people have the luxury of buying products that might be safer, whereas people with less means bare more of the burden (and this goes for all sorts of environmental pollutants). Also, people with more means may feel somewhat superior for their green lifestyle when in reality, they probably have a much larger carbon footprint than people with less money. They are more likely to have a large home with less people living in it and more appliances and cars. In addition, focusing on making change through buying can be counterproductive and lead to buying more stuff just to try new "green" products. So feeling too comfortable just because of personal lifestyle changes can be dangerous. This is not to say that making these changes or trying to improve one's carbon footprint is inherently bad or not helpful. I think that it falls on those who do have the means to create change to do so. However, it is also important to consider the effects of environmental justice and include other efforts such as working through government or other organizations to bring about changes. Even the most saintly person can indulge in a long hot shower or a nice Sunday joy ride; right now, its too hard for us to police our own behavior because these tempting choices have no immediate negative consequences. All we see is positive reinforcement. We need changes that make the greener lifestyle the more tempting, reinforcing one and that's not something we can do on an individual level.

One last piece to consider is the role that individual changes may have in fostering empowerment and a sense of control. I don't think these qualities should be over-looked as they could be important for empowering people to make the jump from individual changes to larger scale efforts. Also, I think a part of becoming more aware of the situation with climate change is realizing how our daily behaviors have far-reaching effects. Once you are aware of this, it would seem discordant to not make changes that try to minimize the negative ramifications. In conclusion, my hope is that individual changes can be the first step at becoming more environmentally conscious, but they can't be the only step that we take if we want to make meaningful changes.

Environmental Psychology: Separation of people and nature

Or the myth of the separation between people and nature, rather. According to Koger and Winter (2010) our culture (Western culture, that is) tends to be one that embraces the idea of the duality between people and nature. Interestingly enough, this is not so in other cultures, such as Native American culture. Our current collective mind-frame when it comes to viewing nature or "the environment" as this totally separate entity can be traced back to writings by philosophers who encouraged the use of natural resources to make progress (Koger & Winter, 2010). The Bible may have even influenced this way of thinking by way of passages that proclaim that man has dominion over nature (Koger & Winter, 2010). Importantly, it is thought that this passage has been misinterpreted to mean that nature is here for human benefit, rather than that we are supposed to be responsible stewards of the environment (which may have been the original intention of the passage)... Oops! I guess we got that one wrong!

Another idea that stems out of the concept that nature is separate from humans is the idea that nature exists solely to meet human needs. And I can see how this would seem to be the case, especially after the discovery of fossil fuels; I mean, how convenient is that, a rich, efficient energy source hiding in "our" ground and mountains. I can see how that would seem to be put their for our purposes. Another human characterization of nature that can't be ignored is that nature is thought of as female or a woman (Mother nature) (as noted by Koger & Winter, 2010). Given mankind's track record in treatment of women this can't be a good sign. And once you start to think about it, the analogies are endless. Take what you want, discard the rest; use; abuse; disrespect. The things that we say about "Mother nature" often mirror things we say about the treatment of women.

And where has this conceptualization of nature gotten us? We've behaved exactly in accordance with this viewpoint, taking everything we want without a second thought to the consequences. We've taken for granted that nature is an endless bounty that will always be there is give us what we want. That is why this view of nature is so dangerous. It's completely wrong.

It's interesting the way we talk about the "environment" these days. It makes it sound like this completely separate thing that exists out in some state park and maybe we would care about it more if we had the time or we didn't have bigger problems such as the economy. And it's only something that granola-hippie types get upset over. But when you really think about it, this word doesn't even really make sense because it doesn't distinguish between anything. Everything is the environment. We are all the environment and everything around us and everything we have made is the environment. I think when we talk about "environmental" problems in this way, given that we already have the duality mindframe, it allows people to attach these problems to an outside disconnected entity. Oh, that's just a problem for the environment, and I'm not a part of the environment so that doesn't matter for me. I don't how else to talk about these things, what label would be better, but I think the way we are talking about it now is making it too easy for people to disengage. Perhaps we just need to call them "problems" and refer to the "environment" as the earth or people. I think when people hear "environmental problems" they associate it with a certain type of person that would care about that and if they don't identify, they say "that doesn't relate to me."

Unfortunately, we live in a very inter-connected world with finite resource in which everything affects everything. Once something enters the "environment," it can be very good at persisting. And because we are forever tied to the water we drink and the air we breath (where do those come from again? Oh, right.. nature), it's impossible to escape the pesticides we spray or the plastics we make. These chemicals exist inside each and everyone one of our bodies now, making a fool out of our idea that we are separate from nature.

Environmental Psychology: Denial

This semester I am lucky enough to be the teaching assistant for Environmental Psychology, a class I would have wanted to take anyway, were I an undergrad. I plan to pass on some of the things I learn, because I think they are very valuable in understanding human behavior towards the environment.

One of the first topics we covered in class was defense mechanisms. Though many of Freud's theories are no longer accepted in modern psychology, his conception of defense mechanisms remains relevant and particularly useful in conceptualizing attitudes towards the environment. According to the theory of defense mechanisms, these are strategies that we all employ when we want to be able to simultaneously acknowledge reality while reducing our anxiety.

Not surprisingly, the most relevant defense mechanism to environmental issues is denial. Because our situation is so frightening, it's too troubling to acknowledge, so we deny that the problem even exists. Since the implications of the problems are so devastating, the strength of our denial tends to be quite powerful. And it makes sense; if all of this could somehow just not be true, I think we would all want to live in that world.

In thinking about denial, I realized that even though I believe in climate change and fully acknowledge the severity of our situation, I still like to enter denial-land sometimes. I think it happens in subtle ways; I start to let the comfort of denial distance me from the anxiety of thinking about the state of the environment. Maybe its just too anxiety-provoking to fully acknowledge it at all times and incorporate it into our perspectives in day to day life.

Another thing that makes denial easier is that most of the people around us seem to be in denial as well. If we really are on the brink of collapse, shouldn't all the people around us be in a state of panic? But they're not; they are walking around, going about their daily lives, and worrying not about environmental problems, but interpersonal problems. I think we take our cues from the people around us to interpret what we should and should not be afraid of, and if everyone seems to be fine, then everything is fine, right?

I think its difficult to know how to reconcile what we know about our planet's precarious state with our daily lives. We can all make small changes in our behavior or join a "green" organization, but none of it seems proportional to the size or urgency of the problem. I think if there were some concrete thing we could all do together to "fight" global warming, maybe get together and beat some styrofoam cups with a bat, we would all do it. And I think we would feel much more productive.

In a way, denial is a neat trick that we play for ourselves, to protect our egos or reduce our anxiety. But here's the thing about denial- denying something doesn't make it any less true. Climate change doesn't care if we believe in it or not. And living in a state of denial can be adaptive in the short-term for some problems, but in this situation, it could be our downfall.