Archive for the ‘environmentalism’ Category
| Newer Entries »Does environmental literature beget environmental literacy and behavior?
Monday, October 26th, 2009
In the fast-paced world of science and policy, the contributions of the humanities are often overlooked in the transition to a more sustainable world.
In this week’s Online First edition1,2 of Environment and Behavior, Catherine Mobley and colleagues argue that reading environmental literature might be an important factor promoting environmentally responsible behavior (ERB), such as cutting back on driving, recycling, buying organic foods, using public transportation, using renewable energy, reducing home water and energy use, etc.
The study of ERBs is complex, owing to a number of sociodemographic factors like education level, income, and political orientation that can influence behavior:
Sociodemographic factors –> values, attitudes, and worldviews –> ERB
This team asked whether reading three texts, considered by many to be part of environmental literature’s canon,
- Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac
- Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
- H.D. Thoreau’s Walden
might be an additive factor in explaining ERBs above and beyond socioeconomic factors. They used a survey of >7,000 people to assess the degree to which people exhibit ERBs.
Their results suggest that this may be the case. Controlling for the confounding sociodemographic factors, they found a small but significant increase in ERB for people who read environmental literature compared to those that didn’t.
The results spur more questions than they answer:
- Why does reading environmental literature affect ERBs? For example, as the authors state, does environmental literature increase ecological foundations, conceptual awareness, or action skills? Does it allow one to vicariously experience these issues or reinforce the reader’s prior experiences with environmental issues?
- How do these results factor into environmental literacy outreach? The authors suggest community book clubs or combining book discussions with specific community actions or analyses of contemporary environmental issues and solutions.
- What might be the value of other environmental texts and readings that appeal to a wider constituency (e.g., environmental justice)?
- What should be included in an environmental literary canon?
1Mobley, C. et al (2009) Exploring Additional Determinants of Environmentally Responsible Behavior: The Influence of Environmental Literature and Environmental Attitudes. Environment and Behavior (Online first).
2Bowdoin people can access the article here.
Tags: literature
Posted in behavior, environmental literacy, environmentalism | No Comments »
Climate adaptation: We have no choice, and it’s not enough
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
Our global environment is changing in ways that we are beginning to observe in our lifetimes:
- Climate is warming by as much as a degree centigrade per decade in parts of the Polar North.
- Permafrost is thawing.
- Species ranges are shifting northwards in latitude and upwards in altitude.
- Sea level is rising.
- Sea ice is shrinking.
- Polar ice is thinning.
- Pervasive droughts are beginning to grip parts of the world.
- 50 and 100 year rain storms are happening multiple times in a decade.
- Warming is wreaking havoc on cultures around the world. Inuit communities are losing their villages and traditional hunting grounds. Bangladeshi farmers are losing their coastal fields to saltwater incursion. Pacific islanders are poised to lose their atolls. This week, Nature published a story about how the thawing of the Thorthormi Glacier in the Himalayas threatens the nation of Bhutan.
Tim Killeen, head of Geosciences at NSF, once said that if you look at model projections of climate, they all say the same thing up to the year 2030: Based on the gases we have already emitted, and the inertia in the ocean-atmosphere system, we are committed to climate change at least to this point, and there’s little we can do about it. This means we have no choice but to start adapting to things like changing seasonality in temperatures and precipitation, food production, sea level rise, and species distributions. The most recent IPCC synthesis report echoes this.
After 2030, however, models diverge depending on which socioeconomic path we choose. How fast we de-carbonize the economy will determine the extent to which we mitigate warming and how much further adaptation we will need.
There is vigorous debate about the role of adaptation in a world where mitigation is clearly needed. Adaptation has long been assailed by the environmental community as giving up. And now that we need it, old thinking is hard to break.
In a recent article in Yale 360 (Learning to Live With Climate Change Will Not Be Enough), David Orr argues strongly for mitigation over adaptation, although he recognizes that adaptation strategies in the near term are prudent to meet the changes to which we are already committed.
Today, Bowdoin College’s Environmental Studies program, in partnership with the The Nature Conservancy and the McKeen Center for the Common Good, hosted a symposium, “Changing Environments, Changing Societies: Community Responses to Environmental Uncertainty.” It included a mix of international and regional scholars and practitioners, social and natural scientists, and issues like biodiversity, water, food, public health, and infrastructure/urban planning.
What were some of the main outcomes this group synthesized about adaptation?
Posted in behavior, climate adaptation, climate change science, environmentalism, food and agriculture, nature and culture, policy | 2 Comments »
1.7 kilograms of CO2 per serving?
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
That’s how much some Swedes are finding out a hamburger contributes to their carbon footprint.
Yesterday, the NY Times ran a story highlighting new Swedish dietary guidelines—in this case, labels on food products showing consumers how much carbon is emitted in the production of these items.
It’s an interesting idea on many levels:
- It deals with the chronic problem of environmental illiteracy.
- It makes the idea of carbon emissions real and personal rather than some ethereal, abstract idea.
- It makes information readily available in a useful form that can influence consumer choice (e.g., folks can compare two items side-by-side to see which has a lower footprint).
- These labels could possibly drive producers and supermarkets to respond more to consumer demand.
- And when big retailers get on board, large ripple effects can happen. Walmart is about to roll these labels out as well. As Walmart goes, so goes the world’s biggest supply chain. That’s good news.
However, it’s also interesting to see the range of responses among consumers–and not all of it’s positive. An analysis of these labels is an environmental psychology PhD dissertation waiting to happen.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/su-lin/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Tags: carbon labels, Wal Mart
Posted in behavior, environmentalism, food and agriculture, nature and culture, sustainability | 1 Comment »
The “virtue of being citizens first and scientists second”
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
In the latest issue of Conservation Biology, Nelson and Vucetich1,2 tackle the thorny issue of whether scientists can/should also be environmental advocates. This is one of the better, more philosophical, analyses I have seen.
For scientists worried that advocacy undercuts credibility, this piece may allay your concerns. I recommend reading the whole article (it’s a rich analysis).
Here’s the conclusion as a short excerpt:
Tags: advocacy, environmentalism, science
Posted in environmental science, environmentalism, science advocacy | No Comments »
Remaking American Environmentalism
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
This piece1,2 by writer Jenny Price in Environmental History (subscription required) is an interesting take on the ongoing battle for the soul of environmentalism. I recommend getting access to and reading the entire article.
A few excerpts:
Environmentalism, in sum, has taken some very serious hits. Many of its most familiar and cherished icons have come under a veil of suspicion. Thoreau? Inspiring—but urged us to see nature as the antidote to the places we live. Yosemite? Spectacular, and essential for many reasons—and a site of violent conquest. And a white refuge from the troubles of cities. And culturally constructed to boot. Silent Spring? Indispensable to the ensuing 1960s and 1970s legislation—but apocalyptic, the reapers complain, with a millennial, paralyzing vision of nature as the pure true world that humans by definition violate. What would have happened with the civil rights movement, they ask, if Martin Luther King had given an “I have a nightmare” instead of an “I have a dream” speech? Ditto for the Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland in 1969 and the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989. The earth from space? We may all live on one planet together, but environmental justice advocates have pointed out also that we are not entirely all in this together….
Tags: environmentalism
Posted in environmental history, environmentalism, nature and culture | No Comments »
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