Human & Nature Connection

While traveling in Colorado this week I met with Louise Turner Chawla, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the Environmental Design Department. Chawla has been at the forefront of the research around the importance of connecting to nature particularly in urban areas as a health benefit. Gardens trees, biodiversity, streams, playgrounds all play an important role in our health. These features also benefit the environment by reducing greenhouse gases and filtering water and other pollutants.

As we discussed these aspects it became evident that there needs to be more integration between urban planners and health officials in the design and implementation of landscapes in our towns and cities. Often these professionals do not share ideas at the initial design and development phases of landscape projects in our urban environments. It is encouraging to hear that as interdisciplinary studies expand in colleges and universities, more students and educators are beginning to see the value of integrating landscaping, with health, psychology and other related fields. It's terrific to see the cross-pollination between these different fields of study. Now it's time to move from the classroom to implementing this integrated approach as part of the standard practices in urban design and landscaping projects.

Giftivism

Nipun Mehta defines Givtivism as, “the practice of radically generous acts that change the world. Radical in its audacity to believe that inner and the outer are deeply inter-connected, and generous in its vision of uplifting one-hundred percent, the oppressor and the oppressed.” As a founder of ServiceSpace, Mehta has been promoting giftivism through several innovative initiatives. One of them, Karma Kitchen started in 1997 as an all-volunteer restaurant in Berkeley, California provides meals to customers. When they are finished dining they receive a tab for $0. The diners are then asked to pay what they think the meal is worth. The premise is a pay-it-forward model, and to date they have served over 24,000 customers. Karma Kitchen has expanded to six cities worldwide including Ahmedabad, India, and Tokyo, Japan.

This radical economic model is based on the good will that is in all of us. I recall that years ago a rock band followed a similar approach giving away their new release and asking customers to pay what they thought it was worth. This approach more than covered their expenses and became a profitable way for selling their new release.

Perhaps in these times when small businesses find that competing with the big box stores for the lowest price is often a futile endeavor, giftivism offers a glimmer of hope for us, as individuals, to assess the true value of a product or service and pay for it accordingly.

Messaging and Climate Change

One of the most interesting guides that deals with psychological behavior and climate change is Columbia University's Earth Institute's "The Psychology of Climate Change Communication," published by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED); (to download see: http://www.cred.columbia.edu/guide). This insightful guide covers the main areas that educators, journalists and activists, etc. need to pay attention to in order to be effective in conveying their ideas, especially about climate change.

The topics include: knowing your audience; the role of mental models; getting their attention; how to use effective framing of issues; translating data in experiences that the audience can relate to; when to include emotion in the message and/or factual information; the impact of scientific uncertainty; the role of "the tragedy of the commons" regarding climate change; and how to effectively work with groups. All of these psychological factors are imperative in order to make the case for climate change and effectively persuade people about making changes in their lifestyle in order to reduce the impact from climate change.

Elke Weber, a professor at CRED, has done some really interesting research of negative vs. positive messages. It turns out that if we use negative messaging, it has a greater impact, but it doesn't stay with people and then they move on to something else. Positive messaging, on the other hand, is slower to take root, but has a much greater chance of sticking for a longer period of time. So, many of the negative adds such as those showing melting icebergs and scrambling polar bears have limited effect in the long-term. And positive messages that give people tangible steps to make a difference are more powerful. It's encouraging how research shows that positivity wins out in the end.

Cultural Stories: Perspectives and Context

The last several months I've been looking into cultural narratives. What is our cultural narrative? And from which lens are we viewing it? Is it the American dream? Is it the Western cultural narrative? And how is this different from the cultural narrative of other cultures and civilizations such as the African, Indian, Latin American, Japanese, or Chinese?

If we take it to the very local level, we can think of the cultural story of our home town, and then go up the scale. So, for example, we can start with the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, then the City of San Francisco, then the Bay Area, then Northern California, then Western region of the US, then the USA, then North America, then Western Hemisphere and finally Western Culture. Each of these levels has a particular character and a specific quality to its cultural story. So, it's very difficult to assign a cultural story at a global scale.

In the case of San Francisco and the Bay Area it is a hot spot for new innovations and hi-tech and one of the cultural narratives revolves around this theme. It is also a place of constant change, a melting pot of different ideas and cultures. There's also a transient quality about this region. There's also the cultural heritage of San Francisco, the impact of the Gold Rush in the 1850s, the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, the port of San Francisco, the emergence of Silicon Valley, the impact of Jack London, David Brower, John Muir, the 1960s music and counterculture, Stanford University and UC Berkeley and many other individuals institutions and movements that comprise the story of this region.

In addition to the physical and economic characteristics affecting the cultural narratives, there are the qualities associated with urban centers. In the case of the San Francisco Bay Area, the fast pace of life, the congestion, traffic, population density, valuable real estate all impact the story of this region.

A completely different cultural narrative may apply to someone living in say Cairo, Paris, Osaka, or Johannesburg. What each cultural narrative has in common is the impact of the city's physical biogeography, national and cultural heritage, population ethnicity, economic activity among many other factors.

For additional information about the world's civilizations, see: The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. Also, Duane Elgin has done interesting work on social evolutionary stages. And to learn about cultural stories, see Great Transitions Stories and New Stories.

Leadership: Power and Love

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” Martin Luther King Jr.

This quote from MLK points to an interesting approach to leadership. In Adam Kahane's book, Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change, he describes the various roles of power and love in leadership styles and the importance of needing both power and love for effective leadership and social change. Within power there is "power to," which presents a viable force and "power over" which can be very destructive. Either power or love on it's own will not suffice for effective leadership. Kahane uses the example of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009. At this world gathering he points out how the power from the government and business leaders did not mix well with the love and visioning approach of the civil society groups. The result was a disconnect between the two groups which resulted in neither side working effectively together towards a comprehensive agreement. 

In an age in which hundreds of leadership books and articles describe various leadership styles, it is refreshing to see the role of these simple attributes--power and love--and examine how they impact  leadership. This is particularly important as a way of understanding the drivers behind the negotiations on climate change and a myriad of other environmental issues that call upon us to cooperate and find common ground.

For a video segment describing the correlation between power and love, see Kahane's talk at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ScJqk25yo 

Creating Our Own Sustainability Education Lens

“It's never enough just to tell people about some new insight. Rather, you have to get them to experience it in a way that evokes its power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people's heads, you need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way.”
--John Seeley Brown

In this age of executive summaries, bullet points and sound bites, we are overflowing with data and information. In the field of sustainability education, we quickly become numb to the facts and figures, many of which are quite depressing. So, how do we develop, as John Seeley Brown suggests, "a new set of eyeglasses... to see the world in a new way?" And in a way that is inspiring and uplifting to motivate us to find viable solutions?

Perhaps the first step lies in using the wisdom expressed by our environmental leaders and adapting it to our own lives. The Aldo Leopold Foundation’s Leopold Education Project (LEP) is a good example. Utilizing Leopold's essays from his book, A Sand County Almanac, teachers from throughout the US are helping students develop and clarify their own environmental values. The Leopold Education Project's high school curriculum encourages students to explore their environmental ethics while studying Leopold's essays in a natural setting. Students come away with a greater understanding of the meaning of stewardship and are able to adapt these concepts to their own daily life experience.

Using this type of approach students and teachers benefits by creating a space for students to take ownership of the material and adapt it into their lives. Perhaps this approach will spread as educators create a more flexible approach to the knowledge base in the complex issues related to sustainability. We keep the information aspect of the course material manageable and then build in flexibility and space for students to make it their own.

  

Being Human 2013

Last Saturday I attended the second annual Being Human 2013 conference in San Francisco's Nourse Theater. There were 1,400 people attending and we were all immersed with a dozen or so speakers and a couple terrific of performance artists. Described as "a daylong exploration of human nature in the light of cutting edge science, philosophy, and evolution," there were four main themes covered: The Biology and Psychology of Ethical Behavior, Human Emotions, Love and Sex, and The Future of Being Human.

Each of the presenters shared aspects of their research into the qualities that makes us human. Stories included: projects that quantify the brain activity during meditation, studies related to individual and global compassion, human behavior related to romantic love and sex, and efforts looking into longevity and data analysis of global communications. The presentations were also broken up by welcomes performances by hip hop dancer Marquese Scott and musician ELEW.

It seems like the explosion of recent research centers around new technologies that now allow us to peek inside the human brain. Using fMRI and other tools we are learning a tremendous amount about what areas of the brain are activated under a variety of circumstances such as meditation, feelings of love, happiness, depression, etc.

Kudos to Peter Baumann, The Baumann Foundation and Jeff Klein and their team for showcasing new advancements in understanding human behavior and giving us a glimpse of what's around the corner in innovations (some of it inspiring, some of it a bit scary...).

The entire daylong event was captured on video and can be viewed at: http://fora.tv/conference/being_human_2013/