On Shift, and Nudge, and Going Greener

“Want to bike or drive?‘” Prad was testing my green-ness once more. For a moment, I wavered. The easy way with the car tempting me. And the pressure to get to the gym quick, so that I could get back to my day of work. “It won’t take us much more time. And it’s sixty four degrees outside.” Prad was making a convincing argument. Plus the feeling from Robert Redford‘s talk the night before was still fresh. “ok, let’s bike!“.

That was two days ago. Since then, I have noticed I have been using my bike more and more, did not even drive once yesterday. And today, I returned to the gym, alone this time, and on my bike. It felt good . . . I am starting to look at the people in their cars differently. I am joining the bike folks. I am feeling a shift. Not unlike what happened with shopping a few months ago.

One year of sustained attention and conversations with people like you, and a final nudge from Robert Redford, that’s what it took.

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Robert Redford Made My Earth Day

All the Earth Day circus put me in no mood to celebrate. Still, last night I attended an Earth Day event, sponsored by E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), and NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), two organizations that I am very proud to support. Robert Redford was the main speaker. He was one of my idols, growing up, and I did not want to miss a chance to meet the man in person. Mr. Redford did not disappoint me. I came out of the evening with a renewed sense of commitment, and wishing that more people could have heard him live. Here is a video of a similar talk that he gave for the Apollo Project:

During his Earth Day speech, Robert Redford emphasized again the power of optimism, and of dwelling on opportunities and solutions. ‘America doesn’t do well with doom and gloom. Let’s get off how bad it is. Let’s get on with what can be done.‘ Robert Redford’s new push is on water and the need for quick solutions to the unfolding worldwide water shortage. For those of you also interested in water, click here.

Robert Redford is the perfect eco-hero, someone with the power to inspire through his example, and who has walked his talk for forty years. I can’t help but compare him with Al Gore. Although I am a big fan of Al, my response to his discourse is very different. Al Gore appeals to my intellect. Robert Redford grabs my heart and inspires my whole being to go further and to act.

The power of example.

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From North Karelia, 12 Proven Behavioral Strategies to Address Global Warming

In the early 1970s, Pekka Puska, a young public health physician from Helsinki, was dispatched to the remote province of North Karelia, to lead an ambitious campaign to change the population’s eating habits. The reason? Finland had the world’s highest death rate from heart disease. North Karelia‘s rate was 40 percent higher than that.

The North Karelian Experiment was a huge success. From 1970 to 1995, cholesterol and blood pressure levels dropped. More importantly, deaths from heart disease also dropped…by 73 percent for the group most at risk – middle-aged men. The government replicated the North Karelia model across Finland, with similar results.

For our purpose, more interesting than the results themselves, was the way Pekka Puska was able to affect dramatic behavioral changes on a larger scale. And what we can learn from the North Karelia Experiment, as we consider similar large scale behavioral changes in regards to global warming. I found this radio interview from PRI reporter, Patrick Cox, particularly enlightening:

Holttinen: “Pekka Puska came to our house, I think it was 1978.”

Cox: “That was two years after Jukka Holttinen’s father died. What Puska found in the Holttinen kitchen was fairly typical. The family relied on fatty meat, salt, cheese and butter, washed down with pint after pint of whole milk. Some North Karelians had almost never eaten vegetables before Puska’s team told them to.”

Puska: “When they say that we had to drink skim milk, it was horrible.”

Cox:”..but you got used to it?”

Puska: “Yes of course. Nowadays I drink only skim milk.”

Cox: “North Karelia’s problems with heart disease could be traced not just to the food the locals were eating, but to the food they were producing: low-grade pork, and dairy products.”

Puska: “People were used to that, that was local production, and of course there was a strong dairy industry so there were a lot of economic vested interests.”

Cox: “Puska realized that merely urging people to eat healthier foods wasn’t enough. He needed to make healthier foods more available and more affordable. And that meant taking on the pig and dairy farmers – people who viewed him as a health nut from the big city who was trying to run them out of business.”

Puska: “It was so hard, so intense, the opposition, that that period, particularly in the 80s was commonly called as fat war.”

Cox: “To win the fat war, Puska took on government policies. At the time, agricultural subsidies encouraged the production of the very foods that were helping to cause so many heart attacks in North Karelia. Dairy subsidies, for example, were based on fat content. Puska and his colleagues convinced the government to radically change direction. The government began funding research into new low-fat cheeses and non-dairy spreads…that found their way to supermarket shelves. It phased out milk subsidies. And it introduced subsidies for some new products.”

Ruutiainen: “Quite many of the milk producers they changed to berries.”

Cox: “North Karelian farmer Ismo Ruutiainen began growing strawberries and boysenberries. He says he made a handsome profit.”

Ismo Ruutiainen: “It was really good business.”

Cox: “Soon, more than two dozen berry farms were operating – a new micro-industry was born.”

Meanwhile, Puska and his team were encouraging the public to eat more berries – and other fruits and vegetables. They worked with housewives’ groups. And they laced their message with positive incentives, like cash prizes for the winners of town-versus-town cholesterol-lowering showdowns.

What can we learn from the North Karelia Experiment? We could replace ‘heart disease’ with ‘global warming’, ‘better nutrition’ with ‘carbon reducing lifestyle’, and ‘fat war’ with ‘carbon war’, and the same 12 Proven Behavioral Strategies would apply:

1. Education alone does not work
2. Need to also change the environment that’s causing the problem
3. Need to set up the enabling structure that makes it actually possible and easy for people to change
4. People do not like to change their habits, but they do get used to it eventually.
5. One person needs to lead
6. Start small with one pilot program, and then replicate
7. Work down at the individuals and families level
8. Take systems approach, the individual within its whole environment; make changes in the environment first
9. Work on changing defeating policies
10. Build in incentives
11. Do grass roots work with women
12. Make it fun

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Seven Reasons Why It’s Hard to Be Human and Green

This morning, I joined the crowd of concerned environmentalists on DotEarth, and lamented with them on the outcome of the Bali talks. And declared,

Talk is nice. My concern is what can I do as a citizen, to become a part of the solution. Here are my resolutions:

1) to continue to explore the psychology of green in my blog
2) to try my best to green my life
3) to join a green business venture, hopefully in the next few weeks
4) to act as a responsible citizen and make sure the right person gets elected as our next President
5) to explore ways that I can spur green initiatives in my immediate community
6) to channel the anger, frustration, I feel as a result of these talks, productively, into positive actions.

What are you all choosing to do on a personal, concrete level?

Later in the day, I decided to go to the gym with Prad. Charlotte saw me grab my car keys. “You are not taking your bike?” Prad offered to ride with me if I wanted to. No, it was too cold, and I just wanted to get to the gym, fast. We drove.

What happened? Why such a discordance between what I know to be the right action, and what I end up doing? I have become obsessed with understanding what goes on in my brain during those split seconds, when I decide to not follow my green conscience. Several times before, I have tried to revisit similar moments, to grasp the thoughts, the feelings, that trigger such behavior. I am convinced, if I can reach down far enough, I will retrieve valuable insights, that will help get to the roots of the behavior. If I can nail down the cause, it may be easier to figure out some solutions.

Back to the gym moment. I was tired with a slight cold. The idea of going out in the damp weather, and of spending a half hour biking, did not feel good. Compared with the comfort of our warm car, the bike did not come close. In that moment, all I could think of was, cold versus warm, hard work versus easy ride. I did not feel so good. I wanted warm and comfort. A curtain came down between my green conscience, my morning discourse, and the reality of my present physical need.

I surprised myself with the strength of my response to Charlotte and Prad. ‘No way, I am riding my bike. I am tired and it’s cold.’ Never mind that I was going to the gym to exercise. My heart was set on swimming, not biking. Still, if I had enough energy to swim, I probably could have biked. It is just that I was thinking exercise equal gym. To exercise I needed to go to the gym. Although I was tired, I am very disciplined about exercising every day, and I was willing to make that effort. In my mind, going to the gym, was in the transportation category, not the exercise file. Transportation meant, I was going to naturally choose the option that was most efficient time wise, and comfortable.

Now, why was I willing to make the effort to exercise (swim) although I was not feeling so good, but not to bike instead of driving? The answer is, I consider exercise a direct personal benefit to my health and my well being. Biking instead of driving, because of environmental concerns, does not affect me directly. (that’s assuming I maintain earlier ‘logic’ of biking not as an exercise form, but as mode of transportation). Its benefit gets diluted both in time and space. The big pot problem again. When I exercise, I feel an immediate personal benefit. When I consider acting from my green conscience, it falls in the higher category of ‘I and many other enlightened people know it’s the right thing to do, but it is not part yet of the commonly accepted set of ethical behaviors’. Where I get in trouble is with that latter part. The lack of collective consciousness in the green category, and the resulting lack of environmental laws and best practices, give me license to err.

Am I that selfish of a person that I never do anything for the greater good? Actually, there are many instances when I can act selflessly. My maternal instinct makes sure I always put my children’s interests before my own. I find great pleasure in mentoring my Little Sister. For seven years, I spent my time helping people as a profession. In the green category even, I now make sure that I bring my recyclable bags to the grocery store. I try not to flush. I have diminished my shopping significantly. I only heat the house very selectively. I always turn off the lights. I take the train whenever I go to the city. . . My laziness with biking is one of the last fortresses of my unconscious, not so green self, and a window into the ways most of the civilized world behaves. Here is what I saw:

1. We are creatures of the flesh. Trapped in our physical body, and at the mercy of our basic needs for physical comfort, pleasure, and immediate gratification. Without the external reinforcement from state or spiritual laws, these primal needs take precedence over our conscience.
2. We are lemmings. We look around and tend to emulate others’ behaviors.
3. We are self-centered. Our priorities start with getting our personal needs met first. Needs for security, personal health, financial security, comfort, safety, education, etc. Environmental concerns are at the bottom of the pile.
4. We are products of our culture. In America that means capitalism, money, greed, consumerism, extremes, convenience, industrialization, technology, cars, invincibility, man over nature.
5. We are creatures of habits. Our thoughts and behaviors are set in certain ways. To unset them requires tremendous energy and outside forces.
6. We are inherently lazy. Given the choice, we will most often pick the easiest, most convenient alternative.
7. We are not rational beings. The way we derive our thoughts is often circuitous, and leads to behaviors that fly in the face of reason.

Next, is how can we take into account these seven characteristics of human nature, and formulate winning behavioral change strategies for a greener planet. Plenty of material for another article. . .

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Three Lessons for Green Living

Day 30 of Daily Footprint Project. A good time to conclude the project. And to reflect on the lessons learned during these thirty days spent under the close scrutiny of the green lens:

How to evaluate one’s personal environmental impact, is still up for discussion:

Starting with today. I drove a lot today. Some of the trips I could have done on ‘Pervenche‘, no question. That would have meant one extra hour spent on the bike. One less hour to work on two green projects I am involved with. What’s more important, to try to contribute to the global warming solution on a global scale, through my professional endeavors, or on a personal level through my daily actions? This is a question that keeps coming up, and I have heard two school of thoughts on the matter. One says, you’ve got to be pure and try to align your personal actions with your talk, as best as you can. According to these folks, I should have biked, and then maybe spent an extra hour working. The other school says, you’ve got to look at the net effect of your actions. If, through your work, you are going to mitigate more than your personal part of carbon emissions, then you have the license to sin a bit, as long as it is in the service of the green cause. When it was found that Al Gore was not as green as he could be, the two sides went at it. I say, they are probably both right. My own line of conduct is be as conscious as you possibly can of your actions, and if you are going to sin, do it full knowingly, and try to make up some other way. And I don’t mean carbon offsets here . . . Although, here again, if I am going to fly, I will purchase carbon offsets.

Green consciousness eventually leads to more responsible behavior:

Second, I have noticed my green conscience has become a lot more acute as a result of this daily process of systematic observation. I would like to pause and talk about the difference between observing, and judging. It is important to not censor and let the inner critic have a field day with one’s observations. That would be missing the point. No, the most important thing is to become more conscious. Without willing it, the conscience becomes strengthened, and it is only a matter of time, before one starts acting more responsibility. This morning at the pool, was a perfect example. As I was about to step into the hot tub, I noticed the jets had not been turned on. There are two buttons, one for the jets on the right side, the other for the jets on the left side. I thought why turn both on? I am the only one, and I will only be using one jet. Then comes this old lady, who gets annoyed. Why aren’t both sides turned on? It did not even occur to her why both jets would not be on. This is what I mean by being unconscious.

Green Wannabes need external help to go green all the way:

A well developed green conscience can only go so far however. There has been plenty of instances, many documented in this blog, when I didn’t have any excuses for not behaving green, and I still went ahead and behaved badly, out of sheer laziness, or because I had other things on my mind, or I fell back into old habits. I am just a Green Girl Wannabe, not UberGreenie. And I need help. Many of my comments on the Huffington Post deal with that reality, and the fact that I, and I would venture to say, most Americans, no matter how well intentioned, need some external help to go green all the way. In my public letter to the future President of the United States, I listed fifteen things I would need from our next leader. These mostly have to do with incentive, policies, taxes, laws and regulations, standards, public infrastructures, and technologies. You’ve got to make it easy for folks to green their lives. Cheap, convenient, efficient, appealing, fun, and impossible to not follow.

Daily Footprint Project
Daily Log
Day #30

Water
personal:
flush toilet 3
wash face 2
brush teeth 2
wash hands 5
shower at pool 2
mom:
wash salad
communal:
rinse dishes

Electricity/gas
personal:
electric toothbrush 4’
microwave tea 2’
microwave milk 2’
laptop on all day
microwave oatmeal 4’
microwave soup  3’
mom:
boil pasta
communal:
lights

Food
personal:
tea
organic milk
organic apples 2
organic chocolate
oatmeal
takeout chicken soup from Whole Foods
whole wheat bread 
mom:
cheese pasta
salad
communal:

Waste
personal:
toilet paper
soup carton
mom:
communal:
3 newspaper plastic wrappers

Recycling
personal:
mom:
communal:
2 papers
junk mail

Transportation
personal:
mom:
communal:
drive friend to airport 45 miles
drive to pool 6 miles
drive to night meeting 2 miles
drive to grocery store 5 miles

Non food shopping
personal:
mom:
communal:

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10 Tricks to Get You Going Green

Day 29 of Daily Footprint Project. A milestone in my ‘trying to be green‘ trajectory. I was feeling good. My heart light for a change, and ready to make room for new experiences. ‘How about biking to the gym?‘ I asked Prad. It’s been months already, since Prad started biking around town. Now, I wanted to join him.

I peaked outside. The sun was there, and the air was just right. Helmet, gloves, backpack, bike lock, jacket. I felt the excitement of a five year old on her first bike adventure. And off, we went. Three miles along quiet streets. The pleasure of making up our route, and playing hide and seek with traffic. ‘Pervenche‘ was being a good bike, no fuss, and easy on my legs. I arrived at the gym, with the exhilaration of someone who had just accomplished a major feat. Mostly, I was feeling so proud. I had overcome my resistance to biking, and entered the select crowd of town bikers, and serious greenies.

As I look back on my days of leaving ‘Pervenche‘ out sitting on our porch, I realize the hardest thing was making the leap, of deciding to go, just once. I have written before about inertia. How to conquer this incredible force is of utmost importance to the challenge of getting people to green their behaviors. Here are ten things that helped me with ‘Pervenche‘:

1. Having a ‘contract’ with a supportive community, in this case the people who read and comment on La Marguerite. Also, Prad my husband and Green Guru in residence.
2. Not doing it alone. Going with Prad was a great incentive.
3. Seizing the moment. Going when the heart and mind both coalesce to welcome this new experience
4. Not getting discouraged, and chastising oneself, for being bad.
5. Keep talking to your community about your ongoing struggles
6. Visualize the personal benefits of your new behavior, here the pleasure of biking with Prad
7. Make that small first step, whatever that means. Grabbing the helmet was 99% of the battle
8. Build your new behavior into your existing routine. Biking to the gym made perfect sense, and enhanced my exercise regimen.
9. Do not take on another new behavior until you have established this one.
10. Repeat this mantra to yourself: ‘Just do it!‘

I tell Prad I am just finishing writing an article about our bike adventure yesterday. Words from the mouth of Green Guru:

‘The bike adventure has to continue . . .‘

 

Daily Footprint Project
Daily Log
Day #29

Water
personal:
flush toilet 2
wash face 2
brush teeth 2
wash hands 4
shower at pool 2
mom:
wash fruit
communal:
rinse dishes
wash salad

Electricity/gas
personal:
electric toothbrush 4’
microwave tea 2’
microwave milk 2’
laptop on half day
microwave oatmeal 4’
microwave soup  3’
mom:
communal:
cook crepes on stove 15’
lights

Food
personal:
tea
organic milk
organic persimmons 1
organic apples 2
organic chocolate
oatmeal
takeout barley soup from Whole Foods
whole wheat bread
mom:
sandwich with veggies and leftover chicken
gas water with orange juice
organic apple
communal:
crepes with organic milk
Italian prosciutto
organic salad
organic eggs
Swiss cheese

Waste
personal:
toilet paper
soup carton
mom:
communal:
3 newspaper plastic wrappers

Recycling
personal:
mom:
communal:
2 papers

Transportation
personal:
mom:
drive car back from school (girls needed it to transport supplies for the dance) 2 miles
communal:

Non food shopping
personal:
mom:
communal:

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16 Psychological Barriers to Solving Global Warming

Yesterday, I reported on my not so green moment, when I chose to drive instead of riding my bike. And I went through the meditative exercise of retracing my thoughts during those decisive seconds. Buried in that bag of thoughts, are some personal truths about why my actions do not match my green thoughts and promises. Today I want to reopen the bag and look at each random thought for insights:

‘Laziness. Priorities. A drop in the invisible cloud of CO2. It won’t make a difference. I am having so much fun, don’t want to be bothered. Habit. Comfort. Convenience. How bad is it anyway, to drive such short distance once or twice a day? It can’t hurt that much. Effort, I don’t want to make the effort. The weather wasn’t even that nice. My time is precious. The extra time spent biking, I can use doing other ‘more productive’, more important things, such as working on green projects. Nothing is going to happen if I drive instead of biking. No consequences. I don’t have the discipline. What’s in it for me? The car, so fast, such a proven entity. I can zip in and out of places. I know, I should bike. But it’s such a small thing. Today, I can ’sin’, only once, maybe twice. I will get it right some other time. Ah! the immediate pleasure of blogging away, versus the higher satisfaction of a clean conscience. Big, instant pleasure over small dent in my green conscience. Pleasure wins. I can’t even see that CO2 anyway. It’s invisible. A crime without the evidence to prove it. Everybody else is driving anyway, or almost everyone. I am too wrapped up into the moment. The present supersedes any hypothetical concerns about the consequence of my small actions for the whole planet, myself included. There are two issues. The lack of immediate consequence for my action. And the dilution of personal responsibility, the big pot problem.’

Here is the list of 16 psychological barriers that are a part of me, and I dare to make the leap, most of my fellow human beings as well:

• I am inherently lazy, and will opt for what is the easiest, most convenient solution.
• Becoming green is only one of many personal priorities, behind others such as work, family, and social obligations.
• Behavior change is made up of many many small actions. Taken separately, each action feels ridiculously small and insignificant.
• When I pollute the air with my car, there is not physical evidence for me to see, and experience directly.
• I am a pleasure driven creature. It is hard to sacrifice immediate pleasure for a higher future benefit.
• I am a creature of habit, and I don’t like change.
• I do not like to sacrifice my comfort.
• I am already pressed for time, and am not willing to trade off some of my current activities for greening efforts.
• I am constantly comparing the personal rewards from my various activities, and will choose the ones that bring highest rewards.
• If there are no direct negative consequences to my actions, I will continue to engage in the same behavior.
• If there are no direct positive rewards to my actions, I have little incentive to engage in those actions.
• I do not have the personal discipline to be green.
• I console myself with the idea, that tomorrow I will take action, just not today.
• Most of the clues I get from the outside world are not helping, and only reinforces my existing habits.
• I tend to live in the present, and have a hard time adjusting my behavior to accommodate future imperatives.
• The emissions I generate get lost in the big pot called Global Warming. Gone, without my name written on them. Anonymous.

See, how much can be learned from just looking inside! I invite you all to go through the same exercise. Next time you find yourself wavering in your green-ness. Stop and sit with your thoughts. Write them down, and mine them for your own insights, just as I did here. From that newly gained consciousness, I guarantee you, a new behavior will emerge soon. It is also important to share what you find, as it will help take the global warming debate to a deeper level.

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