Richard and Karen:
Why does it have to be top-down or bottom-up? They are not mutually exclusive
and in my earlier email I did not discard political action and I suspect that
many social scientists would agree with Richard that top-down action will help
to reduce environmental degradation even though the US was founded as a
Republic not a Democracy and the Founders' desire to avoid an elected
dictatorship appears culturally embedded. However, while political action to
conserve some of the environment may be possible, with the continuing shift in
both parties toward corporate interests (e.g. Hacker and Pierson 2010)
sustainable development is not. I agree with Richard that calls for people to
change their behavior - to change how they consume - because it "the right
thing to do" are unlikely to be effective even though Karen's students can
intuit the systemic benefits. While some altruism is necessary for a healthy
society, gestures of self-denial for the benefit of future generations are not
likely to be effective. What I am suggesting is quite different.
The theoretical heart of my rejection of top-down is that all the systems that
need to be managed for society to be sustainable are complex in the technical
sense, as I was using the term, and are not amenable to teleological tinkering.
Despite the advocates of resilience and 'panarchy', I am not convinced that
it is possible to 'manage' (top-down) interacting complex ecological, social,
and economic systems on a national scale along a path that we understand to be
sustainable. Indeed, I agree with Meadows (2008) that top-down is playing with
parameters. If you want to change the whole system, you have to work from the
bottom-up to change the goal of the system or better the system paradigm in
the minds of the agents in the system.
Sustainable development demands radical change of the system; does anyone
seriously think that capitalism as we know it is sustainable, ecologically,
economically, or socially? I agree with Mike Maniates that sustainable
development is about more than shifting from gas to hybrid cars or recycling;
it demands reducing absolute consumption. Sustainable Capitalism reviews the
research in the economics of happiness and positive psychology to show that
pursuit of well-being (of which happiness is a part) is about meeting
psychological needs and finding Flow (intense, active engagement with all
aspects of life). In material terms the pursuit of well-being requires
satisfying only basic needs (food, shelter, etc.); satisfying material wants
(natural or commercially created) plays no role. Thus, if people accepted this
paradigm as their mental model in place of the hedonic treadmill of competitive
consumption they would enjoy greater well-being and would substantially
reduce their consumption. If enough people pursued their personal well-being,
government and business would have to adapt to reduced demand and economic
activity.
Geped members are well placed to begin this transformation by educating
students in the theoretical and practical advantages of pursuing their personal
well-being,
Cheers,
Neil
Neil E. Harrison, Ph.D.
Executive Director
The Sustainable Development Institute (www.sd-institute.org)
P.O. Box 423 Laramie, WY 82073
Goodshop to save money and support The Sustainable Development Institute at
www.Goodshop.com
Author, Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being (Routledge 2014)
more information at www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415662819
Co-Editor, Climate Innovation: Liberal Capitalism and Climate Change (Palgrave
Macmillan 2014) more information at
http://us.macmillan.com/climateinnovation/NeilEHarrison.
Author, Constructing Sustainable Development (SUNY Press)
Co-Editor, Science and Politics in the International Environment (Rowman and
Littlefield)
Editor, Complexity in World Politics (SUNY Press)
Editor, National, Regional and Global Institutions, Infrastructures and
Governance, Vol. 1, National and Regional Institutions and Infrastructures.
London and Paris: EOLSS/UNESCO, 2008. (EOLSS/UNESCO)
----------------------------------------
From: "Karen T Litfin" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 11:39 PM
To: "Wallace, Richard" <[email protected]>
Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [gep-ed] non-traditional class assignments
Dear all,
I've been reluctant to offer my two cents but I think the footprint exercise
I've been using for the last 10 years or so bridges the gap between Neil and
Richard on this issue. My GEP class is cross-listed as ENVIR and POL S, and
the environmental studies students in particular tend to be pretty apolitical.
With the aim of getting them to question their tendency towards
individualization, I ask them to first calculate their current footprint and
then to calculate their footprint as if they were living in a DC but using THE
EXACT SAME NUMBERS as their first calculation, and then to explain the
difference (which tends to be enormous.) I then ask them to reflect on whether
the footprint exercise is political or not. If you're curious, I've attached
the exercise.
What has been most fascinating -- and totally unexpected --is how students have
become increasingly able to explain the discrepancy over time. When I first
devised the assignment, even the TAs didn't immediately see why they might have
a 5-earth footprint in the US but a 1/2-earth footprint in Ethiopia using
exactly the same numbers. And not only did virtually every student draw a
blank, a good number of them struggled to grasp that they were responsible for
one 300-millionth of every US road, airport, military base, etc. even after I
explained it to them. Over time, I noticed that the TAs began to get it right
away; in the last three years or so, 25-40% of the students get it right away.
I can't see any other explanation other than the possibility that young people
are becoming increasingly capable of systemic thinking -- even if they're not
overtly learning systems theory (something I also
teach and which virtually no students come in knowing.) Is it possible, I
wonder, that the capacity to intuit connections is a consequence of our
increasingly networked society? Just a thought... I wonder whether others on
this list have comparable findings.
Does this mean that I agree with Mike Maniates' "individualization thesis?"
NO! I assign his wonderful article alongside the ecological footprint paper,
which sets us up very nicely for the big question: Do lifestyle choices matter
- and if so, why? Given my most recent book on ecovillages around the world,
it's clear where I stand, but I let the students tease this out for themselves.
They come up with things like:
- decreasing one's footprint from 6 to 4 earths is worth doing;
- living with a sense of integrity is important even if it doesn't change the
world;
- having a sense of agency in one's own life can empower us to make a larger
difference through political action.
In the end, though, they generally realize that lifestyle changes are
insufficient and collective action is therefore necessary. So, getting back to
the exchange between Richard and Neil, I take a "both/and" stance with plenty
of room for deep conversation.
Enjoy,
Karen
p.s. - Mike Maniates has a terrific review of my ecovillage book in the fall
issue of GEP. Given our apparent differences, I can't think of a better
reviewer!
*************************************
Karen Litfin
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3530
http://faculty.washington.edu/litfin/
http://ecovillagebook.org/
https://www.facebook.com/Ecovillagesbook
On Sat, 9 Jan 2016, Wallace, Richard wrote:
> I've been on both sides of this in the classroom: it's a pretty easy and
> often illuminating assignment to ask students to do individual
> carbon footprint analyses, measure their water use, etc. There are plenty of
> tools available for this sort of thing. The students are
> usually surprised by their own results. But I believe Dr. Harrison is wrong
> on his central point, that "The only way to change a
> complex social system is from the bottom up." In fact, there are now years of
> research showing that an individualization-only approach
> bears little fruit, specifically of the kind he notes: that asking your
> students to change their behavior with regard to sustainability
> "May change how their friends live as well, and so on." In fact, without
> top-down policy change and regulation, there is little hope of
> addressing the challenges that face us with regards to energy and natural
> resource use and depletion. But I am comfortable being one of
> the "dour environmentalists" that Dr. Harrison refers to on his website, who
> believes that government regulation is necessary in order
> to achieve social change. And by the way, a great place to start in the
> literature on individualization is with the work of Mike
> Maniates, our list admin.
>
> In this vein, when I teach an introductory class on sustainability, and it is
> small enough for this sort of assignment to be
> manageable, I ask the students to engage directly in the democratic process.
> One way to do this is have them identify who their elected
> officials are, wherever they are registered to vote, and have them choose an
> issue they care about that their elected official can
> speak to, and write a letter to that elected official. I assign this early in
> the semester, and then work with them closely on the
> letters, reviewing drafts with them, and then have them send the letters,
> present them to the class, and report back to the class if
> they receive a response before the end of the semester. If students own up to
> not being registered to vote, I have been known to
> require them to register to vote, especially in a presidential election year,
> which itself provides a wonderful opportunity for
> discussion and engagement. This coming semester, for example, I am assigning
> my students in an advanced class to run a nonpartisan
> voter registration drive on campus. THAT is the sort of individualization
> that I can get behind!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rich Wallace
> Professor and Chair of Environmental Studies
> Ursinus College
> Collegeville, PA
>
> On Jan 9, 2016, at 12:43 PM, NeilE. Harrison <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Shannon:
>
> How about helping your students live more sustainably? More than
> regurgitating some vague theories about sustainable
> development they would have to think about how they live. If this
> changes their behavior, it may change how their friends
> live as well, and so on.
>
> Our modern lifestyle is unsustainable. So, change the system. The only
> way to change a complex social system is from the
> bottom-up. The best way to do that is to show people how they can save
> the planet while improving their lives. The hair
> shirt of self-denial offered by so many environmental writings is
> unattractive (too much like dieting?). The alternative of
> nanny-state regulation seems un-American, especially now. Instead
> people can save the planet by pursuing their personal
> well-being (and what's more American than capitalist self-interest?).
>
> [Beware shameless self-promotion: the theory for this approach is laid
> out in my book Sustainable Capitalism and the
> Pursuit of Well-Being - now out in paperback - and I'm working on a
> 'how to' book for 'everyman/everywoman' and a
> supporting website.]
>
> First your students need to understand how they have learned their
> lifestyle and why they so often use 'retail therapy' to
> feel good, for a short term fix of their problems. Exercise: ask them
> to describe how they have been trapped on the hedonic
> treadmill and give examples of how they consume to remedy unhappiness.
> Can they explain why retail therapy leaves them
> unfulfilled and unsatisfied? Why is it addictive?
>
> Second they need to understand their psychological needs: autonomy,
> competence, and relatedness. Exercise: ask them to give
> examples from their personal experience of how satisfying any/each of
> these needs made them feel. How could they satisfy
> these essential needs in the future? How would that change their lives?
>
> Third your students could examine Flow, the state of total engagement
> with an activity (and then with life). Exercise: have
> they ever experienced Flow? How did it make them feel? How does Flow
> relate to Mindfulness? How does Flow relate to their
> psychological needs?
>
> If you want to go further, you could get into issues of financial
> resilience, debt management, and investing that all
> satisfy psychological needs better than retail therapy and reduce
> consumption. While these issues may be beyond the purview
> of the class, they are important for well-being (viz the suffering from
> the 2007-2008 housing meltdown and the pain of
> recessions and unemployment). These are matters I am particularly
> interested in because of my CPA/CA training.
>
> I have not developed a syllabus for teaching this approach - perhaps I
> should - and these are just a few ideas I cobbled
> together in a few minutes. If you are interested in using this
> approach, I would be happy to work with you in any way you
> need,
>
> Cheers,
>
> Neil
>
> Neil E. Harrison, Ph.D., FCA, CPA
>
> Executive Director
> The Sustainable Development Institute (www.sd-institute.org)
> P.O. Box 423 Laramie, WY 82073
>
> Goodshop to save money and support The Sustainable Development
> Institute at www.Goodshop.com
>
>
> Author, Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being (Routledge
> 2014) more information
> at www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415662819
> Co-Editor, Climate Innovation: Liberal Capitalism and Climate Change
> (Palgrave Macmillan 2014) more information at
> http://us.macmillan.com/climateinnovation/NeilEHarrison.
> Author, Constructing Sustainable Development (SUNY Press)
> Co-Editor, Science and Politics in the International Environment
> (Rowman and Littlefield)
> Editor, Complexity in World Politics (SUNY Press)
> Editor, National, Regional and Global Institutions, Infrastructures and
> Governance, Vol. 1, National and Regional
> Institutions and Infrastructures. London and Paris: EOLSS/UNESCO, 2008.
> (EOLSS/UNESCO)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> From: "Shannon Kathryn Orr" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 10:17 AM
> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
> Subject: [gep-ed] non-traditional class assignments
>
> Dear All,
> I am teaching a new class in Global Sustainable Development and because it
> got added to the schedule late I have less than 20
> students (normal enrollment should be 50). Since it's a small class I
> thought it might be fun to offer students the opportunity
> to do a non-traditional project instead of a research paper if they so
> choose.
>
> I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas for projects. So far I've
> listed a comprehensive time line of events in a narrow
> area (with a paper discussing the connections between events), doing a
> project through the UN online volunteering system, and
> blogging once a week about current events in sustainable development.
>
> If you have an idea, please email them to me off-list and I will compile them
> into one post.
>
> Shannon
> ___________________________
> Shannon K. Orr, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor/Graduate Coordinator
> 118 Williams Hall
> Bowling Green, OH
> Department of Political Science
> Bowling Green State University
> [email protected]
> https://twitter.com/CapacityBldg4SD
>
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Footprint paper.doc
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