#eeco509

                                                                     Photo Credit: Presencing Institute

One of the main takeaways from our two weeks with Renee Lertzman was the importance of shifting from telling to listening. I’ll attempt to deeply internalize this guidance as I move forward with my work in environmental communication. The chapter, “Listen Deeply” in I’m Right and You’re an Idiot, emphasizes the value to be found in the practice of listening  (Hoggan, 2016, pp. 145–154). Hoggan shares the insights of Otto Scharmer, founder of the Presencing Institute. Scharmer guides students through a process of deep listening, empathetic understanding, and an openness to new possibilities (Hoggan, 2016). This signals a profound shift from environmental projects that are often focused on achieving a goal or imparting a specific message.

“Scharmer believes profound change and true leadership can evolve by moving through the deepening process he calls the Theory U which happens on three levels:

The level of the mind, which involves suspending old habits of judgement

Opening the heart and beginning to see problems through the eyes of other stakeholders, walking in others’ shoes

Gaining the capacity to let go and let come” (Hoggan, 2016, p. 148)

Scharmer’s method teaches people to truly listen, moving them through a process from judgmental listening (what you know) and factual listening (what you didn’t know) to empathetic listening (seeing through another’s eyes) and generative listening (allowing something new to emerge) (Hoggan, 2016, p. 151). I visited the Presencing Institute website and found several tools that can be useful for environmental educator-communicators to improve their listening skills. Here are a few examples: 

Shadowing: a way to gain a deeper, more intuitive understanding of a leader

Sensing Journeys: going into unfamiliar settings to experience the perspectives of various stakeholders

Stakeholder Interviews: an alternative approach to stakeholder interviews—conversations that help you see your own role through the eyes of the stakeholder

Last week, as a group of environmental educators and communicators, we met to dig down through the layers of human behaviour and examine that which is underneath. Today, back at home, I’m sifting through our findings—what gems did we find that can guide us from here? Here is a collection of insights, thoughts, and advice offered by the ground-breakers in our field—Renee Lertzman, James Hoggan, Jeff Kiehl and others—that we can weave into our work and ourselves.

Bring the authenticity of who you are

Focus on guiding rather than righting, dialogue rather than debate

Be mindful of the attitudes that we bring to our work

Pay attention to the affect within settings

Things start to shift when we make space for acknowledgement

Meet people where they are

Tune in to what is underneath

How frame your question will define your answer

Aim for integration of approaches

Narrative can transcend polarization

Hope is in who we are, in our strengths and values

Develop the ability to tolerate uncertainty

Provide safety, containment and acknowledgement

Hold space around ambivalence

Truth-telling can be transformational

Think about how to disarm protective mechanisms

People need to be heard before they can move on to solutions

See anxieties, ambivalence, aspiration as doorways in

Shake up your own assumptions to see what else is going on

We have a fundamental need for reflection—create windows and spaces to reflect

Inviting, evoking stories

Use storytelling as an invitation to engage

Start where people are comfortable

My colleague and I were talking yesterday about civic engagement.  We were talking about how to listen to people's concerns, needs, fears, and hopes without necessarily offering solutions and next steps.  We also talked about being community driven versus being process driven and seeking permission versus giving orders.  These things take time.  Often it's hard to reign in the feeling of wanting results and metrics when the very act of listening meaningfully is one of patience, sometimes restraint, and going deeper – sometimes to uncomfortable areas that elude quantitative results.  It can take years and years for change to occur and there's a certain faith needed that successive people will take on the baton.  I see a lot of parallels for climate change work here.  

A few days ago, I was reading a Guardian article about Arctic sea ice melt.  After a residency reflecting about anxieties, ambivalences, and aspirations in regards to climate change, I decided to monitor my own reaction in reading the article.  The article is apocalyptic in nature with geo-engineering and immediate greenhouse gas reductions pointed out as possible solutions towards the latter half.  

To be honest, reading the first half of the article gave me incredible anxiety to the point where by the time the journalist addressed solutions, it didn't matter to me. The climate change issue just seemed so enormous and over my head that I found myself shutting down.  I marked down the key words and phrases from the article that struck me the most:

“Arctic death spiral”

“In 30 years Wadhams has seen the Arctic ice thin by 40%...”

“July 2016 is confirmed by Nasa as the hottest month ever recorded”

“...the release of huge plumes of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, accelerating warming even further.”

“...500 million people in the Middle East and north Africa, along with most of south-east Asia, have experienced droughts and searingly hot days and nights...”

“...nearly 100 million people will need food aid in the coming months...”

I realise the article is alarmist and frightening in nature because it wants to give the reader a sense of the urgency and gravity of the situation.  On one hand, I found myself wondering what the point was of reporting alarming fact after fact only to create a traumatised reader.  On the other hand, I was also wondering if I had been too mollycoddled from the reality of climate change when so many others around the world face it as a day-to-day reality.  That in turn produced feelings of guilt, which I'm not sure what to do with.  Hoggett writes about the direct connection between catastrophism and despair.  He talks about the unhelpfulness of catastrophic thinking even when the situation is dire:

The situation is alarming, and whilst complacency is no longer an option, neither is a politics of climate catastrophe a viable alternative. For catastrophism is a politics of despair that draws on the same survivalist mentality as previous apocalyptic movements did (Hoggett, 2011, p. 273).  

Perhaps the key is to recognize that even though climate change can be overwhelming and painful, it isn't helpful to just sink into those feelings (as important as it is to acknowledge them).  It’s striking that balance between moving forward against all odds and despair. 

References

Hoggett, P. (2011). Climate change and the apocalyptic imagination. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 16(3), 261–275.

Photo credit: Andy Yeung Photography

Something Jeff Kiehl mentioned in our class lecture with him really resounded with me.  He posed the question of how do we maintain a connection to nature when we're living in the middle of the city?  His response was to create connections where people could have “a time and place where we can touch, feel, and smell the non-human world” (Kiehl, personal communication, August 5, 2016).   He stressed the need for green spaces and advocated for garden spaces as a way to be in touch with the non-human world and to have a more “sensual connection to the world” (Kiehl, personal communication, August 5, 2016).

What Kiehl said (and probably owing to my interest in all things urban) really stuck with me.  If feeling a connection to the natural world is a key factor towards caring about larger issues such as climate change, I've been thinking about cities – and there are so many – that have been put together carelessly (planned or unplanned) where access to green space is limited.  How do people feel a connection with an environment that doesn't foster any connections with nature? How do you have connect with a concrete, steel, and glass environment?

That got me thinking about how we perceive cities.  They're often seen as standalone and separate from and antithetical to nature.  Cities are above and apart from the natural world.  Rather than being designed in context to the local ecology and landscape, they are increasingly looking more and more globally identical in form, design, and architecture.  A suburban neighbourhood from one city could be plopped into another city and fit in easily.  Maybe that's too cynical of me but I strongly feel that many modern cities lack resilience because of their homogeneity, uninspired design, and failure to integrate with nature.  Perhaps the place to start with is in thinking about cities as part of an integrated whole rather than islands in a barren landscape.  As Kiehl writes in Facing Climate Change: An Integrated Path to the Future, “we need to develop our ability to hold the whole and not just the pieces” (2016, p. 127).

References

Photo credit: candychang.com

A few months ago, I was introduced to the work of artist Candy Chang by a colleague.  Her work focuses on “playful and profound visions for how we can connect, reflect, and cultivate the health of our communities” (Chang, n.d.) .  She combines big installations of public art, placemaking, and community engagement to invite people to become a part of her projects.  

One example of this is her “Before I Die” project (as seen in the photo for this post).  Chang took a dilapidated house, covered one side with blackboard paint, and stencilled “Before I die I want to___” numerous times so that people could fill in the blank with their thoughts.  It turned out to be highly successful and was replicated around the world.  I think her work is incredibly engaging, interactive, and fun.  So, when we were asked to think of a successful campaign at the onset of this class, my thoughts immediately turned to Chang's work.  

I was trying to work out why I like her work so much and why I think it's so effective.  I had jotted down some notes last month but now that I come back to them and see them through Renee Lertzman's “Orientations to Engagement” quadrant, it makes a lot of sense as to why I was so attracted to Chang's work: it touches on all four parts of the quadrant.  Here's how I think she's able to relate to those quadrants.

Socio-cultural

Chang's work is interesting in that is general enough to appeal to a broad range of values and worldviews without ever really targeting a particular one.  Her projects speak to a common humanity that people share.

Emotional experiences

Chang's projects often ask thought-provoking and relatable questions that can trigger a wide range of emotional responses.  They often ask people about topics that strike a personal chord such as their thoughts on their dreams for their neighbourhood, personal confessions, and what they wanted to be when they were young.  She also taps into people's imaginations with projects like “I Wish This Was” where she asked people to imagine the possibilities for some vacant buildings in New Orleans.  

Behavioural

There's an element of “monkey-see, monkey-do” to Chang's work.  She creates individual opportunities to respond to a collective question so there's a chance to offer up your own thoughts while at the same time being part of a bigger picture.  As her work is on the street, you can see other people participating and connecting with each other.  Her work also invites a sense of curiosity and belonging in reading what other people are saying about the same question you're answering.  It activates a sense of knowing your neighbours.

Systems

From a design perspective, Chang's projects are visually striking with their colour, size, and street-level interface.  The projects often interact with people as they go about their day and are hard to ignore.  They activate the street and draw people together in a positive way.  The barriers to participation are low – she provides the materials people need (e.g. Chalk, post-it notes, pens) and people are able to participate right then and there.  There's also a uniformity and rigidity to the foundations of her projects that only get more interesting as more and more people participate.  There is also a sense that her projects are only temporary giving them an ephemeral quality

Looking at Chang's projects, I'm really excited to see how the Orientations to Engagement quadrant could be applied.  As my search to find ways to engage people more effectively in my own work continues, this is something I'm definitely going to keep in my back pocket.

References

Photo credit: Imaginals UK

One thing that I'm going to take from this course and really work on is interdisciplinary work.  Interdisciplinary (a.k.a. silo busting) is a word that get bandied about a lot in the fields I've worked in and I haven't really seen it implemented well.  It's one thing to bring people in from various discipline and have them work on a project together.  It's another to actually have their work interact, merge, integrate, and potentially synthesize to find new forms.  It's one of those things where success lies in the finer details.  We were talking about this yesterday in class in terms of integrating a four quadrant of the main schools of thought in climate change engagement: socio-cultural, behavioural, systems and emotional/experiential. Personally, I think this quadrant can work in so many different settings in addition to the climate change one.

I've been wondering throughout my working life what the not-so-obvious factors of success are for creating a safe space. Even when the “working” language isn’t the same, there are a number of things that make it easier to cross disciplines including creating a welcoming environment (both in mood and in choice of physical space), setting up ground rules, not using jargon, having everyone understand exactly why they are there, and trying to understand how other people conduct their work. 

Is that why I do this? (Ottawa, Power Shift, 2010)

 This will be my last blog post for the class EECO 509- Psychological Dimensions of Environmental Education and Communication, taught by Renee Lertzman.

Over the past month of engagement in this course I have been through a lot. From staying with my parents in Ontario, to an INTENSE residency at RRU, to a week of being back home, life has been full. But the course has also worked my emotions and intellect, often challenging the EE&C methods taught elsewhere. I have learned, reflected, and am now back home to integrate.

At the beginning of this course, Renee posed a series of questions on our course home page. She asked:

“What does it mean to be an environmental communicator and educator today?"

What is our work truly about? Is it about confronting the truths of our time? Or is it about inspiring love and care of our place, our biotic home?

I will use this last blog post to reflect back on those questions.

It is so strange to be in a job that people don’t really even understand what I do. Environmental Education and Communication is still very much on the fringes, so I often fall back to a description of taking kids on fun outdoor field trips, but it is so much more than that. I see our role as building community resiliency (both human and natural communities). To work with people and the environment to support all life efficiently, and for the long-term. Try explaining that at a dinner party. If I am feeling cheeky I will relate that it is crazy that this is even a job, to convince people that saving the earth we rely on is an important thing.

But the truth is, we need environmental educators and communicators now more than ever. The survival of our species (and many more) depends on us getting our shit together to make some drastic changes to our economies, lifestyles, and relationships with each other and the world. Is this the truth that we need everyone to confront? Scaring people doesn’t seem to work, nor does incentive programs, contests or other tips and tricks to get people to change. Is it as Renee suggests, require a much deeper, psychological approach? I believe that we need all the techniques (or engagement quadrants) to meet people where they are. Sometimes we need to talk, sometimes we need stories, sometimes incentives, sometimes technology.

For me, this work is less about “saving the world” or even “saving the humans”. Having a closer connection to the earth brings me happiness. Watching the seasons change, the moon rise, squirrels chasing each other in a tree, can fill me with joy in a way that no movie can.  If consumerism actually made people happy this could be harder. But the more our society ‘evolves’ the more depression and anxiety we have.