Below is a compilation of my takeaways from some of the interviews I have conducted! This page is organized from the first interview at the top to the most recent interview at the bottom.
Ms. Hoeffler (Communications Coordinator at Sustainable Duke): July 1
General themes:
- Optics: if people can see something, they’ll pay more attention
- Personal wellness: can’t help environment until you help yourself
- Caution fatigue: people are tired of caring
- Focus in on PEOPLE to help them feel heard and cared for
- When you are personally less stressed, problems in your life seem more approachable
- Responsibility:
- She felt a strong sense of personal responsibility and called it “her fault” when people weren’t educated
- She felt a strong sense of personal responsibility and called it “her fault” when people weren’t educated
Drives action:
- Lenses of sustainability: helps to think beyond immediate effects
- Ex: not just think about waste going in landfill, but also the jobs going away from recycling, the land cleared for more landfill space, the nutrients leaving the soil, etc.
- Community input: getting more stakeholders involved
- Make people feel heard and like they’re contributing to a project
- Optimism: green devils = project based, can see a path forward
- Less aggressive & absolute
- Focus on people
- Focus first on convenience, saving money, then good for environment
- Caution fatigue: Focus in on PEOPLE to help them feel heard and cared for
- Stories resonate!: ex justin and lucas
- Sell it: make message engaging
- ex “greeting the home office”
- Metaphor “person behind the curtain” with helping others in world
- Establish emotional connection
- Ex: tell parents about their kids’ futures
- Take advantage of stress
- 2007: durham had drought and duke was #1 consumer of potable water – caused duke to innovate
- Educate: show people small ways to help environment!
- Ex: she could’ve just made cheap laundry detergent on her own instead of knockoff dollar store
- Negotiation: giving people “a break from sustainability”, taking a step back
Causes inaction:
- Lack of presence and accessibility: Not having a physical office on campus makes it difficult for others to approach her
- Optics: people are less aware bc they can’t see her office
- Aggressiveness from sustainability leaders: makes it difficult to work together
- Often only see micro level – don’t pay attention to big picture optics
- Comfort: causes people to acknowledge but not solve problem
- Not wanting to be told what to do “anti institution”
Maddie (Duke Green Devil Intern): July 2
General themes
- Can think about changing “system” or changing “people”
- 2 ways to think about it: changing SYSTEM, or educating PEOPLE
- Takeout containers = systemic change
- Always difficult to get people to personally relate to an issue
Drives action
- Aligning sustainability with other interests
- Some green devil interns started out being interested in urban development or another topic and then branched to sustainability
- Tangible effects
- Black lives matter really taking off on campus
- Personal commitment
- Call to action
- Also personal interest – especially for people majoring in enviro science
- Personal motivation
- Having a community to talk to
- Little victories: When you see someone do something good or see interest sparked
- Optimism:
- Motivating each other
Causes inaction
- Treating events as cycles or outliers instead of patterns (hurricanes)
- Eyeroll attitude from students: inconvenience, anti-institution/rules
- Hard science = not enough solution based
- Making things “more human” is difficult for her to understand bc she cares about the environment and not just humans
Clara (Sustainability at NCSSM): July 5
Drives action
- Community: campus wide action
- Social media AI project
- campus wide action
- Social media AI project
- helps alleviate frustration
- Boarding school = points system for hall
- Collectivist environment: people help sort recycling on the weekends
- Independence: student led clubs means they don’t have to rely on teachers to start projects
- Integration: climate change included in mini term, curriculum, assemblies, events
- Consistency: club meets often
- Timing: junior and senior year = older, leaders
- Connection: make people care
- NCSSM has more of a connection because of the STEM focus → people truly care about the science behind climate change
- Support: school willing to give financial resources
- Responsibility:
- Ex recycling bins being taken away
Causes inaction
- Other priorities
- Stress
- Busy schedule
Mayor Rett Newton (Beaufort, NC): August 4th
General themes
- It’s all about how you “sell” things
- If you present one important issue, people tend to not care too much, but if you put it together with other issues as a set of goals/a package, people buy in
- It’s this idea of transformation that attracts people
- If you present one important issue, people tend to not care too much, but if you put it together with other issues as a set of goals/a package, people buy in
- Trauma, especially due to the effects of climate change (hurricanes) has a HUGE impact of people
Drives action
- Personal commitment to action and the feeling of doing something tangible
- Unity is essential
- Without leadership, you can’t make progress
- After you drill talking points in enough, you start to hear others echo those same ideas!
- Patriotism/pride can be very effective in bringing people together for change
- Sells plan as: North Carolina’s first Clean Water Coastal Community
- Often have to be frank with people: “we have waste in our water”
- MUST be visible and communicate
- Showing people tangible positive effects
- Wants to use metrics to show how housing prices have gone up in beaufort bc of improving water quality and infrastructure
- This made me realize – Many times we give negative statistics about climate change, but we don’t use enough positive statistics (our actions have had x impacts)
Causes inaction
- Having clearly outlined methods that show how you can help is key
- Many times, people feel like they don’t have much of an impact or there’s not really anything they can do to stop a problem
- Many people who aren’t as high in socioeconomic level don’t have the tools or energy to expend fighting climate change
- Choosing to ignore a problem
- Ex: septic system vs sewer system
- People are upset when beaches close, but they’re unwilling to understand WHY
- Ex: septic system vs sewer system
- Other issues coming first: especially when there’s desperation
- Ex: need for jobs > newport river estuary’s well being
Dr. Anantha Aiyyer (Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at NC State): August 11th
General themes
- APPROACHABILITY is key!
- Don’t be snobby or aggressive about an issue! Simplifying it and having a conversation helps a lot
- Setting small goals is helpful
- Overall: talking to people and explaining things clearly really helps!
Drives action
- Need more public science speakers
- Lack of interest – people prefer to talk about other things
- Having a more relaxed and informed response
- Panic and anxiety ≠ action
- Separating facts from opinion
- PLANNING for small steps and deliberate action – don’t just make it a goal to drive less, plan out a new route that allows you to drive one mile less to work or decide on a few days where you’ll ride a bike
- Be diplomatic – he prefaces conversations by explaining that he doesn’t want to completely eliminate fossil fuels outright, but rather, to shift towards cleaner energy
- This takes the antagonism we often see towards the fossil fuel/petrochemical industries out of it
- Showing people really simple models (ex: retrospective climate model runs) helps a lot
Causes inaction
- Choosing to ignore a problem
- Politicization – not talking about it
- Lack of clarity about climate change
- Uncertainty and misinterpretation of climate models
- Confirmation bias
- Lack of appreciation for subtlety and nuance
- Confusion: Can often predict temperature response, but predicting how exact events or extreme weather behave is more difficult
- People often don’t understand this
- Don’t know how to deal with scientific error
- Lack of understanding about “research”
- 1 google search ≠ research
- Uncertainty and misinterpretation of climate models
- Disconnect between universities/research institutions and public
- A small proportion of population is in charge of a MASSIVE amount of knowledge, and that knowledge doesn’t get conveyed effectively
- Guilt – making people feel guilty only makes them more apprehensive about climate change
- Go incrementally instead!
Dr. Mick Smyer (Psychologist and Founder of Growing Greener): August 18
General Themes:
- major events (ex: birth of grandson) = Wake up call
- many people haven’t thought about how climate change intersects with fields that hard science
- using design by analogy (examining methods others have previously used) helps significantly
- behavioral change: he looked at Weight watchers, fitness coaches, meditation specialists, etc.
Drives action
- Followed design principles: social, short, positive
4 questions:
- Picture a place, any place in world that has special meaning to you
- Picture that place affected by extreme weather/climate change
- Picture what you WANT that place to look like in 40-50 years
- For older people – this echoes the past
- They want it to look like what it looked like 20 years ago
- Younger groups want it too look like what it looks like now, but just a little bit better
- College students are now saying 10 years ago
- For older people – this echoes the past
- Picture something you can do now to work towards that vision
- Asking for a small change – start with small changes, then work up to big changes
- changing the story we tell ourselves – huge issue, what can one person do
- Changes to: i’m committing to doing one more thing, i’m already doing many things
- investing in future
- Peer education – if you’re doing 10 things and neighbor’s doing 15, you want to see what they’re doing
- Is your no way pile exactly like your neighbor’s? – usually no
- Focus on engage and reflect – how much are you already doing…rather than tackling abstract concepts
- Commitment to action
- Get people to TANGIBLY move things from could do and will do
- Person: pick one person to be your accountability buddy
- Timetable: Fuel efficient car in next few years
- Motivation:
- For adults: a person or organization whose values and goals you do not agree with – How much money you’ll give to the organization
- For HS/college students: social motivation
- Make other person lunch for a week
- Drive someone to school
- Negative consequences are bigger motivator
- Begin by telling your own story – personalizing the issue
- Al gore – abstract…most of us aren’t able to take in that much change – stories help with this, getting people to reflect their story as well
- Peer Support
- People begin to realize how many people care about this issue
- Place induction: using the place, SKETCHING IT – this engages you deeply
- legacy induction: “how do you want to be remembered?”
- Significantly affects climate interests – gets people to think about future generations
- ⅔ of sensory neurons wired to process visual information
- Climate attitudes and behavior change is helpful
- feeling like you’re a climate advocate – ex: getting high schoolers to talk to parents
Drives inaction
- Guilt
- Anxiety doesn’t work well – inverted u shape curve of anxiety and performance
Common Conclusions from all interviews
General themes
- It’s always hard to get people to relate and care about an issue
Drives action
- Sense of personal responsibility
- Community: helps alleviate frustration, have someone to talk to
- Being surrounded by people who care = motivation
- importance of personal connection through stories
- Mentality: accepting the small victories, persistence
- Empathy: understand what others are going through and are busy, try to relate to them
- Showing small steps people can take
- Making sure you’re approachable
- Clara: teachers are approachable
- Ms hoeffler: struggle with lack of office
Causes inaction
- Too much of a focus on hard science: only learn about 1 solution for 5 problems, feeling of helplessness, lack of policy action
- Anti-institution attitudes
- overwhelming/helplessness: people don’t understand the impact of the small things they can do
- Stress (esp from students)