Tag: Climate change

Global Warming Revisited

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I just read NYTimes food writer Mark Bittman’s OpEd piece about about global warming (The Endless Summer), and I feel like part of the problem. The last two years have been so overwhelmingly busy that I have not been blogging regularly. And beyond that, I have not mentioned climate change since August 2010; that mention followed five other blog posts on the subject starting in September 2009.

That is precisely what Bittman points out in his column. We seem to have become blind to climate change and our part in it as we struggle to deal with our day to day lives.

Here’s what American exceptionalism means now: on a per-capita basis, we either lead or come close to leading the world in consumption of resources, production of pollutants and a profound unwillingness to do anything about it. We may look back upon this year as the one in which climate change began to wreak serious havoc, yet we hear almost no conversation about changing policy or behavior.

In the two years since I last wrote about this subject, most serious scientific objection to the fact of climate change and global warming has disappeared. It seems pretty apparent that the people who benefit from our lack of action are those in the fossil fuel industry or those who do not want to spend money limiting the impact of their industries upon our shared climate. Those who lose are the rest of us….every one.

I live in Florida where we have just had our 49th day of 90 and above temperatures this year, an extreme even for Florida. Yep, we are just over 200 days into the year and fully one quarter of those days have had temps 90 or above. Because we live in Central Florida where the weather can suddenly become very interesting, we have a local weather station and connect its output to wunderground.com. Their website contains a whole section on climate change with lots of detailed information.

I know we are still struggling economically. I understand that it is hard to face difficult issues day in and day out. I realize that most of us feel pretty powerless to address an issue as large as global warming. But there are certainly things each of us can do . . . even if our leaders will not take charge on this issue.

In 2009, Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney started the Meat Free Monday movement encouraging ordinary folks like you and me to eat meat one day less per week. Their website contains lots of useful information about the impact of our food choices.

The UK’s Food Climate Research Network suggests that food production from farm to fork is responsible for between 20-30 percent of global green house gas emissions . . . . Livestock production is responsible for around half of these emissions.

Also in 2009, Mark Bittman wrote Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. According to Bittman, this book “explores the links among global warming and other environmental challenges, obesity and the so-called lifestyle diseases, and the overproduction and overconsumption of meat, simple carbohydrates, and junk food.”

In March 2012, Brad Tuttle of Time wrote about the The Meatless (and Less Meat) Revolution.

You and your organizations work daily with people who struggle with obesity among other food-related health issues. Research has long indicated that successful weight loss is only maintained when an individual learns about healthy food choices and practices making those choices over the long term. For some people, finding a larger reason to eat more sanely can serve as a powerful motivator.

Perhaps making the connection between global warming and healthy eating would be just the pairing someone struggling with food-related behavior needs.

I used to care that people understood how humans contribute to global warming. I no longer care. It does not matter whether human behavior caused the crisis we are facing. What matters is that there are behaviors each of us can do that can have an impact on climate change.

Are you up for the challenge? It will save you money, help you lose weight, and have a significant impact on global warming.

Square Foot Gardening: Self-care modality

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When I was a first year graduate student in psychology, we studied many personality theories as well as a variety of methods of psychotherapy. As a traditional Western institution of higher learning, the program I attended mentioned non-traditional and alternative approaches but gave them relatively short shrift. As a result, we students developed shorthand ways of referring to the methods about which we learned very little. One of those methods was Morita Therapy. We referred to it as digging-in-the-dirt therapy.

First, I will make profound apologies to Dr. Shoma Morita, The Morita School, and The ToDo Institute for the lightness with which we treated this Japanese School of Psychology. We focused on one kind of direct action in the world that was used in this therapy. . . working in a garden. That is one very tiny piece of this Zen Buddhist inspired method.

Fortunately for me, it is the piece I took away and have used throughout my adult life. Gardening has always been the way I nurture myself. Getting down on my hands and knees and getting my hands into the dirt is one of the most profound ways I have experienced of centering myself and taking care of myself. It is the action I take to relieve anxiety and to recover from sadness.

This past week, I expanded my gardening repertoire. I had the exciting experience of completing a teacher certification class offered by the Square Foot Gardening Foundation.

In the past six months, I have had two people point me to Square Foot Gardening. . . a friend in South Florida who had undertaken one there, and my nephew Zachary who had planted one in Chicago last summer. Many years ago, I had read about Square Foot Gardening in a chapter of a book entitled Florida Home Grown 2: The Edible Landscape by Tom MacCubbin. Like most gardeners, I found it very hard to believe that so much could grow successfully in so little space. . . so I did not try the method. With Zachary’s encouragement, I purchased a copy of the All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. I quickly decided this was for me. When, one week later, a third friend told me about the teacher class being held in my home county, I knew the synchronicity was too compelling to ignore.

What could possibly be so exciting about gardening? Why would anyone want to spend their time in the dirt rather than walking the aisles of the food store?

Have you ever eaten freshly picked vegetables? Have you felt the satisfaction of planting, nurturing and harvesting beautiful, nutritious food that tastes wonderful? Have you ever felt the sense of well-being that goes with producing your own food?

Square Foot Gardening can be done by anyone in tiny spaces with little work, small quantities of water, virtually no weeds, and lots of results. Mel says you can get 100% of the harvest in 20% of the space, with 20% of the water and less than 5% of the work of a traditional row garden. The above-ground boxes divided by a grid provide a unique, attractive garden.  Because you grow in a mix of vermiculite, peat moss (or coconut coir) and blended compost placed in a 4 x 4 box over weed blocking  fabric, you start with no weed seeds and can keep the garden free of weeds easily.  In fact, you can even place boxes on hard surfaces like parking lots or driveways. If bending over is a problem for you, you can build your box on a tabletop. In a recent blog, Mel addressed the 10 most common excuses for not gardening. Which ones are yours?

For me, there are two crucial reasons to garden. (1) Gardening can dramatically improve mental health, reducing anxiety and depression. (2) Producing one’s own food creates a strong sense of self-sufficiency. In fact, I can imagine that a Square Foot Garden built and maintained by patients in residential and intensive outpatient programs, or at a community mental health center could produce major therapeutic effects.

If you are interested in learning more about Square Foot Gardening, please feel free to contact me. You can also visit any of the site links above. And, as always, I love to hear your comments!

 

Inspiration, the Natural World, and Mental Health

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Do you have a favorite author?

I have loved different writers at various times in my life. At present, one of my favorites is Barbara Kingsolver. What? You don’t know her work? Well, you should try one of her best known, The Poisonwood Bible, the story of a missionary family in the Congo in the late 1950’s. Or perhaps you would like her first novel, The Bean Trees, the tale of a young woman escaping rural Kentucky to establish her life as an independent woman. Those of you interested in eating locally and creating a more sustainable natural future for us all would enjoy one of her non-fiction titles, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

This past weekend, we attended Seth’s 40th reunion at Duke University. The only event I was intent upon attending was the presentation of the LEAF award granted by the Nicholas School of the Environment for Lifetime Environmental Achievement in the Fine arts. This year’s award was given to Kingsolver. I was hoping to hear something inspirational from this wonderful writer. I was not disappointed. Her reading from Prodigal Summer, one of her books I have not read, reminded me of her powerful ability to poignantly describe the natural world and our place in it. That one has moved to the top of my reading list.

The Dean of the Nicholas School, Dr. William L. Chameides, in addition to his administrative and teaching responsibilities, writes a blog called The Green Grok. As best I can tell so far, it is a wonderful source of factual environmental information and inspiration toward sustainable living. I am a new subscriber.

On Sunday we spent a few hours in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. What a wonderful setting this is! According to the garden web site, this beautiful place was built in a debris-filled ravine…truly a recovery of the land to its best possible use. While I will never create something of such beauty as the Duke Gardens, my visit there inspired me to return home to beautify my own surroundings, to assure that the vegetables I have planted thrive, and to thoroughly enjoy the bird life on our property. My own contribution to the natural world, its protection and preservation may be small, but it is heartfelt. I am grateful for the inspiration of artists and naturalists to keep me going in my bit of work to enhance my natural surroundings.

As a professional who has worked in and with behavioral health organizations for 35 years, I strongly feel the need to encourage a focus on the natural world as a primary way to improve our mental health. I returned home with a renewed focus of that imperative.

What do your favorite authors inspire in you?  Please share your comments below.

Activism: 101

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Note: This is one of an occasional series of postings on how we can work to affect climate change.
 

A couple of weeks ago we went to the home of friends in our book club planning to watch a movie together. When we arrived, we did not know what movie we would be watching, but I was delighted with the choice. We saw a movie called Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. 

In spite of being a bit younger than those most likely to know and appreciate the work and music of Pete Seeger, I have very fond memories of hearing and learning songs like Where Have All the Flowers Gone and This Land Is Your Land. I was surprised to learn that Pete Seeger had introduced the folk song We Shall Overcome to Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, and I was inspired to learn that for the last 25 years he has lead and worked on efforts to clean up the Hudson River in New York. For most of his 90 years, Pete Seeger has used music to influence and inspire one aspirational movement after the next from the labor movement of the 1930s to the peace movement to the environmental revolution. He could teach well beyond Activism: 101.

One statement in the movie reminded me of a task I had set for myself. Pete talked about never hesitating to wade into some overwhelmingly large task. He said that he reminds himself to ‘think globally but to act locally’ because you can only be where you are and work to change that one place. While local action usually has the most impact on our daily lives, in this highly connected time in history, the ‘place’ we are is dramatically expanded by electronic media, so I’ll take the opportunity to work in this ‘place’.

Last Monday, I read a NY Times opinion piece by Thomas Homer-Dixon. The author was writing from his perch aboard the Louis S. St-Laurent, the floating laboratory for Arctic science that is part of the Canadian Coast Guard. Professor Homer-Dixon reported that the ice in the arctic looks completely different than when he was in the same location at the same time of year 20 years ago. The rapid changes in Arctic ice are not visible to most of us, but Professor Homer-Dixon reports that the severe melting and expected thinning of Arctic winter ice are indicative of rapid changes occurring in many aspects of our climate.

The year 2010 is turning out to be the warmest year since temperatures have been recorded globally. Mudslides in China, fires in Russia, flooding in Pakistan….all are considered by climate experts to be manifestations of the changes in climate that can readily be measured.

One of my colleagues returned from a summer visit to Mexico. While he was there, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico made a speech about climate change. Sr. Calderon wondered why it is only in the United States that there is still debate about whether climate change is occurring, when everywhere else in the world, the issue is what to do about it.

Professor Homer-Dixon is also concerned about the ‘what to do’ part of this issue. He suggests that our governments need to be developing interventions in case a large, catastrophic event occurs. He thinks this ‘Plan Z’ should be our outline for how to proceed if and when a large climate catastrophe occurs. Having evacuated from my Mother’s New Orleans home two days before Katrina hit five years ago, and then dealt with the results of 8 feet of water in her home, I am well aware of the effects of no plan, and a big fan of developing real plans to deal with possible climatic catastrophe.

My only question about a plan is whether it needs to be large-scale (national or world-wide) or small-scale (local communities and individuals). Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute believes that our plan (he calls it Plan B) must be comprehensive and must focus on what actions we can take prior to the catastrophe. Since I am a planner and a taker of action, I like Mr. Brown’s approach. His books are extremely intelligent and detailed assessments of what each of us as individuals as well as what governments and multi-national organizations and corporations can do to prepare for and to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The report of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change explores in depth aspects of human behavior, thinking and emotion that must be studied and addressed in order to impact climate change. The report discusses denial as one reaction to being faced with the possibility of catastrophic results of climate change. As our friends in 12-Step programs would tell us, denial is not a river in Egypt…it is what we do unconsciously when we cannot face the data presented to us. But face that data we must.

This week marks the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. Most of us know of the physical devastation caused by that storm. Some of the data released last week indicate that the effects on the mental health of those who were directly and indirectly affected by Katrina were equally devastating. But what are we doing to plan for the effects of climate change? How will we prepare ourselves personally and our organizations professionally to intervene to protect and recover the mental health of our communities when we are faced with catastrophes caused by climate change? What do we do now rather than after the fact?

This is my sixth post on climate change since last September. There are a total of four comments on those posts . . . two made by readers and two made by me in response. Are we in denial? Please share your comments below.

The Day the Earth Stood Still: Humans & our planet

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Note: This article is my once-in-a-while exploration of human behavior and climate change. While it is in no way related to health care, it may be directly related to health.

Last weekend, we watched the critically unacclaimed remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves. While the movie left a great deal to be desired, it reminded me of the ongoing issue of human behavior and how we affect our world. This particular movie ends on a hopeful yet doubtful note that we will be able to change our behavior in time to keep climate change from destroying our species.

The American Psychological Association’s Climate Change Task Force Report has now been published in a nice booklet format. I am hopeful that the shorter, more attractive read will make the report accessible to more readers.

Section 2 of the report discusses the human behavioral contributions to climate change along with psychological and contextual components of the contributions. As is frequent in reports and studies by psychologists, ethical concerns are high on the list of issues to be considered. Since population growth and consumption of raw materials to manufacture those things which increase our perception of quality of life are two factors documented to contribute to the manner by which humans impact climate change, how we address population growth and consumption is crucial. Expecting developing nations to forego growth and consumption while the developed countries (like us) continue to consume is blatantly unjust. Many argue that expecting the developing world to forego growth is unjust even if we were to completely alter our own patterns of consumption.

Demographers have developed formulae to demonstrate the effect humans have on the environment. The basic

and widely known formula from the 1970s is I = PxAxT where I = Impact, P = Population, A = Affluence per capita and T = Technology. (APA Climate Change booklet, p 30, from Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971; Commoner, 1972; Holdren & Ehrlich, 1974)

Newer models take into account that countries with the highest per capita Gross Domestic Product plus intense consumption of goods and services requiring greenhouse gas production (environmental consumption) produce the most emissions and therefore the greatest environmental impact. These models are lovely ways to show in graphical form the impact of our reproductive and consumption choices. They do not, however, in any way address the variety of factors that contribute to growth in population (for example , individual and cultural religious beliefs; gender role beliefs; beliefs about individual vs. government control of reproduction; norms about when to start having children and how many to have; infant mortality; availability of food resources; and longevity. Population growth is a very complex phenomenon).

Consumption is an even more complex set of events and requires equally complex analysis. Each consumption behavior is multifactorially determined and requires analysis at different levels including institutional, sociocultural and physical environment context, individual factors such as demographics and psychological drivers, consumption of economic resources, consumption of environmental resources, greenhouse gases produced and emitted, and specific climate change.

The APA report discusses the need to separate consumption behaviors so we can determine which have the greatest impact on climate change. To spend significant resources researching behaviors with minimal impact will not be cost effective. To spend our time and energy learning about and affecting behaviors which have the most direct and largest impact on climate will be the best expenditure of psychological expertise.

While this report assesses what psychologists and the behavioral science community can do to impact climate change, the booklet is an articulate and readable explication of human behavior and climate change.

The question I have asked you before and will ask you again is the following: should we just sit helplessly by while the world (and our climate) changes around us, or should we learn what each of us can do in our individual and organizational lives to affect that change? What do you think?