TED Talk: Global Warming Mitigated by Cattle?

Global warming may be mitigated by the most unlikely of sources, cattle. How is this possible? How can this vilified creature be an ally in the fight against climate change? Seth Itzkan shows us how.

Seth is President of Planet-TECH Associates, a consultancy that investigates innovations for a regenerative future. He has consulted on trends and innovations for The Boston Foundation, The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and The US Census Bureau. Seth is a graduate of Tufts University College of Engineering and the University of Houston-Clear Lake Masters Program in Studies of Future. He works in Somerville, and recently spent six weeks at the Africa Center for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe.

A Solar Panel "Microbrewery"

Imagine what you might do if you could print your own solar panels.  That line was taken from an article published by NPR's Science Friday about Shawn Frayne and Alex Hornstein's Solar Pocket Factory.  

Described by the founders as a "microbrewery" for solar panels, the two inventors were able to raise over $70,000 from a Kickstarter campaign to get their project going.

Click here for the article and accompanying video.

Creating Green Conferences

Thanks to Mike Magoon at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) for passing along the webinar announcement below! The announcement is partly in response to a conversation with several BASS members on how to create green conferences with the help of the Internet -- the less people physically traveling to your conference, the greener it can be.  If the registration link below doesn't work for you, please click here.

Zakaria's "The New Oil and Gas Boom"

Today, I read Fareed Zakaria's recent column in Time magazine, titled "The New Oil and Gas Boom," which is also available here.

One point he made that I found intruiging was the following: "The environmental impact of the natural-gas boom is already clear—and positive. The U.S.’s greenhouse-gas emissions in 2011 were 9% lower than in 2007. That’s a larger drop than in the European Union, with all its focus on renewables. Why? A slow recovery and lagging demand is one answer. But the main reason is that natural gas is replacing coal everywhere as an energy source, and gas emits half as much carbon dioxide as coal."

Some food for thought in your sustainable efforts...

The Wonder Wash, Powerless Washer: Commentary and Review

For about a month now, my wife and I have been using the Wonder Wash to wash our clothes.  Unlike traditional powerless washers, the Wonder Wash does away with washboards and plungers in favor of a pressurized container that efficiently forces the detergent through your clothes enabling you to wash a load in approx. two minutes.

The video above illustrates the process of using the Wonder Wash from start to finish to get a feel for the length of time involved from loading to drying.  

Sustainable Waste Management at Stanley Middle School:

One of the standouts from the many fantastic presentations given at the Behavior Change for a Sustainable World conference at the beginning of the month came from Brian Cooper and his team at Stanley Middle School.  In his first year as a math teacher at Stanley Middle School, Brian Cooper found himself surrounded by collaborative and optimistic people who weren't afraid to ask questions and do some problem solving. A passionate group of 8th grade students met during their lunch break each week and created a plan to implement a new waste management system for the 1200 students on their campus. Realizing and utilizing their surrounding green infrastructure was critical for success.  They conducted a waste audit with EarthTeam, met with the community members of Sustainable Lafayette, took council from the county's WasteBusters, and learned from the practices of their friends at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School.

More than 1500 pounds of food were collected for energy conversion during the final eight weeks of the 2011-2012 academic year.  Goals for 2012-2013 include sustaining the practice, making it more efficient, and providing more opportunities for students to reflect on the meaningfulness of the practice through concepts and metrics.

Please see the following video depicting their successful program.

Global Cooling? Implications for Sustainability Efforts.

According to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), an international team "has published a reconstruction of the climate in northern Europe over the last 2,000 years based on the information provided by tree-rings."  Their reconstruction is illustrated in the adjascent graph.

According to the article, the group  "used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling."

The authors also suggest that "the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia."

While one study is hardly ever sufficient to change an entire scientific theory, this data raises an important issue to be considered by those in the sustainability community, viz., is "global warming" a necessary component of sustainability?

In my personal opinion, the answer is a resounding "no."  Sustainability efforts are justified regardless of whether global warming is a valid phenomenon.  Behaviorally speaking, people are much more motivated by short term consequences than by long term consequences.  In addition, when consequences are a cumulative product of macrobehavior -- that is, the behavior of many people acting concurrently over time, rather than the behavior of one particular individual -- those consequences are even less likely to change behavior.  Global warming, whether "real" or not, suffers from these behavioral shortcomings.

The philosophical foundation of behavior analysis is one of pragmatism.  It's functional contextualist underpinnings suggest that if the scientific enterprise and it's products are intimately tied to the verbal behavior of scientists acting in context, then "what is real" is unimportant and indeterminate because "reality" is relative to one's history of interacting with the world.  Rather, what we should focus on is "what changes behavior."  Thus, worrying about whether global warming is "really" happening is a non-issue.  While there are many individuals motivated by "global warming" there are many more who aren't and a sizable portion of those who are flat out skeptical.  

Alternatively, what most people do care about are the more immediate and tangible products of unsustainable behavior such as (a) pollution which can be seen, smelled, and felt, rising from factories and emitted from vehicles, (b) trash, which are eye sores on our sidewalks, rivers, and parks, and (c) chemical contaminants in our lakes, rivers, and water supply which impair our health.

More Bikes, More Problems...Maybe

For behavioral scientists interested in promoting sustainable practices in our communities, New York may provide for an interesting case study.  According to Grist.org, New York City is planning on introducing 10,000 public bikes into the city tied together via a "network of bike-sharing stations."

Though the city council enthusiastically approved the measure, the larger populace may have their doubts. Most relate to the environment of Manhattan itself, with concerns that the city "was never designed for biking," with related safety concerns with so many potential cyclists on the road.  And, of course, there is the potential negative impact of bike lanes on local business with one manager reporting that the lanes have "cut down on parking and hindered the ability of delivery trucks to access his storefront."  Although the above comments were not based on a systematic polling of the population, it does open one's eyes to the complexities involved in promoting sustainable community practices. 

Behavior analysts can certainly advise on best practices regarding the safety of bicyclists, and evidenced in Dagen and Alavosius's (2008) paper in Behavior and Social Issues titled "Bicyclist and Motorist Environments: Exploring Interlocking Behavioral Contingencies."  Perhaps the most obvious set of interlocking contingencies involves the potential for New York's initiative to unleash 10,000 lay bicyclists, who likely have insufficient bicycle-commuting repertoires, onto the streets of the largest city in the U.S.  Of course, that is an empirical question -- what types of people are most likely to participate in a public bike program?  Will it be avid cyclists or people who have very little history riding bikes, let alone riding them in the middle of a busy city?

For a different perspective on the issue, please see the following video for one bike messenger's story of biking in New York City:


MY NYC Biking Story: Squid from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Needless to say, we in the behavioral community will have our eyes on the Big Apple in the coming months as the project unfolds.

Behavior Change for a Sustainable World Conference

August 3-5 will be an exciting time for BASS in that the Behavior Change for a Sustainable World Conference will be held during that time at The Ohio Union at the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. 

As quoted from the Association for Behavior Analysis International:

"Save the dates now and plan to be part of this seminal gathering on how basic principles of behavior change can help in the fight to preserve our environment. As world-famous climatologist Lonnie Thompson noted in his paper in The Behavior Analyst (Fall, 2010), there is currently no engineering fix for climate change. For now, the only thing we can do is change human behavior.
The program will feature prominent figures in behavior analysis, environmental organizations, business, and government. Invited addresses and panels, research and project posters, and interactive brainstorming sessions will give conference attendees a unique opportunity to interact with people with diverse backgrounds who are interested in working on one of the greatest challenges to face civilization since the last ice age.
In addition to invited presentations by distinguished scholars, attendees will have the opportunity to review current research at a poster session. Questions regarding the sustainability conference should be directed to the ABAI office at (269) 492-9310 or via e-mail at convention@abainternational.org.
The Japanese Journal for Behavior Analysis posted an announcement for the conference in their latest issue. You can view the announcement here (in Japanese).

Tours of Sustainability Research Programs

Conference attendees can choose from a number of tours of sustainability research and development programs including the Byrd Polar Research Center, Center for Automotive Research, the Zero Waste Project at Ohio Stadium, and Blue Rock Station."

One particularly notable speaker will be Dr. Lonnie Thompson, who is a senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center and recipient of the National Medal of Science.  See this short video of Dr. Thompson discussing his childhood journey into science.

Countercultural Paths to Sustainability

To christen our new blog, we would like to share with you the following presentation by Lyle Grant titled "Countercultural Paths to Sustainability." This presentation was given at the 2012 meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis International.

Dr. Grant's presentation is based on the following main ideas:

1. Developed economies are a relic of an economic fossil-fuel age.
2. Altering reinforcers is required to make a transition to a cultural age of less work, less consumption, and a higher standard of localized living.
3. Altered reinforcers are the basis of bohemian countercultures, including Walden Two, and are cultural variants that need to be encouraged and selected as features of a sustainable future.

Dr. Grant invites you to visit this link for more information on his talk.