One World

A new video featuring the ideas of Barack Obama: I love it because it takes us back to earth. The current global environmental crisis will only be ameliorated when we recognize that the politics of one nation against another will only continue to hurt all civilizations. The diversity of our languages symbolizes the creative diversity of our souls. Yet we are all one people living life with the same goals: food, safety and love of self, family, community, culture, landscape and life itself with all of its roaring colors rushing from the universe. How long will it take for people to break down the barriers of defensiveness that isolate us from one another? How long will it take before people recognize in the face of the other a shared destiny? How long will it take before we understand that the fate of our planet and the sanctity of life depends on a shared international focus on collectively taking care of our world? As a psychologist I know how greed, envy, anger, revenge, and all the other darknesses of humanity can infiltrate our psyches. I also know that the triumph of humanity is to be found in our abilitry to wrestle with this darkness, make it a part of us and evolve as integrated creatures who know how to use aggression on behalf of our common humanity, and the true human potential of life's majesty. We start, at home, on the ground by living in harmony with our ecosystems.

Earth Hour Here at Home

Both my children were adamant that we participate in earth hour this evening, even though my son and husband were to be out of town on a school father/son trip. Earth hour was organized by the WWF to call attention global warming. In cities across the globe citizens, businesses and civic buildings dimmed or shut off lights for one hour. Here in NYC that hour fell between 8:00-9:00pm. My eight-year-old daughter and I had just eaten dinner and were watching a movie when we noticed that it was 7:50. My daughter turned off the movie, and I lit three candles, one for each side of the house. Then we grabbed two flashlights and went to huddle in my bedroom. The cool dark soothed us and we marvelled at how different the city looked with fewer lights. She said that it was beautiful. When the Empire State building went dark, she squealed,"This is so exciting." We read a book together by flashlight, and every now and again walked around the house to see out all the windows, observing how many windows and buildings were dark. Mostly we enjoyed being so close, she and I, our legs and arms wrapped around each other and our big, soft, pink "blankie". We read, we cuddled, we talked - mother and duaghter navigating through the darkness, a glimpse of a world not even we can remember, a time when darkness necessitated that everything stop now, for a bit. At 9:00 pm the skyline lit up, and the Empire State building flashed brilliantly. As I put my daughter to bed, we thought about our night. Then she asked, "Just tell me one thing mommy --- why doesn't it snow in winter, and why is it cold when it should be hot and why is it hot when it should be cold? What's happening? And don't tell me that it isn't happening because I know that it is." I wiped the tears from the corner of her eye and held her worried heart close to mine. I answered, "The earth is in some trouble but some of the smartest people in the world are working on this, and so are your mom and dad." These words comforted her. Her words, however, haunted me. What will her future be like? Will she know the volumes of snow that I remembered from my childhood? I imagined the cold steely world of her future generated by the behaviors of today.

I just attended a meeting at CRED. We discussed Herman Daley, an environmental economis,. who suggests that only an environmental macroeconomic theory can help us think about sustainability in ways that include the value of the environment and its creatures. The question of what people value and desire is typically hard to measure precisiely because there is no pure type for value or desire, all have been operated on by culture. Yet, according to Daley, we can give value to our earth and its creatures either by understanding their worth to us, or by assessing their instrinsic value independent of their relationship to humans. Either way, the equations we use to calculate optimal scale have to incorporate the larger context in which we are embedded.
On Peoples' Minds: A neighbor of mine wonders whether or not to drive or fly to her vacation destination. The price of gas makes the plane flight almost cheaper, but the plane's engine emissions are also costly to the ecosystem. I note that the idea of not travelling isn't an option. We have grown so used to travel. What happens if we have to cut back? What if travel to far away places was exotic for a reason?
In the News: Simple and brilliant editorial in todays NYTimes. We have all the evidence we need to articulate that climate change is already happening. Global warming is upon us. It won't suffice to simply switch over our consumerist practices and to buy green products. We have to alter the way we use and acquire resources, and change the way we live. My work is all about articulating what such a changed life might look like.

Water

Visited the water exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I was fascinated to learn that fresh water comprises only 3% of the world's water supply. I'm not sure our behavior reflects how precious this resource is. Would our society even be capable of surviving if we behaved in a manner that conserved this resource? Water is life sustaining. We need it to stay alive, and we need it to raise the food that helps us to live. The desire for it has caused us to alter the earth to have more of it where and when we need it. We now, therefore, have less of it.
Less water vapor, less water and less ice.
Dissociation is the psychological concept that can help understand how we can treat the earth's resources so destructively. It is possible for our minds to create a disconnection between concepts, like an extreme form of compartmentalization. This process explains how someone who has been hit by a car can get up and act like nothing happened, only to become upset hours later when hearing a thump in a different context. Our minds are designed to help us survive and overcome serious threats. This also enables us to not fully feel or experience the implications of our behaviors.
The cultural categorization of cities and nature as separate splits related conponents of a whole into different and unequal parts. In reality, cities are made from nature, and nature has been shaped and formed by the many civilizations who have thrive upon her resources. A disconnection between the natural and technological leaves people at the mercy of nature and impulse, or at the will of the technology and control. This bifurcation allows one to act upon landscapes as though nature were impersonal and not a part of us, or to treat humans as if they weren’t part of a larger whole in whose terms we are all equal. We consume water as if it weren't a part of us, as though it were some external substance that we can dominate. Water, however, is a part of our biological sustainability and humans don't get to control how much of it we will have.
On peoples' minds: Overheard at the water exhibit, "It makes the idea of everybody having their own swimming pool in the their backyard a little misguided - but I'm not sure I would be willing to give mine up if I had one!" I wonder what sacrifices people would be willing to make to conserve water?
In the news: Also, note, climate change may create more of this, another aspect of water's power.
Ecological tip of the day: Don't let water run, ever. Fill a vessel to get what you need, turn off the faucet when brushing teeth or soaping, and take shorter showers.

Our Earth, Our Selves

Now that the AP is reporting the contamination of our drinking water by pharmaceuticals we are ever more aware of the blurring boundaries between individual biology and the ecosystem. The presence of antibiotics, hormones, sedatives and other medications is an easy way to track the merging of what is in the environment with what is in our bodies. Consider our psychological health for a moment. If we can accept the mind-body link, then our minds and bodies are interdependent. It stands to reason, then, that our minds and our environment are also mutually affecting each other. I see too many people in my practice who complain of psychological problems that don't stem exclusively from difficult relationships to parents. Some of these problems like depression, social acting out (symbolized by Britney Spears), anxiety and attentionality issues seem to be caused in part by the same cultural forces that have brought us global warming and other features of climate change.
On Peoples' Minds: A discussion at my kitchen table began with some talk about the pharmaceuticals in the drinking water. An elder member of the family said, "Well, the amounts are considered to be insignificant." Where have I heard that before? The reassuring thought that the amounts are insignificant is a defense mechanism. The truth is that we don't know enough about chronic exposure to insiginificant amounts of toxins to feel relaxed about this. Also, we do know that some peoples' metabolisms are more sensitive than others. A younger person said, "That is too overwhelming to even think about . . . " I find most people are scared to think about this stuff . . . but we have to. Its easier if we grasp that climate change is already happening to us.
In the News: This is why we need to think about climate change as already arriving.
Ecological Tip of the Day: Don't throw unused pharmaceuticals down the drain or toilet. Find out the proper method of dispoal for the drug in hand. And, read a good book about how we might be treating our psychological symptoms without really recognizing the root cause.

Oh no!

Distracted by the current media blitz on the sad news of Governor Spitzer's tragic flaw, Geraldine Ferraro's disappoinment about being forgotten, and the supposed racial dynamics of this campaign, President Bush has slipped in more damage, this time to the earth. This is bad on many levels: 1) Most important, this hurts our planet. It is like discovering that you have an allergy to bee stings and deciding to hang out by the beehive just a little longer; 2) This hurts people, not just glaciers. Greenhouse gases will cause more health problems, and they will change our culture and our economy. Ultimately we will die from this; 2) This degrades the office of the presidency. Leadership is no longer guidance for the good of the people. It is protection for the wealth of the few - for now.
For those who think that this is a problem for the future, recognize that climate change is already happening. Even if we try to fix it today we might not succeed. And if you imagine for one minute this isn't affecting you, let me tell you that there is a reason so many of you are anxious and depressed. In my research, I am exploring how many psychological symptoms are the early warning signs of environmental change. If you understand that we humans are a part of nature, and a member of the complex ecosystem we know as earth, what society does to the climate it also does to us. This will have an effect on our bodies and our minds. In this sense, our own government continues to abuse its citzens by violating the environment that sustains us. Try reading that headline to your kids at the breakfast table.
On peoples' minds: "I don't understand this mommy! What is going on? Why are people shooting wolves? Why are they killing elephants? Why do people need money so badly that they do these things to animals? And why can't we just stop global warming? Why is President Bush doing this to us? Why is he not trying to lower the ozone levels? Why?" - my 10 year old child, at the breakfast table this morning. Do I dare share the news a colleague sent me about the salmon?
In the News: Unfortunately, while TPM and some of the major print media continue to plug away at the environemntal issues, most other journalists, especially TV, and, unfortunately, some bloggers, are fixated more on who said what about whom in this election and much less on one of the biggest problems confronting the human race.
Ecological tip of the day: Stay informed. And then, instead of psychologically disconnecting from the overwhelming reality, feel it. Then act on it.

Elections Aside, The Earth Beats On

Like many, the democratic primary has drawn me in. And now, news of Eliot Spitzer.
Yet, while we get all worked up about the political jousting and disappointments, the earth beats on, and she's not so healthy. How easy to forget about global warming. Not to mention threats to animals (this week wolves, elephants, fishers, lynxs, and whales). May I remind that without our planet we no longer exist? Why are so many willing to take our creations for granted? I think the reason is that people have already changed. We no longer experience ourselves as part of nature. But evidence suggests otherwise. And it is never to late to fight for our earth rights - to take back and redefine our rightful place within the ecosystem.
On Peoples' Minds: Said by a participant in my research,"I'm feeling pretty annoyed by this election . . . politicians come and go but life is sacred, and I am worried how little we are doing to protect it. On all levels from the soldiers we lost in Iraq to the failure to take any substanative action on the environment."
In the News: Sad to hear more evidence of how brutal we are to the animals who feed us. I no longer eat animal flesh of any kind, but I swear it off again. This is more proof that what hurts the animals ultimately hurts us as people. And there is more to suggest that we are what eat, and that what we eat is what we are. It is time to let go of the false idea that there is such a strong separation between people and the environment. It is important to focus our politicians away from each other and back onto things that matter. As it turns out, new studies suggest that even with "0" emissions we might be able to fully reverse the damage we have done.
Today's Green tip: My eight-year old daughter read a couple of words on this post and felt worried. Of course she is. And it is our job - each and ever one of us - to change our lives now so that the ecological problems our children will encounter will at least be manageable (because no matter what we do the enviroinmental issues they face will be far worse than ours). My daughter suggested that everyone plant something - for life.

More from the sea

This conference took place in Montauk, Long Island – a wonderful stretch of open sea and sand. The horizon framed by vigorous waves and a shroud of clouds evoked a tremendous sense of environmental aliveness. Nature beckoned loudly as I walked the wandering course of packed sand. I discovered deer tracks and followed them to the water and back. What were they doing there?

Later, I visited the spa. The spa consisted of exercise room, large heated sea water swimming pool, a roman bath, a sauna, a steam room and many other baths, treatments and many other opportunities for comfort. Carbon footprint? Huge. Although the resort did state that in order to conserve energy and achieve sustainability bathrobes would only be issued to guests of the spa.

Hmmmmm ---- in comparison, I’m not sure the bathrobe thing would really save that much energy. Was it a joke? Or a clever way of justifying being cheap with robes?

The problems is that I loved the spa. As I swam in the warm pool waters looking out at the frost glistening on the windows, I understood our fundamental dillemma. Technology does improve one's quality of life, and once you've known of this quality it is hard to go back. I was thinking about people who barely have enough to eat, who are at war with crippling diseases, and who flee from genocides at the same hour of day that I enjoyed a morning swim. It feels irreconcilable. Unless we recognize that forward is a place where integration can be acheived.

Interestingly the professional meeting focused on respecting differences. I understand that sustainability will have to accommodate dissimilar attitudes about nature, comfort, sacrifice, and safety. How can people be encouraged to change how we all live when we come from so many different value systems?

The family vacation this year will include a week of canoe camping in the Maine wilderness. If nothing else, we can teach our children about luxury's diversity. Gently paddling by feeding moose as the sun sets basking us all in a warm amber glow is another kind of opulence.

On the Road

I’m on my way to a professional retreat. As I enter a more quiet and natural landscape, I have time to reflect upon a critique of my work. It would seem as though some feel that I am vilifying those who love the click of a heel against concrete and prefer a fancy view of the city of lights over a rugged stay in the back country. This misconception needs to be corrected immediately. My thinking about psychology and climate change is not meant to bifurcate nature and civilization. All of civilization is born from the natural world, and the natural world bears always the impact of civilization. I’m a very dialectical thinker. What I am trying to create here is a shared understanding of the fact that our biological and psychological fates are tied to the future of the earth. What I mean is that we have all been intruded upon by our culture's (a small and particular aspect of western capitalism) emphasis on expansion through consumerism. In our rush to grow the economy and to make ourselves richer and more powerful, our nation has violated the boundaries of the earth and its people. The earth now suffers pathologies (like global warming) that have been brought about by the abuse of her resources. People also suffer when their souls and psyches are taken advantage of for the purposes of consumerism. I am a believer in a free economy but our capitalistic enterprises need to restore their partnership with humanism.
This reminds me of Rousseau. Once humans developed the capacity to see themselves as others saw them, they became vulnerable to the influence of interpersonal comparison. The social contract helps us protect our vulnerabilities and to bind our desire in ethical compromises between self and other . . . and between self and earth, or society and planet. If we are of each other our partnership is the security upon which the future is based. Our economy might be better off as the culmination of this partnership, rather than the dictator of it.
These next days will be spent by the sea. I’m spending time with psychologists in a wintery climate by the beach --- with little access to either my cell phone or the internet. I’m wondering what will happen. Let’s see.

On Hawks and Hope

I was walking with a friend and our dogs through Riverside park this morning. Suddenly a large bird swooshed right in front of us. It was a red-tailed hawk! It perched on a nearby branch, and we had a good look at her lush underbelly, and her inviting wingspan when she cuddled up for a better hold. She and her partner are nest-building. A crowd gathered some distance from the nest, some holding up their cellphones for a quick photo. Why are people so excited about a red-tailed hawk in New York City? My thoughts: It is proof that nature is still alive and vital, and people like knowing that despite everything we have done to trample upon her, she is still strong, breathing, and making life. That means there is hope for the parts of us that are connected to and a part of nature.
On Peoples' Minds: "You can't imagine how these birds look through binoculars --- you can see their eyes! They are so much bigger than you would think. You realize what spectacular creatures they are!"
In the News: The current election debate about charisma vs. substance is related to climate change. Let me explain, but I'm not going to link to Hillary Clinton's "shame on you" to Barack Obama, nor his reply - because it's just not worth the trouble. Barack Obama might not be your candidate, but I don't think it makes sense to reject someone for being charismatic or inspiring.
It is, however, hard to trust those characteristics in anyone. We are a nation of disappointed citizens. I hear it everywhere. No one wants to have their heart broken again. That kind of self protection helps a citizenry survive some dark times --- I would call it a kind of seasoned and cynical broadmindedness. Or, the voice of wisened experience, as in, "we know better than to wish for something as idealistic as a better world." How many of us witnessed the fatal shots that destroyed those who spoke of hope?
Were our hearts also broken when we as chldren witnessed our society's mistreatment of the animals and earth that we so cherished? Remember when you just knew that the fields, flowers, grassy hillsides and gawky newborn farm animals were a part of you? When snow and rain were opportunities for impassioned adventures into the unknown? Isn't the inevitability of climate change weighing on all of us, consciously or unconsciously? Do we feel too doomed to hope, or frightened into constrictive passivity?
Until we see a hawk making its nest in a city park, that is. Then for a moment, we believe. But only for a moment. Once the cellphone is flipped closed, we return our gaze to the same old concrete path, our heads hanging downward.
So many of us seem to have forgotten that feeling hopeful about the future was once as natural as a pair of hawks choosing a good tree to raise their young.

Snow in New York!

Wow! Finally we have snow! The streets are full of fluffy powder, and the flakes parachute from the sky. A dog dives into the foot high drifts formed by the early morning snow plows and emerges with a beard. School has been cancelled and the kids yank their parents hard by the hand while pulling their sleds. Some of the smaller children momentarily disappear as they slip and toddle into a packed mound. The doormen smile approvingly. Everyone knows that snow in February is just so perfect, so okay, so healthy. While some people still have to irritatingly scurry to work, most are forming an unevenly spaced, and slightly random, but steady procession to Central Park. There a vast whiteness paints the landscape into winter, and the cold crystals settle onto branches, rocks, and benches. The landscape has been layered with a clean healthy dose of February percipitation reassuring our worried minds and nurturing the earth that was just a bit too dry for this time of year. Up on the hill, we shared our sled with some adult visitors from England. "Oh My God," they said, "Our plane leaves tonight and we can't believe we are here in the snow, and I've never done this in my life, and we just have to, do you mind, just a bit, if we have a go?" Of course not. Dressed in tourist's frocks, belly-down, they hurled themselves to the bottom of the hill. Now it was my turn. After insisting that my children wear triple layers, I realized that I had failed to do so myself. My toes grew stiff and numb but still we slid crookedly, and straight, sometimes with collision, over and over again until the childrens' faces all gleamed with smiles, and with the blush of exhiliration upon their cheeks. I chatted with someone who told me that George Washington was the first sustainable farmer. Of course, I thought. Here in the city that never sleeps we dream of milk that comes in a bottle, vegetables grown upon the land and a President who respected the environment's boundaries -- not to mention times when the sharing of a sled was the most natural thing in the world. When we were ready to leave, we piled snow on the sled and dragged it home. Upstairs, we dumped it into the sink, and ladeled it into large mugs, mixed in some fresh cream and maple syrup, and enjoyed our snow creams. We looked out upon the chilly skyline adorned in its favorite fur --- a lapel of snow and ice. Everything was just as it should be. We are all quietly relieved.

psychological sustainability?

I've been talking to some young people about their relationships to nature and to climate change. So far I've identified two groups of people. The first roup is very preoccupied with "fitting in" and being "mainstream" (as defined by popular media). The other group realizes that they aren't mainstream and never will be, and are trying to define who they are independently of media representations. Interesting. The mainstream group has spent much less time actively engaged with the environment. They also haven't been encumbered by the limitations that a sustainable planet would require. The non-mainstream group seems to have spent more time negotiating very rustic environments, and they have had some experience of selfhood separate from society. They have spent some time working with the limitations imposed by long stays in the wilderness.
Both groups long for more intimate contact with nature.
My point is that that psychological sustainability and ecological sustainability are linked: what is good for the person's mental health is good for the earth. We will have to address climate change in both spheres, changing how we live and changing our society. We are talking about the psychology of climate change. See Nikke Harre from New Zealand.
On Peoples' Minds: "There is no way I have any idea what to do about global warming, so I choose to ignore it. What difference can I make, anyway?" JS, a young man sitting in a bar.
"It doesn't concern me. I have everything I want, so why bother" BG, his friend.
In The News: Floursecent bulbs. Don't get me wrong - I use them but they are a complicated solution. Hard to use, harder to dispose of, but they do use less energy. Exactly my point. Changing technologies without changing the process of how we live often recycles the problems that lead to climate change.
My endorsement: I am going for Barack Obama because he gets it. In order to change the problems faced by our nation and this world, we can't simply substitute products. We have to change our process. Psychological sustainability is ecological sustainability, and yes we can do this. My experience is that most people secretly want this, but they afraid, hardened, cyncical and disappointed. I'm not, and neither is Obama.

Intergenerational Ecology

This weekend I had the chance to speak on a panel about the environment at an intergenerational luncheon at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun. I was joined by my 10 year old son who spoke about what the environment meant to him and how people could help protect it. We were also joined by Vivian Yale, an 86 year old environmentalist who shared memories about how much more earth friendly people were back when she was a child, and Les Judd, founder of Green Boroughs, who discussed what motivated his new business venture. The audience responded strongly to the idea that climate change was already affecting us, and to understanding that the solutions were in some part psychological.
One audience member, however, commented that changes in policy mattered more than how we modified our behavior. I agree with an emphasis on policy, but tend to think that policy and people grow and work together. We can't implement new legislative outcomes until we can imagine difference. Listening to Vivian Yale describe being summoned to the local candy story to receive a phone call felt communal and friendly. My son's comments evoked a similar sentiment when he said "I am very, very happy when I am in the more remote parts of the environment, like forests and mountains. I really love to protect these places. They are beautiful and full of wonder and majesty. I feel the same about animals."
Based on what I hear from the people who work with me, no one is that pleased with the existing relationship we have to our earth. We all know that something is missing and seem to be waiting for some motivational event - because the problem just appears to be so big. We can't work and vote for the legislation that will help us rebuild what we have lost, until we ourselves feel the loss, value it, and then believe that something we do can actually make a difference.
On Peoples' Minds: "Sometimes I think that these memories of how life used to be are also ideas for how life could be." - Vivian Yale.
In the News: This was a while back, but I think it makes the point that climate affects our minds, our personalities --- and then our communities and cultures. Dealing with climate change means a willingness to recognize the interdependence between all aspects of human cultures, landscapes and ecosystems.
Note: Recently this article was pointed out to me by habanera (thank you!). Human activity is coming close to damaging every corner of our marine ecosystems. This is going to frighten and scare people. The defenses that people adopt when frightened and scared are often dissociation ( a kind of emotional disconnect) and denial (deciding something isn't happening). Dissociation and denial often lead people to keep engaging in the destructive behavior that led to them feeling frightened in the first place. People can't vote or act on behalf of new legislation until they feel the cause for which they fight, and believe in their ability to effect change.

Millenials vs. Boomers

I read a piece by Andrew Romano. I was very taken with his discussion of the collaborative vision-hungry millenials who vote for Barack Obama and the somewhat cyncial realist boomers who go for Hillary. His blog serves as the political voice of the millenial generation, the voice for change. I began to wonder whether or not we could understand something of climate change in these terms. Many of the boomer generation want to solve the problems of the environment by substituting technologies, or products while maintaining the same old consumer dependent economic structure. These millenials, however, are closer to my heart and seem to understand that the climate crisis will require full scale change - in how we live, think and behave; a move perhaps to a more collaborative economy, one that cooperates with the limitations of our planet. Full disclosure: I'm neither boomer nor millenial, a member of the lost generation in-between.
I felt saddened by Romano's piece as much as enthusiastic. The millenials - now I know to call them that - that I work with organize around a type of nihilistic narcicism - and a kind of crude sexuality, obliterative partying and a wierd dissociative materialism. Yet, at the slightest encouragement they sit up for hope. They want something to be required of them, to be of service, to know something of what it means to be inspired, to believe, to experience authenticity. I think we took this away from them when we took the earth and nature away from them when they were children. It isn't too late to give it back. More on this to come.
In the News: Other people are catching on to the reality that climate change is happening now, to us. We are the earth's face, and understanding the relationships between our minds and our environments can help navigate climate change.

Nature and Self

I have been doing research to investigate how a changed relationship to nature changes us, and what the ongoing impact of climate change will be on the human psyche. The journalist Richard Louv suggests that obesity, ADD and even bipolar illness can be traced to children's disengagement from nature. The more alienated we are from nature, the less sensitive are our relations with the planet. We abuse and hurt our ecosystem everyday because we no longer think about it as a living organism with which we are in a partnership. Although I love the "back to nature" concept, sometimes people are so unfamiliar with the wilderness and behave so harmfully, that one might think the earth fares far better when left alone than when inhabited by human guests. My family has discovered trash on the mountaintop, or laptop camping trip movies, complete with advertisements, obscuring the view of falling stars in the rural night ski.
What I am seeing is that young adults long for permission to live less materialistically, and seek opportunities to connect to long lost parts of themselves from which they have disconnected. As someone said in a recent interview, "You realize right away to stop caring about animals and to stop thinking about the outdoors. If you watch what our society does to animals, forests, open spaces, it is very clear that nature is like some kind of scapegoat for humanity. Staying open to that is just too painful." This responsive wistfulness comes up quite a bit. But I find that many people no longer know how to access or utilize those parts of themselves. Last night Barack Obama stated that people needed to turn off the TV and unplug the video games. I couldn't agree more, and am studying what I call the vicious cycle - or the triangle of concern - between the unbalanced use and acquistion of resources, people and the earth.

On Peoples' Minds: "How do you go hiking without a car?" overheard outside a Manhattan bar.
"I've never been on a hike, a walk, camping --- nothing. But I like nature videos." A Manhattan high school student.

In the News: People can't heal an earth they barely know, or understand a nature they barely experience. In fact, the more people are alienated, the easier it is to behave in a manner that causes more harm.

Green Business

I'm all for green businesses. Everybody needs to do their part. I applaud the efforts by small businesses and large coporations who are taking global warming seriously, and are willing to adopt sustainable practices. My worry is that people will neglect the deeper changes we have to make in our values, lifetsyles, and mindset. We also have to change our patterns of consumption. We have to free our minds from the patterns that instill depedence upon technology rather than optimal use of it to further human potential. I worry when the fashion industry hires meteorologists to time the release of fashion lines to the new climate trends that will result from warming. From a business perspective, I get it. As a citizen of the earth, I wonder. What about making clothing that lasts longer --- let alone invoking the princple of hand-me-downs!

On Peoples' Mind: "Buying more stuff, even if its environmental, won't fix the economy or solve global warming. But changing how we buy might make a difference." - a 27 year old graduate student.

In The News: Even restaurants are heeding the green call. The question is: Can we just replace our practices with green technologies, or do we have to change how we live?

Mind and Matter

There is a tendency for people to think that we can solve global warming simply by changing our technologies. Not true, We have to also change our behavior and learn to live with limitations, and less wastefulness. Unfortunately, people have grown so accustomed to convenience and to acting on impulse that living sustainably may prove to be a very large challenge. At CRED, researchers are talking about decision making and the environment --- what will influence people's abilities to choose things like water management or land use policies that are good for them in the long term but require changes or sacrifice in the short term. One recurrent finding is that people need maps, strategies and cognitive plans that they can easily follow. I'm thinking about what sustainable maps of the mind might look like.

On Peoples' minds: "I've been trying to make notes on my carbon footprint, to keep a waste inventory. It's staggering! My life is organized in a way that depends on being able to throw things away - from coffee at Starbucks to packaged foods to all the energy I use just by watching TV. This ecology thing is much bigger than people think. For me, it would be like a personal revolution --- and I'm not sure I would even know how."

"If we can design our way into difficulty, we can design our way out . . . [but] to do things differently, we must perceive things differently" John Thackara.

In the News: You are what you spend, and consumption is spreading faster than ever. Good for prosperity, bad for the environment. Time to look at economic models that don't require all this excess to hold together a nation's financial health.

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Animals

When a cute animal enters the scene people take note. Animals impact us. I have heard much discussion about how animals connect us back to nature. Of course, that assumes that humans are separate from nature. I disagree. Humans, animals, landscapes and technology are all created from what is natural. Think about it. The split between what is termed human and natural is a simplifying mechanism constructed in our minds and through social intervention. Separating human and nature into two separate categories makes it easier to continue to engage in the unbalanced use of and acquisition of resources. If the animals we hurt aren't a part of us, that makes our mistreatment of them tolerable. But if we acknowledge that we are all a part of nature, then what we do to animals and our earth might be hurting us too. And maybe climate change, therefore, isn't a distant and separate fact of weather but something that is already happening to us. When we treat animals badly, we set the precedent for treating each other, and our earth, badly. And, what if we need animals to remain human? What if our animals help remind us that we aren't omnipotent and help us all live more gracefully and humbly (not a bad counterbalance for a society that depends on being number one)?

On Peoples' Minds: "I had this most wonderful dream. I lived on a farm with many animals. I felt as though we could communicate, and I felt like I was home. Like it felt like I belonged. Then it was time to go back to New York City, and I felt sad leaving these creatures - goats, sheep, horses and cats and dogs. Then I realized I could bring the animals with me, or somehow, I could live my life as I know it and still keep my relationship to these animals. That made me very happy -- like something that seemed impossible could be possible."

In the News: A friendly moose makes a community happy, and a man finds satisfaction saving the life of a bird. Makes it seems as though people haven't really given up hope on the idea of living more harmoniously with the nature that is part of us. We have just forgotten how to do it.

choice

Today, like everyday, each person faces a set of decisions that will define what kind of person he or she will be. Today, like everyday, each person realizes his or her beliefs and what she or he stands for. Today, like everyday, each person has a choice, and it is a choice that each individual should make in their own hearts. That choice will determine the tomorrow that will be shared by all. Vote.

On Peoples' Minds:
"I haven't felt this way since I was a child and saw Martin Luther King, Jr. speak. I was eight and I thought America was the best country in the world because we had leaders who believed that we as people could do great things for each other, our communities and our world. I loved America and was proud to be a member of such a great country constituted by such great citizenry." S., a 48 year old female.

"It never ocurred to me to vote, I'm not even registered. I never thought of politicians as interesting or amazing. It all just seemed irrelevant somehow, like far away from me and not about anything. Maybe I'm cynical or disappointed but I've never known anything else so my apathy seems kind of normative . . . and typical. My whole life leaders have been people who let you down." C., a 24 year old female.

In The News:
We are at an environmental choice point. We are at an economic choice point. At such moments we have to say yes to our values and our beliefs, and carry the conviction that as bad as things seem there is still hope.
Tomorrow 24 states are holding primaries. Count yourself among the people who will make leaders out of our politicians.

Landscape

Up north, the Inuit are noticing weather and landscape transformations in Nanavut, an area in the Canadian Arctic. Families, villages and communities are experiencing the direct effects of climate change. Changes in the sea have made traveling difficult, igloos can't be built because of poor snow, drying lakes and rivers disrupt access to hunting grounds, and the poor growth of vegetation affects the health of the caribou, a mainstay of survival.

I'm thinking about the field near a childhood home in Connecticut. It was there that I discovered my pirating skills, and learned that I could be a hero. Three abadoned concrete tubes became my boat on the endless sea of childhood dreams. I buried treasure under snow that would sometimes drift far above my head. Many years later when I went to visit the scene of my crimes and my glory, I found instead a commercial real estate development. Upon my buried treasure now stood a Benihana -- and all the other wastful consumer enterprises that threaten our ecosystem. It doesn't snow like it used to either.

We aren't used to thinking about what landscapes mean to us and how they are integral to our lives. People tend to take them for granted. yet almost every important memory occurs in a location, and everything we do is in part dependent upon the landscape where we do it. Landscapes are more important to our minds, selves and the functioning of our society than most realize. Climate change, and the societal events that have brought it about, force us to reckon with what land means to us, how changes to our terrain will affect us economically, culturally and emotionally. What we are willing to do to preserve it?

On Peoples' Minds:
"My personality feels like it's a mall paving over a wildlife sanctuary." N, a 60 year old man.

In the News:
We think we protected nature and her species by preserving lands. What happens if climate change renders them uninhabitable to the very species they were designed to protect?
Here in New York some developers want to replace beloved ball fields with an entertainment complex. They seem to be missing the point of what it means to play ball: the moist grass leaving muddy smudges on your knees, the subtle darkness obscuring vision ever so slightly as the sun sets, and the warm air scented with the honeysuckle as your strong leg in a split second of intuition kicks the ball into the goal.

Hooking Up Isn't Green

I've been trying to understand the phenomena of hooking up.
I'm not judging the kind of extreme sexuality that so many young people seem to be into - but, after all, I am a psychoanalyst. I'm wondering what it means.
One thought: Are young people reflecting back to us everything we have taught them? Isn't hooking up an awful lot like the types of things we do - like use something and then throw it away - in a consumer driven economy? And isn't this wasteful materialism also a player in environmental degradation and global warming?
If people are raised with belief systems that prioritize the avaracious fulfillment of desire, disposability, and excess it should be no surprise that people communicate this by hooking up - a sexuality based on people making mutual and often relatively anonymous use of each other. Human contact becomes relegated to "getting off."
That's how we feel about the earth. We get off on it - making use of it to satisfy our pleasure, with very little thought given to the relationship we have to this planet that makes our life possible.

On Peoples' Minds:
"I don't mind sleeping with someone I don't know, but I'm not going to sit down at a dinner table and talk to someone I've never met."--A 23-year-old professional female

"I feel like I'm the wierdest guy around . . . I don't want to have sex unless it's meaningful and everyone else is hooking-up and I'm the idiot in the corner who just doesn't want to, who wants something more than instant get-me-off sexuality."--A 27-year-old lawyer.

"To put it another way, we have radically transformed the fundamental relationship between humankind and the earth . . . this is due to a combination of factors . . .(including) our bizarre focus on short-term thinking and instant gratification . . ."--Al Gore.

In the news:
Britney Spears. She exemplifies the ultimate partygoing hooking up celeb. Alot of people have made lots of money off of this very young woman. There's alot of talk now about her having a mental illness. Yea, I guess. But I think she may be enacting a piece of our culture. She has become the ultimate expression of what lots of young people are doing. It is easier to think of her now as a patient rather than recognizing in her our own collective relationship to disposability, wasted resources, and excess. I think that everybody who has ever made money from her owes her an apology.

Psychological and ecological sustainability tip of the day:
Create green relationships. Treat other people with respect. Value them as precious resources. Go on a date and talk to someone. Make love like you mean it. Think of skin as the fragile boundary that holds people together, and touch it with care. Then treat the earth's skin in a similar manner. Touch it with care.

Beef

It's late January and still no snow in New York City. It was chilly and there was plenty of time to read. We saw Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera, the chilling Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale framed in this production around the concept of food. Food and climate were the themes of our weekend.

On Peoples' Mind:
"They have been calling for snow everyday this week. I'll believe it when I see it. Do you really think it will ever snow again? Feels like it won't." - Woman walking dog in Riverside Park.

"Ban Foie Gras". Several protestors held signs outside of Fairway market in New York City and yelled out to passers-by "free the geese." One person showed a gruesome laptap video depicting the practice of gavage. One onlooker said, "We are a force-fed nation, after all. If we can do it to birds we can do it to ourselves."

In The News:
Eating so much meat isn't good for our health, or the earth. There was a time when eating rich energy consuming foods was a luxury. In some cultures the eating of meat is considered sacred, in others it is simply a rare treat. Whether you are a vegetarian or a meat eater isn't important. What matters is whether or not you have a tolerance for limits. Continuing to consume meat at the current rate - 284 million tons worldwide per year, 8 ounces per day for every American alone - is not sustainable. Our planet can't sustain the billions of cattle necessary to produce so much meat. It isn't good for our bodies either.

Further, Our minds and our psyches function best when we can't always fulfill our impulses and desires. Feeding an impulse stimulates greater degrees of desire. I'm not saying starve yourself, or advocating vegetarianism - although I am one. I'm saying this: eat less! When you stuff yourself you hurt yourself, and the planet. Plus you establish an unsatiabile personality pattern, becoming someone who is never satisfied and always hungers for more, and then more, and then more . . . and there is no limit to this kind of need driven greed.

Ecological and psychological sustainability tip of the day:
Moderate yourself. Eat food, and only what you need. If you are still feeling empty, do something that matters to you. Plant a garden. See art. Go to the opera. Take a walk with a friend.

Earth and Mind

Welcome to Psychology and Climate Change. Scientists are documenting how climate change is altering our environment. Policy makers are analyzing how it will affect the global economy. I am observing how changing environments--and changing personal relationships to the environment--are affecting ordinary people right now, for better and worse. That means you. Our altered relationship to earth and nature - accelerated by climate change - is having an effect on how we feel, what we think, and how we behave, for better and worse. Soon we will all have to choose whether to act or be acted upon. My clinical practice, my anthropology fieldwork and my own encounter with wilderness landscapes have instilled in me an understanding of how psychological sustainability will help us choose and create ecological sustainability.

On Peoples' Minds:
Its been another mild winter in New York City so far. Just today someone told me the following, "Every once in a while I remember what Winter used to be like when I was a child. This Winter feels alot like last winter, but dramatically different from the winters of my childhood. I try and focus my mind so I don't have to recognize that fact. So much focusing causes me to shut out important experiences."

In The News: Permission granted to shoot wolves

Why is this news - far, far away in Wyoming - bad for people everywhere? Whether you are a creationist or an evolutionist you know that we are all linked either as God's creatures or by some shared DNA. How we treat living creatures, especially vulnerable ones sets the tone for what kinds of people we will become, and how we will treat each other. Hey, come to think about it --- this action is all about solving problems by slaughtering them. Not a good thing. The earth has its limits. We have to compromise, learn to work together. We can't just kill off what doesn't fit into our consumptive needs. Look at it this way. There are more wolves than there used to be, and it might take some creative problem solving to secure the safety of wolves, livestock and other wilderness species. From a psychological point of view, the best way to deal with anything difficult is to make it a part of your life. The growth and development that result from integrative problem solving is good for you, your community and the earth.


Psychological and ecological sustainability tip of the day: Figure out how to solve problems without resorting to power moves to annhilate the threat. We can't get rid of garbage by digging bigger holes, can't get rid of probelms by making them not exist, can't protect animals by killing off the dangerous ones.