CALS 502

November 17, 2021

(Blog 4, Prompt 5 Story Spline)

This story employs the story spine (bolded words) as presented by Rotman (2017).

So, there we were, in 2046, amazingly both still alive. The old wood bench, silvered with time, still holds us both. Nearby is the old concrete fountain, its edges covered in lichen. We sip our warm tea and watch the House Sparrows splashing in the fountain. It is good to see them home again. To our delight a pair of Chickadees joins the Sparrows. The last time we saw the Chickadees was over ten years ago, before our community landscape adaptation initiative. We reminisce about where we began…

Every day we used to watch the birds that visited our small garden. Each season brought a new set of visitors. In winter Cedar Waxwings would descend to gorge on the fermenting red berries of the Mountain Ash. They would fly crazy in a drunken stupor after so many berries. Wild hares would later feast on the many berries that the Waxwings had knocked to the ground. In spring the large Lilac would explode with sweet purple blossoms and the song of the House Sparrows nesting in her branches. The Pear tree would burst into a bouquet of white flowers and hum for weeks with the sound of bees. In summer the Chickadees, White-Breasted Nuthatches, and House Sparrows would splash together in the fountain. It was a joy to see the different species playing together in the water – some showing-off going under water and splashing the others. The tiny Downy Woodpeckers were shyer and would only come when the other birds left. Our yard was abundant with the life and colour of the changing seasons.

But one (spring) the Chickadees did not come, the next year the Nuthatches too were gone. The Dogwood shrubs and Cotoneasters became stressed, and aphids took over sapping new growth, the shrubs slowly faded, and we had to remove them. Each year the berries on the Mountain Ash that feed so many birds were fewer and fewer, and we had to cut back her dying branches. The Wax Wings stopped coming in the winter, so too the hares. The Pear tree lost her spring blooms and the pollinators did not come, she stopped bearing fruit. Without the pollinators the whole garden lost its blooms and fruits. Our climate was warming, the soil was drying, and the Bow River flow was dramatically down leading to tight watering restrictions. The shrubs and trees were all under stress, many were dying, and the birds and bees were disappearing. We could see the same all around our neighbourhood. The ecosystem was changing; life was fading.

Because of these changes we knew we needed a landscape climate change adaptation plan, not just for our garden but for our whole neighbourhood. We had an idea. It started with short conversations while dog walking about what was happening in our neighbourhood. This led to meetings in the community hall where we invited speakers to help our community learn more. We met twice a month with speakers on projected climate changes for our city, pollinator health, native and adaptive plant species, grey-water recycling, Indigenous knowledge systems, and more. After six months of listening and learning we were ready. We hosted a series of ideation workshops to design our climate change landscape adaptation approach. We dubbed this work: ‘The Bird and the Bees’. The experts helped us and new partners joined. After another six months we had a plan and a business model. Our plan included a pallet of tree, shrub and plant species that would thrive in our drier and warmer climate with regional partners to supply them, a soil amendment approach to better absorb and hold the less frequent but very heavy rains, landscape design strategies to manage heavy rains, and an easy to implement retrofit kit to install grey-water recycling systems in order provide a water source for pollinator gardens. We even had local companies offering biodegradable soaps suitable for grey-water recycling systems. Spring was coming and we were excited to pilot our first installation.   

But then the local municipality said “you cannot do this, grey-water recycling is a contravention of City Bylaws, this will cause a human health risk.” After much discussion, the City agreed we could do one pilot project to study the grey-water water quality. If a health risk was found we would have to remove the system. We volunteered our yard and The Birds and Bees partnered with the local university for the water quality testing. The one-year pilot confirmed no water quality health risk, but we discovered some challenges with the grey-water system.

Because of that we refined the design and ran the pilot another year. The pilot went well and both the City and The Bird and Bees felt more confident. The next year, we implemented the plan in two more yards on our block. We refined again and the next year we did a full block. The change was amazing. The plants were thriving, birds and pollinators were coming back, and news was spreading of our success. People from other communities came to learn. They too wanted adaptive landscapes in their neighbourhoods. Adaptation gardens started popping up all over the city.

Until, finally the municipality said this is a great idea, but we need many more projects to ensure pollinator health across the city. They offered property tax rebates for home owners that installed the landscape adaptation kits and grants to low income residents. They added a landscape adaptation option to their Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program to provide upfront funding for landscape adaptation retrofits with the cost paid back over time through annual property taxes. There was rapid uptake and the local start-up companies to support the program grew into thriving businesses.

And, ever since then life has come back to our neighbourhoods – particularly the birds and pollinators. Some species did not return as the climate is now too warm for them. Many birds from the south of Alberta now make their home here. In our yard the Mountain Ash and Pear tree are gone, but the Lilac has adapted. Our landscape now is mostly shrubs offering an abundance of habitat, food and colour: Snowberries with white year-round berries, Wild Roses with scented pink flowers in spring and bright red rose hips in winter, Western Sand Cherries with snowy white flowers and black cherries in late summer, Golden Currants, and Sweetgrass. With the help of the grey-water, they are withstanding the long periods of drought and high temperatures that come frequently now. The ecosystem is different, but life is abundant and across the city community gardens are once again growing.

A cool breeze reminds us our tea is gone. We slowly make our way down the gravel path to the front door feeling deeply grateful for the return of the Chickadees and the many people that made this urban landscape adaptation plan come to fruition. Together we have done what none of us could do alone.

Reference

Rotman, S. (2017). “Once upon a time…” Eliciting energy and behaviour change stories using a fairy tale story spine. Energy Research & Social Science, 31, 303-310. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.033. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/royalroads.ca?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1016%2Fj.erss.2017.06.033

November 14, 202`

(Blog 3: Prompt 7)

I grew up in the heart of the boreal forest in north central British Columbia and I have a deep connection to this landscape. I know the silent beauty in the deep of winter with a pure white landscape and ice crystals sparkling across the deep blue sky, the flush of green foliage emerging alongside the trickling streams as they break free of winter ice, the fragrance of spruce needles basking in the summer sun, and the calm among the birch with their golden leaves gently chattering in the fall breeze as the silent Nechako River rolls by. This deep love of place has travelled with me across the places I have lived and travelled. Was it this original experience that made me open to connecting with nature in other places? I know that many carry their own deep connection to place, both natural and built environments. This leads me to wonder: how can place attachment shape the framing of climate change communications?

Scannell and Gifford (2010) define place attachment as the “bonding that occurs between individuals and their meaningful environments” (p. 1). This bonding is an outcome of multiple experiences and motivations. Scannell and Gifford (2010) delineate a three-part framework for understanding place attachment including the elements of person, place, and process (p. 2). The ‘person’ element addresses who is attached and can occur at individual and group levels, the ‘place’ element addresses the object of attachment and can occur in physical or social environments, finally the ‘process’ element addresses the psychological dimension (p. 3). This includes affect: our emotional process; cognition: our ways of understanding and meaning-making; and behavior: our proximity-maintaining actions (p. 3). Scannell and Gifford also raise the question of why people develop such enduring bonds to place and suggest three common reasons including “survival and security, goal support, and continuity” (p. 6). ‘Survival and security’ address our need for physical resources such as food and water, and to maintain proximity and knowledge on how to use these resources. ‘Goal support’ addresses our need for places that support our personal goals and desire for cognitive freedom. ‘Continuity’ speaks to our predilection for continuity with people and places that represent our personal values and preserve our memories. Reflecting on this diversity of elements and motivations for place attachment can offer a more nuanced approach to framing of climate change communications. Perhaps this can then strengthen connections around shared values and through this provide the opening to deepen engagement and mobilize action to protect the places and people we love or that have meaning to us.

Climate change communications can also be framed at local or global context; however, research findings on which is more effective are varied and contradictory. Altinay (2017) highlights the strength of local framing in imparting “local meanings to global issues” (p. 1) and notes that this has potential to heighten personal perceptions of climate change risk (p. 1). Altinay’s study comparing the effectiveness of local versus global framing; however, found that local framing did not increase participants interest in supporting policies to help mitigate climate change (p. 11). Surprisingly, global framing was found to be more effective than local framing (p. 11). One suggested reason for this is a cognitive disconnection that may arise when local climate change information is presented to those that perceive climate change as a distant global issue (p. 11). Another is that the magnitude of local climate change impacts may lead to a loss of perceived self-efficacy to address these impacts (p. 11). Altinay’s research did identify that local framing was successful when paired with meaningful actions that people can take. For example, actions to mitigate a climate risk or reduce carbon emissions. Importantly, the study identified that participants with a strong place connection had an increased sense of risk perception and orientation to action (p. 43). In contrast to Altinay’s findings, Schroth et al. (2014) highlight that literature on the use of iconic global climate change imagery shows that this approach has contributed to the perception that climate change is a distant issue both in place and time. This research suggests that images of local climate change impacts may be more effective (p. 413). This small sampling of research highlights the complexity of framing climate change communications.

My own experience with place bonding leads me to believe that framing climate change communication through place attachment offers a powerful instrument for connecting and in turn engaging in dialogue about shared action to protect what we value. As a human species we share a commonality of place attachment, recognizing that what we are attached to and why may vary. While some have lost place connection through displacement, they still possess the memory and emotion of this connection. Visual images offer a powerful tool to create/recreate connection, elicit emotion, and help frame complex issues such as climate change. Though I no longer live where my original place connection was formed, I deeply connect to the beauty in the diverse landscapes of the foothills and the Rocky Mountains near where I now live. I also experience positive emotion and a sense of connection to images of nature in other places, and I am equally motivated to take actions to protect all these places.

References

Altinay, Z. (2017). Visual Communication of Climate Change: Local Framing and Place Attachment. Coastal Management 45(4), 293-309. doi:10.1080/08920753.2017.1327344. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/royalroads.ca?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1080%2F08920753.2017.1327344

Scannell, L., & Gifford, R. (2010). Defining place attachment: A tripartite organizing framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494409000620

Schroth, O., Angel, J., Sheppard, S., Dulic, Aleksandra. (2014). Visual Climate Change Communication: From Iconography to Locally Framed 3D Visualization. Environmental Communication 8(4), 413-432. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2014.906478. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/royalroads.ca?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1080%2F17524032.2014.906478

November 14, 2021

(Blog 2: Prompt 5, Metaphors and Analogies)

My only brother died young. He was a vibrant man and a strong athlete. He also had a terrible diet. He was warned that his diet was impacting his health but like many overconfident young men, he believed he was somehow an exception to health science. The words “I’m not changing my diet” echo in my mind. He was wrong. He lost his life at 38 leaving behind his very young family and more than half of his life.

In many ways the climate crisis is like a personal health crisis. Just as the over consumption of high fat foods leads to a build-up of plaque in our arteries so too does the overproduction of greenhouse gas emissions lead to a build-up of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. In my lifetime, greenhouse gas emission concentrations have risen over 30%. We now have a climate health crisis.

Greenhouse gas emissions come from various sources, and they earned this moniker because their presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect. They form an insulating blanket in the atmosphere that traps heat in. This results in a warming world. Like in a greenhouse, this warmth leads to increased water vapour in the air. When we walk into a greenhouse, we experience warmth and humidity. Moisture evaporates from the soil, the water sources, and from the evapotranspiration of plants. Unlike a greenhouse where we can simply open a window or vent to release heat and humidity, we cannot do this with the atmosphere. Instead heat and humidity accumulates resulting in wicked storms and hurricane events. Our Earth’s temperature will continue to rise until we remove the blanket, and this is not easy task.

Much of the developed world is in a health crisis from the overconsumption of high fat foods and a sedentary lifestyle. Just as this human health crisis is putting livelihoods and lives at risk, so too is our climate health crisis putting livelihoods and lives at risk. In people, an unhealthy diet leads to multiple elevated health risks like diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart attack and even dementia. Similarly, releasing an unhealthy level of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere leads to multiple elevated health risks. These include loss of food production systems due to drought and floods, heat related deaths, increased frequency and intensity of floods and hurricanes that devastate communities, loss of ecosystems that sustain life and our economy, increased vector borne diseases, and more. Like human health risks, multiple planetary health risks can also occur at the same time.

Just as we cannot simply open a port to release cholesterol and plaque from our arterial systems, we cannot open a port to release greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Instead, we need a sustained focus on lifestyle change to progress our way back to health. The path to heart health requires dietary changes to remove disease causing food and increase health generating foods in concert with exercise. Planetary health requires similar changes. We need to eliminate actions that produce greenhouse gas emissions such as the combustion of fossil fuels, changes in land use, and unnecessary energy use. We also need to remove greenhouse gasses from our atmosphere by preserving and restoring our forest and grassland ecosystems. These ecosystems are the primary planetary systems that can do this job.

When faced with a human health crisis such as heart disease, focusing on diet alone does not provide an effective motivation for change or an enduring solution. Instead, health care professionals are shifting to more holistic approaches that promote healthy lifestyles. This approach centers on the things we gain from moving to an active lifestyle and good food choices. Active time with children and friends, the ability to do things on our bucket lists, longevity, and more. These benefits provide the motivation for holistic change, particularly for changes that are hard. Similar motivations are needed to rebuild climate health.

We often hear the climate crisis framed in war metaphors such as “the war on climate”. War metaphors comes with experiences of command and control, fear, destruction, and militarization. Reframing climate action to the rebuilding climate health offers a far more inspiring metaphor. Our climate is an amazing and life sustaining gift. Our words matter and are powerful in meaning making. This small change of words moves us from acts of fear and control to acts of care and creation.

“Let’s Connect“

https://youtu.be/g5h_13AgymE

Let’s Connect

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQze6Cuq5jqBpUVUnN5R3dnLqtFKYGpHQ4DUT5kFLfDX6ISbJMoj0aKYscDmAyjyQ/embed?start=true&loop=false&delayms=3000

October 7, 2021

The brilliant crimson-red berry clusters of the Mountain Ash hang in contrast to her masses of green and yellow leaves. The leaves are like a watercolour painting, yellow bleeding into green, red emerging, a new painting each day as the cool nights enrich the palette. This splendid medley of the colours in my front yard reminds me that Autumn has come, a time of fast and intense change, a final majestic display before the quiet slumber of winter with its protective blanket of snow.

As Adrienne Maree Brown so poignantly writes in Emergent Strategy (2017), “Change is divine and constant” (p. 56). The spectacular changes of Autumn are a reminder that nature is in a perpetual state of change; reoccurring cycles of growth, splendor, decline, and rest. How different this is from our western socio-economic system with its perpetual pursuit of growth, taking without concern for rest or replenishing. How did we become so disconnected from the very ecosystems that sustain us and of which we are a part of? How do we rebuild connection?

In Returning the Gift, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2014) reminds us of the importance of paying attention as an “ongoing act of reciprocity” (par. 17). Paying attention to the natural world sharpens my seeing and connection to the gifts that surround me. It reminds me of the incredible beauty of Earth, how infinitely interconnected all of life is, and how blessed I am to be sustained by the abundance of nature every day. This gives me a clarity of purpose in the caring for these gifts that sustain life on Earth, it shapes me. Paying attention also reminds me that change is always occurring providing fresh perspective on the changes in my life. Perhaps paying attention can also offer fresh perspective on our response to the rapid pace and scale of climate change and biodiversity loss.  

In her TED Talk, The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it, climate scientist Katherine Heyhoe (2019) underscores that the foremost thing we need to do is to talk about climate change and that this conversation must start with finding common values and things we care about. Hodson (2019) also affirms the importance of “attitudes, emotions, norms and values” (p. 2) in shaping beliefs about climate change information. Regardless of our socio-political views, we are all moved by the spectacular beauty of Autumn. Near where I live, tens of thousands of people go to the mountains each fall to view the larch forests turning yellow, setting the mountain side ablaze in colour. In my neighbourhood people walk more in Autumn and we stop to chat about how beautiful the colours are. Can this shared value of love for our natural environment provide an antidote to depolarize climate conversations? Can talking about what we love provide connection and an entry point for working together to protect what we love?

This Fall I am intentionally creating space is my daily conversations to pause and comment on the gifts of Autumn. My observation is that this sparks an immediate shared moment of gratitude, a moment of emotional connection. It also changes how we talk and what we talk about. I am learning a little more about people and what they care about. I find myself reflecting again on the power of nature’s beauty as a starting point for finding connection with one another through sharing stories about what we love and for initiating a conversation about the intensity of changes underway in our environment. In her ecological model for climate communications, Hodson (2019) highlights the importance of allies in climate communications for reaching broader audiences, increasing influence and building trust (p. 9). This leads me to ponder the role of nature herself in telling the story of climate change; perhaps she is our most powerful ally.  

Here again, the poetic words of Robin Wall Kimmerer (2014) from her essay Returning the Gift offer wise council:

Paying attention to the more-than-human world doesn’t lead only to amazement; it leads also to acknowledgment of pain. Open and attentive, we see and feel equally the beauty and the wounds, the old growth and the clear-cut, the mountain and the mine. Paying attention to suffering sharpens our ability to respond. To be responsible.

This, too, is a gift, for when we fall in love with the living world, we cannot be bystanders to its destruction. Attention becomes intention, which coalesces itself to action. (pars. 17 and 18)

Fall has come and great change is also upon us. What can paying attention teach us about building connection with others and about vulnerability and resilience in the face of the profound change? 

References

Brown, A.M. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. AK Press. 2017.

Hodson, J. (2019). “An ecological model of climate marketing: A conceptual framework for understanding climate science related attitude and behavior change.” Cogent Social Sciences 5(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2019.1625101. Accessed 7, October 2021.

Heyhoe, Katherine. (2019). “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it.” YouTube, uploaded by TED, 11 January 2019, , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BvcToPZCLI&t=14s.

Kimmerer, R. W. (2014). “Returning the Gift.” Center for Humans and Nature. Minding Nature: Spring 2014, Volume 7, Number 2 https://www.humansandnature.org/returning-the-gift-article-177.php. Accessed 7, October 2021.