Authentic Sustainability

I have been thinking about issues of sustainability, natural resource consumption, and the human effect on the planet for what seems like my entire life. As a youngster, this manifested in my insistence that my parents not purchase soda cans bound together with rings of plastic that were eventually found around the mouths or necks of fish and birds the world over. As I grew, I became aware of the impact my daily commute to high school had on green house gas levels. I resolved to take the bus to school even as a senior, something seen as deeply uncool, but I saw as a stand against blatant abuse of our planet. I chose to study Natural Resource Management in a highly environmentally progressive community and was opened up to a plethora of conversations around attitudes toward sustainability and sustainable development. What had never occurred to me was why I was having those conversations and the lens through which I viewed those issues so dear to me.

The Authentic Sustainability workshop hosted on the morning of November 18th at the E-House started off with the presenters explaining their frame of reference when tackling conversations around sustainability. They discussed the "pitfalls" we can fall into when trying to engage in a conversation that is meaningful to us: being right, proving a point, and shaming others are all holes we can fall into when justifying these conversations. But do they fit the reasoning behind having the conversation in the first place? The facilitators of the discussion urged us participants to envision the sustainable world we long for when advocating for the change of human behavior to more sustainable ways. They asked us what it would feel like to live in that world; what were the feelings associated with a more sustainable life? We spoke about freedom, joy, community, openness, resilience, and hope. These were all overwhelmingly positive. So why would we so often approach sustainability conversations from a combative place? How could we reframe these conversations in the context of our lives?

I began to answer that question for myself during this workshop. It forced me to think about why I make the decision to engage in sustainability conversations. What I came up with was that I want a better world for the sake of the Earth itself and for everyone inhabiting it. I care DEEPLY about this issue and want that to reflect in my conversations. There is no room for ego when I have these conversations because it isn't about who is right and who is wrong. It is about a real issue with real, impactful consequences. As I walked out of the workshop, I began to formulate in my head how I would frame conversations about sustainability with friends and family moving forward. Keeping in mind the place I come from when having those conversations will help me to approach them in a more calm and gentle manner, which I believe can only help to get across the point that I am coming from a caring place, not a combative one.

Personal Project Update #3

So, I am still waiting to get data about the Energy Challenge results and if the programming we conducted in Teter had any effect at all on resource consumption.

While I am waiting on that, I have begun to work with an RA from the Collins Living-Learning Community on methods for tying sustainability with the residential life experience.  As mentioned in my previous posting, I will be presenting sustainability in the context of Residential Life with an RA for Residential Programs and Services Winter Training. We have discussed presenting sustainability through the lens of the Residential Experience, a set of four pillars that RA's must program around each month for their individual floors or their entire residence hall community. Here is what we are thinking to tie sustainability in with the four pillars. Please feel free to suggest other ideas you think residents would respond to:

Academic Initiatives
We would like to discuss the university's interest in infusing sustainability in the general curriculum of the institution at IU. The RA I am working with, Stone, has also mentioned the possibility of sustainability becoming a major selection in the near future. We would like to also highlight the sustainability and sustainable design concentration within the MPA program in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs for RA's who may have students interested in graduate school. The overall focus of this section would be to reiterate that sustainability touches every aspect of our lives and this can be seen through its application in all parts of IU's curriculum.

Exploring Beliefs
We would like to frame this conversation around the positive contributions of sustainability to one's life and how changing your behavior to enhance sustainability can also enhance your life, not detract from it. Stone and I both agree that the environmental or sustainability message so often espoused is one of deprivation. We want to re-frame the conversation around how much more healthy you can live by riding a bike or purchasing food locally when you have the opportunity. We would also like to discuss briefly what environmental justice means and how their actions affect not just themselves but the broader community, state, country, and globe.

Community Development
We would like to actually compare the idea of keeping their money in the local economy through local purchasing to their residence hall community. All residence halls have budgets they pull from to help support the happiness and well-being of their hall through programming and the like. If residents of a larger community, like Bloomington, could look at the money they earn as money given from a community budget, to be used within the community to promote happiness and well-being, how much better would we live as a whole?

Personal Development

This is the section we would like to culminate the presentation with because we would like to recognize sustainable behavior this group is already practicing and give them some new one's they can implement within their lives and with their residents. This could include using reusable coffee cups or bags, public transportation or riding their bicycles rather than driving to relatively nearby locations, turning off lights when they are not being used, etc. We would like to encourage them to broaden their horizons by looking at reusing products for other functions before throwing them away and taking an extra moment to think about recycling their waste before throwing it in the garbage.

Finally, we would like to round out the presentation with the presentation of a "Sustainability Cheat Sheet" they can take with them outlining resources they can contact if they have questions about sustainability on campus and how they can talk about sustainability with their residents. The cheat sheet will also include ideas for sustainability-focused programs like a trip to the Hilltop Garden, documentary or TedTalk recommendations to infuse in weekly movie nights, and the Green Room Certification through the Office of Sustainability.

What other ideas do you have for us as we move forward with this presentation? We would be happy to hear any and all recommendations or even things we have proposed that you do not think would work so well.

Living in Transition

In the Roseland reading for the week, the concept of "Transition Towns" was introduced as a way for citizens of a community to catalyze change. Specifically, these communities strive to become "self-sufficient and resilient" while moving toward reduced dependence on oil (Roseland, 2012). The movement begins at the grassroots level, as opposed to the traditional top-down scheme utilized for so many years, although these activated citizens are encouraged to "engage local government" in their efforts to effect the change they want to see. Here is a great introduction to the movement and the methods they hope to employ:

Did you know that at this moment, as you are reading this, you are part of the transition? It's true! In 2010, the city of Bloomington announced their intention to reduce their dependence on oil and become a transition town. Interestingly enough, the announcement of the idea and movement to the larger community was conducted by the Mayor of Bloomington and several council members at the time, after motivated and vocal residents of the area demonstrated their concern to the local government. The announcement was accompanied by a day-long town meeting in which citizens were invited by the local government to join them in brainstorming ideas to achieve the goal of reducing oil reliance in the city of Bloomington. For more information on the set-up for the day, click here for the formal press release.

The Transition Town movement, often seen as a product of the UN's Agenda 21 we read earlier in the semester, is not without its detractors. Enjoy this video expressing concern about some of the land use and zoning issues coming up due to the movement:

Fascinating viewpoints emerge regarding some of the best practices Transition Towns encourage and which we have learned this semester. The charming host of the segment refers to "high-density prison cities" in reference to the encouragement of higher-density housing in urban areas. A Georgia man's death is attributed to the demands of the movement.

Normally, these types of videos seem to be distributed amongst a small group of extremist factions. Unfortunately, this video has been online for about a year, has garnered over 20,000 views, and was prominent on many Tea Party websites I visited when researching this issue. Especially when considering the participation of the Tea Party, an influential and real political movement, it is possible that the detractors would gain traction against sustainable community development. How real do you think the threat of opposing opinions is on this movement?

References

Roseland, M. (2012). Toward sustainable communities: solutions for their citizens and their goverments. New society publishers: Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada

http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=4902

Personal Project Update #2

Since my last update a lot of progress has been made in Teter Quad and with my personal project. My intent with the personal project was to interface with residents in regards to sustainability to find out what they already knew and to challenge them to go deeper in their understanding and practices.

What started out as an idea to run a series of practical skills workshops quickly fizzled as I realized the magnitude of coordinating the series and a general lack of interest. In just the informal discussions I had with residents, it didn't seem like they had any interest in learning more about bicycle repair, sewing, etc. which was pretty shocking for me. At a previous institution, I had participated in events like those I had proposed to generally enthusiastic student response. Not so much here. However, what did seem to resonate was programming that slyly integrated sustainability as an educational component of the event. Which is what I had proposed in my last blog. This included plans to show an outdoor movie while encouraging students to turn their lights off in order to see the movie. We also planned to plug the IU Energy Challenge at this event and provide food from a local vendor that sourced fresh, local ingredients in their products. Well, I am happy to report that we held the movie event at the end of October to enthusiastic response. We had approximately 60 students come out to watch Wall-E, a movie with environmental stewardship undertones that was also accessible to the general student population. The Director for Environmental Affairs and I led a discussion regarding the IU Energy Challenge and sustainable practices residents of Teter Quad could implement or may be already doing. We also administered an exit survey of students at the event to determine their knowledge level of sustainability as a result of the program. We had 11 responses to the survey, with overwhelmingly positive response that students had learned new skills they could implement in their lives to save resources. They also agreed that they were more likely to use those skills and that they would like to see more sustainability programming in the residence halls.

This program was extremely encouraging and motivated me to host another sustainability event before the end of the IU Energy Challenge, to feed off of the energy of the first program and give one last push in the hopes that Teter could pull ahead and win the challenge. So two Fridays ago, in conjunction with a small group of RA's, I hosted an ugly sweater party/competition to increase the visibility of the Energy Challenge and encourage students to layer up to stay warm instead of cranking the heat in their rooms. As laid out in my previous posting, our group hung eye-catching posters advertising the competition and provided prizes to the top two winners. The event had about 20 participants, all of whom took the same survey as the outdoor movie participants to gauge student knowledge and behavior around sustainability. This time around, because the connection to the IU Energy Challenge wasn't as strong as the movie, it was hard to articulate how turning off your lights and taking 10 minute showers related to wearing sweaters in the colder months. I believe the general idea was lost on a lot of the participants as I only had two students from the survey say they actually learned new skills around sustainability and that they would implement those skills in their daily lives. Teter ended up in fourth place out of five buildings in our residential neighborhood for the Energy Challenge, which made me realize just how hard it can be sometimes to get people to care about something they are unfamiliar with. Or just plain don't care about.

Moving forward, I am preparing a sustainability training/workshop with two RA's from other residential buildings to present at the Residential Life winter training in January. We hope to explain sustainability through the four pillars of the Residential Life Experience: 1. Academic Initiatives, 2. Personal Development, 3. Exploring Beliefs, and 4. Community Development. We are taking this approach in the hopes of connecting the explicit values of the department with our sustainability value. Additionally, we want to create a sustainability reference guide for RA's to utilize when looking for programming ideas. That way they have something quick and easy (speaking to the values of busy undergraduate college students) to do with their floors that revolves around sustainability.

I am contemplating how I would like to round out this experience for the end of the semester. If anyone has ideas for taking this project to the next level, let me know! I'm open to feedback and would love to look at this project from a different angle.