Rewarding positive environmental behaviour

Writing in the Guardian on 27 November, psychologist Adam Corner maintains that

people tend to act in a way that is socially acceptable,

but that behind the social norms are pitfalls to trap the overly-righteous.

Environmental campaigns using social norms will have to be supplemented with information targeted at specific groups about the desirability of their particular behaviours. If people are doing something positive, they need to know about it,

Corner says.
So just castigating the backsliders is not enough. Positive feedback to those doing the right thing environmentally is just as important.

Recent Reading

Global Consciousness

At this post on the group blog Climate Shifts, contributor John Bruno writes:

"Our every day experience in the United States (and in many other countries) informs us that the state of our governance, where wealthy business and special interests use campaign financing, lobbying, and media control to manipulate government policy and public perceptions is not a viable system for conserving coral reefs or for sustainable living because it is predicated on the fact that; 'He who owns the political trump card wins'." ( Citation

Jameson SC (2008) Guest editorial: Reefs in trouble ­ the real root cause. Marine Pollution Bulletin 56(9):1513-1514 )

It is a great system for creating corporate profit and socializing expense at global cost, but it does not produce clean air and water in natural environments or enhance biodiversity.

Stephen is also asking: can a social, cultural community consciousness evolve into a global consciousness? There are several layers to the answer. As he argues, there may be genetically or socially based behavioral limitations that have and will preclude the development of a new form of global altruism. There are also complex competing forces that have designed a governance system incompatible with the conservation of species and ecosystems half way around the world. But I think a very deep perception gap is another key problem. Even in wealthy nations, where we have the luxury of worrying about such matters, I am struck by how few people recognize that their actions can affect other people in far away nations. Many people I talk to in the US are aware of climate change and the decline of coral reefs, but have a hard time comprehending that their choices and behaviors could actually be causing problems for people and corals in the south Pacific. Making people, especially policy makers, aware of the striking effects we are having on all the world’s oceans, including ocean chemistry and temperature, will be a critical battle in the broader campaign to address the real root cause.

Empty oceans?

Lesley spent an hour or so recently on emu parade along the beach at Cape Trib. She collected about two polystyrene boxfuls of mostly empty bottles, cans, thongs and other unidentified plastics. Notably absent in the early morning were birds along the shore - a couple of oystercatchers were the only hopefuls. There was little evidence of shoreline food -neither molluscs nor crabs. How things have changed since she was a girl!
It was interesting if unnerving to see that others have also noted this. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00qEi2UuU8k for a short video comparing the northern Pacific with the same fifty years ago. More discussion at science blogs' Shifting Baselines.
The fungus in the foreground, on the other hand, seemed quite well and happy sitting right on the beach!

Consumerism when the tide runs out

What are the real implications of peak oil in a culture where common sense
has been suppressed by consumerism?

It's an abundance of energy that makes possible the kinds of excess that many parents practice with their children. It is also energy that elevates and continuously upgrades our expectations, which then in turn become the new societal norm. Our common sense tells us these expectations as to what is normal, have little basis in reality and in many ways are harmful to our children. So why then do parents that know all the reasons that they shouldn't do something, do it anyway? Whatever force it is that encourages moms and dad to throw away the parental rulebook must be effective indeed and the only way that rulebook can be ignored, is if a definitive effort has been made to render it obsolete.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46079