Jack Barshaw reflects on Psychology of Environmental Stewardship ENV361 2022

00:03 All right, this is Jack Barshaw. I'm recording this final reflection for class. It's awkward to just interview myself, but I'm going to start with the first question reflecting back on this course. What were some of the most meaningful concepts that you learned? I think especially one of the first things that I remember learning in the beginning of the class after I read this Civilization is Finished. One of the recommended readings before the class and the concept of a future of economic degrowth. But beyond that, the concept of voluntary degrowth versus a compulsory degrowth that.

01:00 No.

01:00 Matter how you look at it, we are going to be forced to re examine current over consumptive economic systems because of their environmental impact. And we're going to have to either consider those now before the effects start to get too nasty, or consider them after the fact. It's just something that I guess you kind of always know in the back of your head. But I've never really had the concept so easily explained that beyond just like using fossil fuels or anything, that every single purchase you make, every action does have consequences that ripple out, especially through purchases. And that also got reinforced. I haven't read it all the way through nearly because I spent this whole semester in class. But I also bought Limits to Growth after it was recommended in a class because I thought it was just a very, very interesting concept that people don't necessarily talk about that often. But yeah, what behavior change strategies worked well, what didn't and why? I said that I thought norms based models are probably some that work better than others because people are social creatures and they tend to conform often. Maybe not everybody, as we've seen with COVID 19 mask mandates. But I think that norms based models provide a necessary catalyst for behavior change in many people. And I think they're an excellent way to get a large group of people to alter their behavior all at once, which is ultimately the goal of environmental psychology at the moment. And then a model that doesn't necessarily work as well as education based models. We tend to think that education will fix a problem, that the environmental disaster was based on people not necessarily knowing the consequences of their actions. But that has proven not to be necessarily true. People know, of course, that what they're doing is wrong, but that doesn't change their behavior. And I think that's also because there's differences between your knowledge of issues, your knowledge of solutions and your knowledge of your action skills. Those are all different pieces of information that can be taught, but they might not necessarily change a person's behavior because there are other Factors involved in their personality, like their locus of control or their feelings of personal responsibility and their attitudes. Two to five salient concepts that I will take with me as I pursue my career. I think on the topic of like economic degrowth. The concept of frugality is an environmental concept that I think needs to be introduced to more people because people are more used to the concept of environmentalism being green consumerism. What can you buy that is environmentally friendly, like a electric car. But even the process of manufacturing an electric car has carbon footprint to it. So the concept that there isn't necessarily something you can do to consume to be green, but that your environmental. I guess to be environmentally friendly is to consume as less as possible. And another salient concept is the concept of framing. I, especially after reading the Civilization is Finished, remeditated on concepts I had learned in other classes when they discussed the next great mass extinction and saying that it's not necessarily advantageous to discuss, like whether, like the, the darker portion of like people saying that they think it might be inevitable that we're entering a great mass die off of life on Earth. And that the darker matter is if we truly, if they believe that we've truly entered it, that there really is nothing that we can do at this point. And they would teach us about it and say that, you know, they really don't want to say that in a massive scale to the general public. You don't want anyone to panic. But I think that it will be more of a regular discussion in the environmental science community later is like how we continue to frame the disasters and catastrophe as they go as both tragedies that they are, but also opportunities to continue to work together. Evaluate each of these using at least two evaluation metrics. I think that the concept of frugality is if we evaluate it through attentional capacity or mental vitality, something that's very, very difficult for people because they are used to the ease of specialized markets, not necessarily having to do everything on their own. And a frugal lifestyle in the 21st or century or the future would I think, entail becoming a lot more knowledgeable about skills that you can do yourself clean, you know, growing your own food and just general self sufficiency, maybe picking up hobbies along the lines of being able to make your own clothes, things like that, that will potentially overwhelm people's ability to get things done, but maybe also feed into their hobbies. And I also think from a perspection standpoint, there have been some people kind of starting to dabble in personal hobbies, especially after the COVID 19 pandemic, there were a lot of people, you know, making sourdough bread. And that's just the beginning of people coming to terms with being more self sufficient within the home. And then finally, what are the one or two major ways that the approaches outlined in this course differ from that of more conventional behavior change approaches? I think a lot of more traditional behavior change approaches so far about the environment have been simple solutions to things meant to kind of distract you. You know, we convince people to recycle and you put signs outside of.

09:42 Or.

09:42 Like right next to light switches so that people know to conserve energy. But these kinds of behavior changes are going to be things that apply to larger portions of everyday life, things that really alter the way that people live day to day. And that's going to be something that has to that people have to mentally prepare for as well, because things aren't always going to look exactly the same as they do now. Yeah, I've hit past 10 minutes and truth be told, I'm feeling a little ill. So I'm sorry if my throat sounds terrible, but I'm going to sign off and I hope everyone has a good night.