Stephanie Corn and Elizabeth Corn discuss preparing for the climate emergency

00:03 Hi, everyone. My name is Stephanie. I'm a current student at the University of Michigan, and I'm here today interviewing Elizabeth. She currently lives in a community that has successfully responded to the climate crisis, and I'm just here to ask her a few questions. So, just to start, Elizabeth, do you mind if I record this interview?

00:20 Yeah, that's totally fine.

00:21 Great. Thank you. So, just first, Elizabeth, I'd like to get to know you a little bit. Just can you give us a little background on who you are and kind of your role in this community? Yeah.

00:31 So, my name is Elizabeth Corn I've been living in Green Springs since 2005. Since then, I've raised three children here, and I've been really involved in the advisory committee that's made green living what it is today in terms of its sustainability and its definition as being a place that's dedicated to the environment and to combating the climate crisis.

00:51 Awesome. I'd love to hear that. So, since you do live in this community that has successfully responded to this climate crisis, you know, through your behaviors and your community coming together, you have allowed for this adaptation. I would just kind of like to know a little bit more about what your community is doing. Maybe some of those specific examples and those changes that you've made.

01:12 Yeah, definitely. So I think it started out with some more centralized changes that led to the more behavioral changes that got the entire community involved. So I think the first main project we did was expanding all of the pedestrian walkways and reducing the size of the streets, also connecting these pedestrian walkways to all of the central areas of the city and the neighborhood, so that people really didn't need to rely on cars for transit. We found a huge shift in behavior in this way. Families felt safe walking on the sidewalks because there wasn't really any risk of collision with vehicles. And families really liked that they could get to all of the places they needed to go without even needing a car. So a lot of our families do not own cars anymore, and they're able to walk to work, walk to the store, things like that. So it's really been a huge behavioral change in that way. And I think that that's going to create a ripple effect and spread to their family and friends and understanding how maybe there really isn't as much of a need for motor vehicles as some people might think. An additional change that we've made is creating a centralized composting system. And that's been huge because about 73% of our residents participate in that compost system, whereas beforehand, many probably didn't even know about compound posting or how to do it or what it really was. So that's been a huge success for our community. We've also implemented natural landscaping. So we've used a lot of landscaping from our natural environment and haven't really gone in to put anything artificial. And that's been great for the wildlife in the region as well. We've dug up a golf course that we originally had, and we bought the community and turned that into a community gardening site so that people are able to grow their own produce in a lot more sustainable way. And it gets the all of the members and all of our families involved in doing something together that's working towards a greener future.

03:05 That's really amazing. I like to hear that everyone's kind of working together. You know, that being said, I love to hear that everyone's kind of. It seems like everyone's very involved. You said 73% of your community is composting. How did you kind of spread that message to everyone and, like, how did you get your community to interact?

03:25 Right. So, in addition to this advisory board that I talked about, we've additionally created other advisory boards, including a sustainability board. So that is one of our biggest boards that we have as a part of our community. And about 140 members of our neighborhood are on that board. We meet weekly or bi weekly to discuss different pressing issues on sustainability. And we try to all bring our diverse perspectives and the problems that face each family and the concerns that each community member has about the future and about, you know, the. The changes that we're making in order to implement new ideas that will help us create a more sustainable future. So that's been really exciting for everyone. Apart from just the specific sustainability board, we have a lot of town hall meetings that the entire community can get involved in so people can attend that in person. And we also always live stream them to increase accessibility. So we have a diversity of voices coming together to try to work towards changes that work for everybody in our community and contribute to the well being of the individual members of this neighborhood.

04:33 It's really interesting that you talk about, you know, accessibility. I think that's a huge issue within sustainability, that not everyone is able to make those sustainable changes with, you know, their background and just everyone has different situations. So I love to see that you're trying to combat that and, you know, make it accessible, create those live streams. I also love to hear those, you know, diverse interests that you're trying to gather. So that being said, you're saying that community has responded it seems like amazingly like wonderful. But were there people, maybe neighbors, family members, that didn't respond and, you know, the way you had planned? And if so, you know, how are you trying to get them on board?

05:09 Right. That's a great point. So I think because our community is a green living community, most families who moved into this neighborhood were involved with our mission in terms of wanting to work towards a more sustainable neighborhood and a more sustainable future. However, I can't say that every, every single family was as on board as some of the others. Not that we really faced any severe oppression against this idea. Fortunately, we had some families who weren't as enthusiastic about it. But I think the great thing about this community is how tightly knit it is, how important it is, or the social aspect of this community is, and that we have a lot of different community gatherings, we have lots of community spaces, and people really feel like they want to fit in as a part of this wonderful neighborhood we have. And since really the large majority of our families are highly committed to this mission of sustainability, I think the remaining families are kind of feeling the pressure to go along with the flow and to learn and improve their ways so that they can be a part socially of this community. That's driving change. And we do see that even the families who are a little hesitant at first, ultimately, as a part of the social experience of this community, want to be helping us work towards a sustainable future. So that's really, really great to see. Not just the people who are already interested and invested in sustainability, but those who can change their opinions and their perspectives to also be involved in working with us on our mission.

06:41 That's amazing. I mean, you see a lot of times when you create advisory boards or communities like the people that join them and that want to make the difference are the people that already care. So I love to see that you're able to educate and kind of create that social norm of sustainability in order to get everyone to gather. That is amazing. And I hope other, you know, communities can adapt that sort of mind. So just one more question I do want to ask. Is there anything you think that your community saw specifically impact them, that made them want to become, like, respond to this climate crisis? Was there anything that impacted the neighborhood specifically?

07:20 Yeah, you know, so the first thing I think of is that a lot of the houses in this community were built on floodplains. So that means when there are heavy rains, it basically floods out the backyards of multiple of these homes. When I first moved into this community back in 2005, we would see severe flooding maybe once a year. So it wasn't super concerning to the people living there. However, as time went on, you know, in 20 10, 20, 15, 20 20, we were seeing way more frequent floods over and over again, which was becoming really concerning to the well being of our residents. Residents and their safety. I think a lot of residents started to realize that, wow, if we can see the impacts of climate change here on our own small community, imagine what, you know, is really happening on a global scale. And I think the fact that we were finally able to see something on our own that was impacting us and our families, it made us want to start driving change and making improvements that would help future generations.

08:22 Okay, that's. I mean, that's great to hear. I hope, you know, if we don't worry about this climate crisis now, then what's going to happen in 2031, even next year, 2035. So the way that you've responded to that situation, the flooding, is really interesting. And also just kind of, from hearing your conversation, it sounds like these changes in kind of responding to this climate crisis have also really improved your community's well being. It sounds like, you know, they're walking more, they're biking more, you know, they care about others. They're really just focused on being better people, being better for themselves, being better for their community, which I love to hear.

08:58 Yeah, exactly. I think it's really great to see that people are more fit, that people are both physically and mentally. With these increased walking and biking spaces that we have with the community garden, we find that residents find it a lot easier to eat healthier, and it's a lot cheaper to do so as well. And they find that being involved in a community effort that's working towards bettering other people and bettering future generations, we find that people are more empathetic towards the struggles of others, and we find that it's really becoming a ripple effect that's creating such a positive impact on our neighborhood. And we hope to see similar interventions happening in other communities to create just groups of people who are invested in change.

09:41 I love to hear that. Elizabeth. It looks like we're pretty much out of time. I want to thank you so much for talking with me and just kind of going over how your community has responded to this crisis. It seems like you're doing an amazing job, and I would love to see the actions that you guys have done kind of ripple out into other communities. So thank you so much for your time.

10:00 Thank you so much for having me, Stephanie. Have a great day.

10:02 You too.