behaviour

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June 2, 2010

Baby steps to greenthink — walking and Wombles

Posted by efreak under behaviour, Britain, conservation, environment, green, hiking, recycling, society | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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When I was a teenager, I had two back-up conversation plans: football and Neighbours. I did not really do very well at small talk, a slight barrier when trying to meet girls. So I knew that if I rambled on about the vegetarian fusspot Harold Bishop, star of the suburban, Australian soap, most people would know what I was talking about. It was a patch of common ground from where we would begin scaling conversational mountains (like Home & Away)…

Wind farm devastates Wimbledon landscape

When you are trying to nudge friends towards engaging with environmental problems, you need to find something, anything that can start moving them away from the energy-hungry, how-can-I-do-anything-about-climate-change attitude. It is obviously not an easy journey, and they won’t be volunteering to scale coal-fired power stations for Greenpeace the next weekend. First you need a little thing, an ‘in’, that shows them that the idea of a greenish life is not very far from where they are.

For efreak’s mother-in-law it is recycling, an obsession. Another popular way, as I wrote previously, is by growing stuff. Some people just like the feeling of being smug. For me, it is walking. In Hong Kong, where I used to live, I could not think of a better way of (more…)

 

May 20, 2010

A stitch in time prevents climate disaster?

Posted by efreak under behaviour, climate, economics, environment, food, green, Hong Kong, risk, society, water | Tags: , , , , , |
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In a previous life as a Hong Kong hack, I once went to a press conference organised by HSBC. The bank had flown in top climate economist Nicholas Stern to talk about the risks of climate change to the world economy. Lord Stern — who wrote the definitive account of how much climate change could cost us — was placed in front of the fearsome Hong Kong press pack, but clearly none of the reporters had any idea who the guru was (or what climate change was).

Lord Stern (R) and friend

Hong Kong’s media are obsessed with two things: cantopop stars and the vagaries of the stock market. So for 40 minutes, despite the occasional embarrassed intervention of HSBC’s head of sustainability, Teresa Au, the Sternster (as no-one calls him), was asked for share price predictions. Obviously, the hacks were none too concerned about the risks of sea level rise or collapsing water supplies in a city built at sea level and almost entirely reliant on mainland China for its fresh water.

Sterno was in less choppy waters this week, as part of the audience for a talk on how scientists can address climate denial and scepticism, given by the director of the Science Musuem, Chris Ripley. After the talk, Lord Stern asked how scientists can better explain the risks of the world getting (more…)

 

May 18, 2010

In praise of the humble energy monitor

Posted by efreak under behaviour, carbon, efficiency, energy, environment, green, society, technology | Tags: , , , , , , |
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The two most common questions people ask when they discover I am interested in the environment:

1. So you think we should ruin the countryside by planting wind farms everywhere, do you? (Answer: Only where you live.)

2. What things can I do to make a difference?

A lot of people feel bombarded when they think about environmental problems, if they think about them at all. Newspaper reports of a coming apocalypse and images of flash floods yanking daughters from the safe clutches of their fathers promote a sense of hopelessness. What can one person do when faced with the scale of the horror?

Saviour of the planet

I actually like to think of ‘green living’ not as a sudden, dramatic shift in lifestyle but as a series of small steps. It is a bit like a nervous first-time gardener — you cannot grow elaborate floral displays in your first season, you are better off starting with a pot of parsley. So, the first thing I suggest is working out is how much energy you actually use in your home.

Most people just pay their electricity and gas bills. They have no idea what a kilowatt hour is. The bill always seems a bit steep, but they do not remember wasting much electricity. Anyway, they only get bills every quarter (and often pay automatically, based on estimates), so how can they relate the final number to that time they left the heating on when they went away for a long weekend.

Earlier this year, Mrs efreak and I switched electricity supplier to Southern Electric, and their better plan plan (it is so environmentally-friendly they don’t even use capital letters). Apart from (more…)

 

May 11, 2010

Advertising climate change

Posted by efreak under advertising, behaviour, climate, conservation, economics, efficiency, energy, environment, transport | Tags: , , , , , , |
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Here’s an idea. If you want to convince people of the seriousness of major environmental problems, like climate change, why don’t you just give a top advertising agency an enormous wad of cash and let them wangle their wand in the dark arts? You give the ads blanket coverage and, hey presto, even your Daily Express-reading uncle is convinced of the threats to Amazonian biodiversity. You can finally get on with the job of banning air travel and making socks and sandals a compulsory combination…

Mike Hulme, a professor at the University of East Anglia and the founder of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has written a brilliant book on why it is not quite as simple as that. The argument of ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change‘ is that everyone comes at the problem from a different point of view. They are either desperate for a return to a Garden of Eden idyll, terrified of the apocalyptic collapse of humanity, confident we can create technical solutions, or hopeful that we can rebuild a better society. If you want to convince people of the importance of the issue, you have to understand what is important to them (money, social justice, global security). Some people go all gooey-eyed when they see polar bears falling off melting glaciers. I think it is funny…

So which tribe should advertising target and what message should it give for the greatest impact? Here are a couple of examples:

First up is your typical Greenpeace ad. A Clockwork Orange-esque bombardement of apocalyptic imagery — icebergs, dead fish, whales, deforestation. This ad is aimed at shocking you into the kind of direct action that has made the organisation famous…

The second is part of the UK government’s Act on CO2 campaign. It hired director Shane Meadows, (more…)

 

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