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APPENDIX IV

1. Files for the Role Play “Panel Discussion: Think Globally, Act Locally”

File 1.

Why We’re Destroying the Earth

On this millennial Earth Day, awareness of our depleting natural resources is at an all-time high, and, yet, so is their destruction. A new field of research hopes to explain why we continue to damage the environment even as we think we are protecting it – and how we can stop.

By Robert Gifford, Ph. D.

part 1.

Many people, based perhaps on well-publicized disasters like the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, believe that environmental problems are most often caused – and best solved – by government and big business. Most environmental damage, however, begins not with government or large companies, but with the cumulative actions of individuals. If there is a solution to this global crisis, it is to understand – and remedy – the decision-making of individual consumers of energy before nature pays the price.

part 2.

For about 30 years, environmental psychologists have struggled to understand the way we treat our surroundings, which ultimately harms our own well-being, since environmental assault can wreak havoc on our health, even leading to illnesses such as cancer. Over 100 studies conducted in the last two decades have examined the ways individuals influence the environment – from deciding to have another child to turning on the air conditioner – and why they make such decisions. We know that some people do refrain from overusing nonrenewable resources, from forests and fish to less tangible resources such as clean air and physical space. Environmental psychologists are now examining the mindset of such individuals, hoping eventually to encourage others to consider our resources in the same way.

More and more people are environmentally aware these days – curbside recycling, insulated homes and Woodsy

Owls slogan “Give a hoot, don’t pollute” are now ingrained in our cultural consciousness. You might think that awareness would lead to environmentally friendly behavior, but it does not: well-educated, middle-class North Americans, the people most likely to have high environmental awareness, use far more energy than Third World residents – and other North Americans too. Why the discrepancy between words and deeds? So far, scientists have identified at least 30 different personal, social or structural influences that affect whether a given person uses natural resources wisely or takes more than their share. There are four overriding ways that people, mostly unconsciously, hurt the environment every day:

Energy use. Perhaps our biggest priority is to curb our heavy use of fossil fuel energy sources, like oil. Burning these fuels produces greenhouse gases and ground-level pollutants, leading to global warming, a planetary danger no longer questioned by experts. A 1998 study in the journal Bioscience showed that 40% of deaths worldwide are caused by pollution and other environmental factors. Furthermore, energy use is growing: Dutch researcher Linda Steg, Ph. D., reports that in the Netherlands, a region typical of developed nations, consumers now use 25% more energy than they did just 14 years ago.

Convenience. Taking a plane is several times less fuel-efficient even than driving, but we often choose to fly to save time. In a typical recent year, U.S. commercial airliners carried 60 million passengers 158 billion miles, using 21 billion gallons of jet fuel in the process. Similarly, cars afford us speed and comfort compared to cycling or walking. But a Dutch study found that about 20% of car trips are for journeys of less than one mile. Is this truly necessary?

Overpopulation. In a classic 1968 article, biologist Garrett Hardin, Ph. D., theorized that environmental destruction stemmed from the fact that there are just too many mouths to feed, even with great agricultural improvements. The Population Reference Bureau reports that the 20th century began with 1.6 billion people on the planet and likely ended with 6 billion. This is the end result of every parent’s personal decision to have a child, whether they realize it or not.

part 3.

Ignorance. Robyn Dawes, Ph. D., a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, blames “limited processing”: people simply don’t place their daily behaviors in an environmental context; their decisions are literally thoughtless. Some progress has been made since Dawes’ initial research (witness the growth of recycling), but how many people consider the environment when they flip a light switch or use an electric toothbrush?

Many people take whatever they can, believing that natural resources are inexhaustible. A review of 59 studies by Donald Hine, Ph. D., and myself revealed that individuals use resources more wisely when the group sharing the resource is small in number, communicates well and is informed that goods are limited. Unfortunately, groups that share real-world resources are usually large, 363

often communicate poorly and don’t realize the resource crisis they face. In a 1994 study that simulated ocean fishing in groups of up to 200 in size, I found that participants would cut back their fishing when they learned that the fish stocks were depleting. But the cutbacks they made were too little to save the fish population over the long run. People were destroying a resource just as they believed they were helping it, not unlike those who flew to protest the WTO or who travel to far-off national parks to revel in nature.

To reverse this ill-fated trend, you can construct your life to make conservation easy. For example, the next time you move, place environmental considerations near the top of your list by relocating as close as possible to work or school. Then you won’t drive as much, and won’t have to ride a bike or walk too far, either. Residing in a slightly smaller home would consume less energy for heating or cooling without forcing you to sacrifice much comfort. Do you need to fly as much as you do? Perhaps there are undiscovered vacation spots close to home. And instead of flying to your next business meeting simply because your company will pay for it, try carpooling or taking a train, or telecommuting via phone, fax or the Internet.

Adopting these measures would significantly reduce pollution and global warming and its ill-effects on our wellbeing. Celebrate this April 22, Earth Day, by making a few of these changes. The world depends on it.

/Robeit Gifford, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in Canada/

File 2.

Enviro-Myths You Can Stop Believing

ANN ARBOR, Michigan – We recently participated in an environmental festival at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, the largest indoor shopping center in America. After speaking with thousands of parents, children and teachers, we were appalled at the public’s wealth of environmental misunderstanding. Here are some examples.

One: Recycling is the key.

Actually, recycling is one of the least important things we can do, if our real objective is to conserve resources.

Remember the phrase “reduce, reuse and recycle”? Reduce comes first for a good reason: It’s better not to create waste than to have to figure out what to do with it. And recycling, like any other form of manufacturing, uses energy and other resources while creating pollution and greenhouse gases.

Rather, we need to make products more durable, lighter, more energy efficient and easier to repair rather than to replace. Finally, we need to reduce and reuse packaging.

Two: Garbage will overwhelm us.

The original garbage crisis occurred when people first settled down to farm and could no longer leave their campsites after their garbage grew too deep. Since then, every society has had to figure out what to do with discards. That something was usually unhealthy and ugly – throwing garbage in the streets, piling it up just outside of town, incorporating it into structures or simply setting it on fire. Today we can design history’s and the world’s safest recycling facilities, landfills and incinerators.

The problem is political. No one wants to spend money on just getting rid of garbage or to have a garbage site in the backyard. The obvious solution is to stop generating so much garbage in the first place. Doing so requires both the knowledge and the self-discipline to conserve energy and do more with less stuff.

Three: Industry is to blame.

No, it’s all people’s fault. Certainly industry has played a significant role in destroying habitats, generating pollution and depleting resources. But we are the ones who signal to businesses that what they are doing is acceptable – every time we open our wallets.

And don’t just blame industrial societies. In his recent book “Earth Politics,” Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker wrote that “perhaps 90 percent of the extinction of species, soil erosion, forest and wilderness destruction and also desertification are taking place in developing countries”. Thus, even non-industrialized, subsistence economies are creating environmental havoc.

Four: The earth is in peril. Frankly, the earth doesn’t need to be saved. Nature doesn’t give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained.

Saving the environment is really about saving our environment – making it safe for ourselves, our children and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually doing so.

/based on the article “Six Enviro-Myths You Can Stop Believing” by Robert M. Lilienfeld and William L. Rathje. the New York Times, May 1996/

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File 3.

Driving Us Crazy

Could you survive without your car for the day?

One family finds going green is hard work, says Tony Brooks

As a mother, Caroline Linfitt worries about the effects of exhaust pollution on her two young daughters and is only too aware of how Britain’s roads are hopelessly congested.

Caroline, a 34-year-old lecturer, would “like something done about it”. Her husband, Philip, shares her worries and they support Government aims to discourage car use and promote public transport.

At least, they do in theory. However, after leaving their car in the garage for a day, to test the principle of coping without a vehicle, they now realise the harsh reality of being “without wheels”. The weary Linfitts confessed after their experiment:

“We are all for the idea in principle – but without massive restructuring and public re-education, it’s just not on.”

Their day started at 6a.m. as usual at their home in Chorley, Lancashire, with demands for breakfast from daughters Rebecca, four and 20-month-old Anna. Normally Philip, 34, would have left at 7.30 to drive the 14 miles to Bolton School where he is head of technology. He decided to go by train.

That meant he had to be out the door at seven for the eight-minute walk to Chorley station, where he caught the Blackpool North-Manchester service at 7.18. Fortunately, it was on time and 20 minutes later he alighted in Bolton for another five-minute walk which had him at school at his usual time.

That evening he retraced the journey, the train was on time again and he arrived home soon after six. The journey took 15 minutes longer than Philip takes to drive. So far, not too bad if you can spare 45 minutes out of an already busy day.

For Caroline the day proved far more of a challenge. Clutching Rebecca’s hand, with Anna in her buggy, she set off at 8a.m. for the seven-minute walk to catch the local Chorley Circuit runabout (bus) to get to St. Mary’s Catholic School.

After a 20-minute wait with no sign of a bus, Caroline decided to walk. It took 15 minutes but she was still in time to get Rebecca to her class before retracing her steps for another 20 minutes to get home.

Usually, the family’s big weekly shop at Tesco’s 24-hour store on the outskirts of Chorley would be done in the car. But today Caroline had the choice of a 30-minute walk, a ₤3 taxi ride or the bus. She chose the bus, spending 74p on the 10-minute journey. Then it was back on the bus, via Bolton town center – entire trip taking two-and-a-half hours, compared to an hour by car.

Caroline said she was behind anything that would reduce congestion but confessed it was unworkable to go without a car on a day-to-day basis. “Two days a week I go by train to work at the University of Central Lancashire.”

“I believe radical measures are needed but society will have to undergo a massive reeducation programme.” She added: “While one bus didn’t materialise, the others were pram-friendly which was really helpful. We live in an area where public transport is quite reasonable, while others further out would not find the challenge so easy.”

Philip said: “Using the train to get to school is not hugely inconvenient. I leave about 30 minutes sooner and get to work at my usual time.”

The daily return cost Philip ₤4 but a weekly ticket is ₤18, which compares favourably with petrol. He added: “I want to see something done but I doubt it can be achieved without discomfort and upheaval.”

File 4.

“The Most Innovative City in the World”: From Its Lighthouses

of Learning to Aggressive Recycling Programs, the Brazilian Metropolis of Curitiba is a Hotbed of New Answers to Old Urban Ills

At the start of the school year, Christiano Pereira Pinheiro, a winsome 7-year-old, traded 8 pounds of recyclable garbage for a packet of new notebooks.

Each week he and his two older brothers, the sons of a maid and a steelworker, exchange trash for fresh fruit or 2 pounds of protein-rich beans. At Easter, they get chocolate eggs and at Christmas a cake for the family.

Garbage is not the only thing recycled here. Old wooden utility posts are reused in office buildings, bridges and public squares. Retired buses become mobile classrooms for adult education. A gunpowder depot converts into a theater-in- the-round. “Virtually everything has more than one use,” said Mayor Rafael Greca De Macedo, whose airy office overlooking a park is made of old telephone poles and glass. “It’s just a matter of figuring out how to reuse things and then teaching people how to do it.”

Curitiba has done just that – and much more. As the world’s mayors and urban planners assemble today in Istanbul,

Turkey, for the start of a U.N. summit on mushrooming urban problems, this little-known city in southeast Brazil is being heralded as the place that has many of the solutions.

“It’s the most innovative city in the world,” said Wally N’Dow of Gambia, chairman of the Habitat II summit. Since young maverick architects and engineers took over City Hall in the 1970s, Curitiba has tried new ways to tackle such urban ills as illiteracy, homelessness, transportation and government service shortcomings, unemployment, pollution and poverty.

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Curitiba is still a Third World city, with at least 10% of its 1.6 million people living in slums of corrugated tin-and-wood shanties. And its innovations – from “trade villages” to schoolbooks written by the mayor–were made gradually.

Its “garbage that is not garbage” program made it the world’s recycling capital. More than 70% of its trash is recycled

– compared with the 25% mandated in Los Angeles and the 10% rate nationwide in the United States. Paper recycling in Curitiba saves 1,200 trees a day, city planners estimate.

The program in turn helps the poor. The city last year exchanged almost 2 million pounds of food, 348,000 Easter eggs and 26,000 Christmas cakes for recyclable trash. Hundreds of quilts for the needy were stuffed with crushed Styrofoam. Christiano was one of 25,000 poor children who received school supplies.

The program also keeps the town clean, cuts diseases spread by rat urine and helps prevent the persistent floods that used to occur when townspeople threw their garbage into rivers.

2. Respiratory deaths from indoor air pollution

Latin America

					2%														Mideast
																			10%
									India
					33%																China
																			11%
																			Other Asia
																			13%
					Sub Saharan
					31%
Carbon dioxide emissions per capita in 2000 (in metric tons)
N. America	4.5
E. Europe	2.2
W. Europe	2.1
Mideast	1.7
Lat. America	0.6
Asia/Oceania	0.6
Africa	0.3
Percentage of population undernourished
	30%
	20%
	10%
	0
						Asia						Africa			South Am.				Carib./Cent.Am.
Population without access to safe drinking water
	Least dev. countries																							38%
	Developing																		22%
	World																		18%
	Industrial				0%

Total projected deaths from waterborne illnesses

120 million

80 Withоut intervention

40

0							With intervention
2000			05		10		15		20

The Portrait of a Beleaguered Planet

DEFORESTATION:

Home to 30% of the earth’s animal and plant species, the Amazon loses an area the size of Connecticut every year.

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OVERFISHING:

Cod once meant wealth from Bilbao to Boston. Draconian limits on fishing may save remaining stocks. SOIL EROSION:

Olive growing in Spain and Italy degrades the soil and helps turn the region into desert. REEF LOSS:

Up to 86% of Indonesia’s reefs are threatened, jeopardizing one of the world’s largest fisheries.

THREATENED SPECIES:

Orangutan populationsmay have fallen 50% in the last decade due to habitat destruction. DESERTIFICATION:

As a spreading desert grows uncomfortably close to Beijing, a growing megacity ponders its future.

3.	A SEA OF MISERY

Once bustling port towns in Central Asia are now mired among the desert sands

Once upon a time, the town of Muynak was a bustling port along the Aral Sea. City workers still paint the street signs with images of seagulls and ocean waves, and here and there the masts of ships poke up between the buildings. The coast, though, is nowhere to be found. “I’ve never seen the sea,” says Mural Najimov, a 25-year-old local who’s filling six jugs with salty water from a public well. Sergey Lipatovich, 67, former port captain, walks among the rusted hulls of ships, anchors dug into sand that used to be sea bottom. Thirty years ago, he says, the water level reached more than two meters. Now the shore is 200 kilometers away. “There have been so many projects to save this water,” he says. “And not a single one worked.”

Once the world’s fourth largest inland sea, the Aral has shrunk to less than a third of its original size, leaving behind port towns to fight off the encroaching desert on their own. The 35 million people in the region – a tenth of whom live in a disaster zone – face a steady rise in disease and a further drop into poverty. “They are learning to adapt,” says Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan desertification expert Kural Atanazarov, “by running away if they can.” There’s no single villain to blame for this mess. Dismal Soviet land-use policy played a role, but so have corruption, poverty, global warming and drought. Rivers may dry up completely, say experts, unless regional governments come up with a coordinated water-sharing plan. Even if they did, it wouldn’t help the people who live near the Aral: experts say the sea will never be restored to its former size.

Water seemed plentiful enough until the Soviets tapped the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers to irrigate cotton fields in Uzbekistan in the 1960s. Water levels downriver dropped. Nowadays, the Central Asian states harbor too much resentment to strike a solution. “We need to divide the water in a neighborly way-there is no other option,” says Uzbekistan water specialist Bekh Tashmukhamedov. Instead, Turkmenistan is building a 2,000-square-kilometer lake in the Kara-Kum desert for irrigation and its own water security. “They are creating swamps and we are turning into dust,” says Lipatovich. “You call that fair?”

So much water is diverted upriver for irrigation that runoff has pooled into a giant lake, 220 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, at the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Periodically it floods pastures and roads, even as regions farther downriver get drier and drier. In Uzbekistan, the once mighty Amu Darya river is a mere trickle – three- kilometer-long bridges span three-meter-wide streams. Along the sides of the road outside the western Uzbek city of Nukus are huge white patches of salt stretching as far as the eye can see.

Nineteenth-century diseases are rampant. One in 500 people has tuberculosis. “We are seeing forms of TB we thought had disappeared ages ago, like tuberculosis of the bones,” says infectious-diseases expert Natalia Vdovina of the medical institute in Karakalpak. Stomach and intestinal cancer rates, thyroid problems, anemia and infertility affect large portions of the population. The infant-mortality rate – about one in 10 – is among the world’s highest. “The growing desert makes people poor, and then they get sick,” says gynecologist Aziza Kyrbanova.

The only solution, it seems, is to flee. Asimbae Siregiev, 22, just returned from what’s left of the Aral Sea, where for three days he failed to catch a fish. “I want to leave this town,” he says. “But I don’t know whereto go. I only know that I want to go wherever there is water.”

By Eve Conant

(Newsweek, September 2002)

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