How can we use the things we share in common to address some of the most challenging problems facing the world? This course examines issues concerning poverty, the environment, technology, health care, gender, education and activism to help us understand better how to initiate positive change.
Grassroots Politics and Climate Change (1)
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Del curso dictado por Wesleyan University
How to Change the World
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Climate Change and Sustainability
Discussion about political and economic ramifications of climate change, including how to think big about sustainability
Conoce a los instructores
Michael S. Roth
[MUSIC]
So today we're here with Mary Alice Haddad,
who teaches in a government department at Wesleyan University.
And Mary Alice is a political scientistist and her work over the last
several years has taken her into issues
surrounding climate change and sustainability and activism.
So, I'm delighted to have this conversation with you today.
We have a, several thousand people watching us
on video at least so they say.
And, and, two thirds of the students are outside the US, and so they're,
they're tuning in to issues in, climate
change and sustainability from a variety perspectives.
Really, from dozens and dozens of countries around the globe.
All of, of the students enrolled in this course I think are really interested in
learning more about global challenges facing us in the next decade.
But also some of the things we might
be able to do, to deal with them successfully.
So wel, welcome.
Thanks for being part of this conversation.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> So maybe you could start off by just say, saying a little bit
about, how you got interested in, issues
of sustainability and activism and climate change.
How did, how did your work as a political scientist take you
in that direction? >> Sure.
I, began my work, actually, looking at civil, civil society,
and democratization issues, particularly in Japan and also elsewhere in Asia.
And I noticed a pattern across the east Asian countries in which
the environment was the first area where governments allowed citizens to organize.
>> So, I'm interested in how someone in political science gets focused
on climate changes, sustainability. What was your path to these issues?
>> I began my interests in civic engagement.
>> Uh-huh. >> And democratization.
And I noticed that across East Asian countries, the environmental
issues are the first place where citizens were allowed to organize.
>> Uh-huh.
>> And in fact, were successful in gaining
sort of concessions from the government and change.
And so that was, that sparked my interests.
And also as probably everybody knows, the climate
change issues and the pollution issues, particularly in China,
>> Right.
>> but across East Asia are globe threatening.
>> Right.
>> Not just local problems. So I, I began my interest that direction.
And I was, particularly for my
most recent, research project, I was particularly
interested in how citiz, citizens can
make positive change, even under political contexts,
where that change is very difficult. >> Interesting.
So tell us a little bit, just so
that everybody has the same terminology in mind, like
what, when you talk about civil society, what are
you talking, what, what's the sector you're focused on?
>> That's a great question.
So, I'm looking, I define it pretty broadly, and
I'm mostly looking at sort of organized citizen activity.
>> Uh-huh.
>> That's not specifically part of the government.
>> Right. >> And not specifically
part of a for-profit organization.
>> Okay, so they're not companies, and
they're not like policy makers in the government.
>> Correct.
>> They're in that, between those, or apart from the sectors.
>> Right, and so it could be local grass roots groups that
are just doing, you know, let's clean up the park in our town.
>> Yeah.
>> All the way that are voluntarily organized,
and have no budget, and have no formal organizations.
All the way up to Greenpeace or Nature Conservancy, or
those things, and everything that's in between.
>> So in your research, do you find
that these groups typically are motivated by some event
that happens right in their town, like an oil
spill or, some other form of pollution that's discovered?
Is it, is it, is it usually about an acute crisis or is it about something broader?
>> That's a great question.
I have sort of a branch of research >> Uh-huh.
>> that is looking directly
at this NIMBY question, which is, Not In My Back Yard.
Which is often, portrayed as a negative
thing, where everybody says, no, I don't want
the dump in my backyard or I don't want the nuclear power plant in my backyard.
>> Mm-hm.
>> But actually a lot of the most
important environmental movements started as local NIMBY problems.
And so, the things that are motivating people at a global
level for large scale corporations or the
big international NGOs, are these bigger climate problems.
Goals of, of CO2 output, quote, at, on a, on a planetary basis.
>> Right.
>> The things that motivate people locally are, things they feel locally.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> So they notice that their kids are getting sick,
>> Right.
>> Or they notice that they can't breathe their air.
Or they notice that they, their clothing is
dirtier after they hang it out to dry than
it was when they put it out to dry. And, those are the kind of things that
people can really get motivated about locally, and then that, that can spread.
>> It's so interesting, because in, in one respect you, you, you
feel as one might feel as an individual, that you're overwhelmed by this.
Like so the example of you find your clothes
are getting dirty when you hang them out to dry.
That's, that's a big issue, right? It's not just your backyard obviously.
It's some, it's, it's broader than that, and yet people will
will react in ways that begin to really make dynamic political change.
Can, can, can you give us an example of, of a
grass roots organization that that starts, you know, by confronting a problem
and, and, and actually gets something done?
>> Oh there are just so many.
>> Right.
Well, maybe. >> I mean there's so many.
>> Yeah.
>> So, it's, you can think about one of the organizations that op, is operating at
kind of a meta level, that I think
is making a really, really big difference in China.
Is an organ, organization called the
Institute for Policy and Environmental Affairs, IPE.
>> Right. >> And he's
headed up by a man named Manjun. And it started with a very simple concept.
Which is to take the inspection, environmental inspection reports of
the Chinese government, that are on each facility that they inspect.
>> Right.
>> And that information is already public.
>> Right.
>> But, like in the United States, you have to
like have a PhD to go and find the data.
>> [LAUGH] Yeah, yeah.
>> And so we put it on this website, and you can just click and
find what the pollution levels are.
And the thing that's really in, ingenious about it, is
that he's now working with
big multi-national organizations, multi-national corporations.
>> Huh.
>> Who are interesting in greening their supply chains.
>> I see, so they want to use this rating system too.
Or.
>> That's right.
>> Huh.
>> So you have an organization like Wal-Mart.
>> Right.
>> Which has, you know, tens of thousands of suppliers in China.
>> Right.
>> And they can't go and inspect all these facilities, and especially
not just the supplier, but the supplier's suppliers, right?
Tier one and tier two.
>> Right. >> Supply chains.
And so, they are able to use his database. >> Huh.
>> To audit their supply chain.
>> And then, instead of a local factory that was
making t-shirts, or whatever they were doing, making for Wal-Mart.
>> The government inspector used to come and say, you're dumping nuck.
Uh-huh. >> mucky stuff in the water.
>> Right. >> You should not do that.
And they say, oh I'm
so sorry, here's five dollars. >> [LAUGH]
>> And the government would say, oh, okay, you paid your fine.
>> Right.
>> And so you're now in legal compliance.
>> But they weren't in environmental compliance.
>> Right.
>> And now Wal-Mart, you know, can send them, it can
send a letter and say look, you gotta clean this up.
We're going to help you do that, we're
going to match you up with third party NGOs
>> Right.
>> So, they're going to help you come up with a good plan to fix it.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And so it's a way in which there's the
NGO has created a platform, sort of a transparency based platform,
>> Right.
>> to create an incentive, a social, and a
market incentive, for these large corporations to put pressure
on local, local, or local factories, even in a
context where the government is not doing enforcement very well.
>> That's interesting.
There were some talks that the social goods summit some
from corporate officers, about these kinds of
things where they, they were, trade associations
were creating self regulation sustainability officers at
large corporations had made very dramatic innovations.
Not because the government was forcing them to, but because they thought, in the
long run, it would be better for the company and better for the environment.
The Chief Sustainability Officer at, at IKEA gave a really impressive talk
about some, and in the end, you think, common sense things they did to
change the way they ship, to change the way the light bulbs were used.
But, but, you know, they, they, no one had thought of
them before they had a sus, sustainability officer who could save
enormous amounts of energy for the company, and also reduce their
carbon footprint dramatically because it's such a big, such a big organization.
One of the things you hear
maybe more in the United States than elsewhere, is that people have a hard
time getting active around climate change and
other massive pollution issues because they're so long-term.
And I was reading this neuroscientist that said well,
it's because of our brains, you know, that we, we,
we want, we focus on things that we can deal
with quickly, and the things that are really long term,
we have this almost biological tendency to deny.
We don't want to, we, cause we don't know how to cope with them.
So do you see these as, inhi-, inhibitions on activism or inhibitions
on action because these problems are so broad, they're not just backyard problems?
>> I think that's definitely true.
It's one thing, one of the strongest findings
of my research has been that you can
give people a lot of information that makes sense in their brain.
>> Right.
>> But it's very hard to care.
>> Mm.
>> Like it's, it's really, really hard
to care about 350 points per whatever, right?
>> Right. >> It's just, it's a number.
>> Right.
>> And so how do you care about the number?
And one of the kind of surprising outcomes was that one of the most
effective methods for getting people to care, that came out of my interviews in
East Asia, was the arts. >> Interesting.
>> So political scientists don't think about artists
as, or writers, or film makers as political actors.
>> Right.
>> Even though every discussion about environmental politics in
the United States always starts with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.
>> That's true. >> It's a book.
Right?
So, it always starts with that, and why was that
book important?
It didn't actually give us any more numbers that we didn't know.
>> Right.
>> But it made people care. >> Yep.
>> And so there was a way when I was interviewing sort of a
film maker in, in Beijing And I said well, why, like, why is this effective?
>> Yeah. >> Why is this effective?
And she said, when you're looking at artists, when
artists are talking about material, they use a narrative.
>> Yeah. >> And they can make people feel and
become emotionally connected to the material.
So it's not just, it's not just a
number in their brain, it's something in their heart.
>> Yeah.
So, the, eh, maybe you could tell us a
little bit more about these interviews and, and you're
own research and how do you, how do you
go about finding the people you're going to interview.
What are you, what are you looking for?
Because I think a lot of students in
this class are they'll be, there'll be people who
are professors at, different Universities around the world, and,
there'll be middle school students and everybody in between.
And I think there'll
be a lot of interest in actually how one does research about pol, the politics of
engaging sustainability issues. That's a great question.
And it's a, kind of a multi-method way of trying to get these interviews.
So what I try to do is get a really diverse range of people.
I go in with a set of research questions that I want to test.
And I want to
try to find people who can help me confirm,
and or deny the things that I'm trying to find.
>> And are you doing this in, what part, what, in, in East Asia?
>> Yes.
>> But in, in any particular part of the.
>> Yes.
So the project that I just did my field work for
was on I studied in Japan, because that's a mature democracy.
>> Mm-hm.
>> In Taiwan and South Korea, because those are sort of new democracies.
>> Right. >> And in mainland
China, because that's not a democracy. >> Right.
>> And I was interested to try to see how the, all
four places have very strong governments that have very close ties to business.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And they're all kind of advocacy hostile environments,
they don't encourage advocacy NGOs to form and organize.
So, it was a good place to go and try
to test both the question of how do people, how do
citizens organize around the environment and make positive change
in difficult situations, and also how democracy might matter.
>> Right.
>> so, in all four places I tried to get people from the government.
People that were working in N NGOs,
both international-type NGOs and also local NGOs.
Artists as it turned out, so I tried
to talk to visual artists or performance artists
in each of the countries. >> Mm-hm.
>> I tried to get some business people business associations,
that were either dealing or not dealing with environmental issues.
So I tried to get as many as many kind of angles on the question.
And my interview techniques tend to be around
central themes, but I'll ask very open ended questions.
And then see where they take me.
>> Yeah. And did you get a sense that
there are certain kinds of stories that are most effective?
Or is it just the fact that it is a narrative?
Or, did you have the sense that there are certain kinds
of stories that really seem to grab the hearts of people?
>> I didn't get enough to say one thing or anoth-, another on that.
I was shocked to find that I got the same, the
sort of overall question that I would ask is, what's effective?
>> Right.
Here you are in a, in an advocacy hostile environment, like what
are the effective strategies that citizens can use to make change happen?
And I thought I would get a really big variation between these countries
>> Right.
>> And I didn't.
I got pretty much the same handful. >> Yeah.
>> And one of the answers was related to the artists, and the fact that
you have to connect, connect to people on
a personal level, and make them emotionally engaged.
And that piece of the story was consistent across all interviews.
>> Mm-hm.
>> But I didn't get more specific about this kind of
narrative works or that kind of narrative works, but individual stories and
individual things. But also creative, like.
>> Yeah.
>> If you think about all the manga and stuff that comes out of Japan.
And people are looking at at these kind of more imaginary worlds.
>> Right.
>> In which pollution is not a problem, or pollution is a terrible problem.
Make people really care.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> Even, even if it's not a, the story of the child that's dying in China.
>> Right.
>> Because of our
consumption of IT products. >> Right.
>> That's dumping heavy metals in their water.
Like that can also make people care.
So, there are a lot of varieties of
ways in which the stories can connect to individuals.
>> Yeah.
In, in the social goods summit, we had a presentation
and we, I think we'll use this video in the class.
By someone who organized, what they call the water tower project.
Where they in order to remind people of, that not
everyone has access to clean water, they made art projects out of water
towers and on top of buildings, which,
normally, just disappear, you don't see them.
And, and suddenly, you, you become aware of water, and that, the idea was to
become aware, and how, many parts of the world water is such a precious resource.
And there are things we can do to help
other people get access to clean water like we do.
And, and that uh,creating a sub,
sustainable water supply in certain parts of
the world would be a huge public health and economic development achievement.
>> Yeah.
There's actually an artist that I interviewed, called Ichi
Akada in Tokyo who is this fabulously creative man.
And, he was commissioned by the UN. >> Uh-huh.
>> To do an art installation around the issue of water.
And, he created these things called water boxes.
So, they're these cubes that are about this big.
And, it's 80 liters of
water, which is what the WTO has determined
is what a human being needs per day.
>> Uh-huh.
>> for all their needs. To drink, to wash,
>> Right. >> to cook.
All the things that they need.
And to think, and then of course their i-,
installations related to how, how many liters American uses.
>> Right. >> Which is in excess of a thousand.
>> Yeah. >> Plus.
>> This was part, also part of, the yeah.
>> And then, you know, other parts of the, of the world
that get, you know, less than quarter of what they really need.
And so,
but he put, he's got a whole variety of
ways in which these water boxes are now being used.
>> Mm-hm.
>> In terms of putting faces on them.
>> Yeah. >> So this is someone who has enough.
Filling them to different levels.
>> Mm-hm. >> Displaying them in different ways.
And he also has a number of community art projects, in which that are organized.
He's got one set that's gone on like three or four years now around a river.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So it connects the people at the mouth
of the river with the people at the source of the river to try to and,
people from all classes to try to connect
how everybody is connected to this water source.
And it's it makes you really feel that the
water is important and that it's valuable and that
you should conserve it, and take care of it
and that it, and that it matters for everybody.
>> One of the things we, we've talked about in this week's lectures
is the, the, the way in which climate issues effect,
and other pollution issues, effect
different people very differently, you know.
And then some people are very vulnerable and
some people can actually take steps to protect themselves.
And I wonder that, how that works in politics.
Because, you know, to motivate somebody who's actually able to,
I don't know, get the air purifiers and water purifiers and
put the house on stilts, is very different
from motivating somebody's whose life is really threatened immediately.
At least that's what it seems.
Is that the case?
I mean, do you find that people find through these narratives they
feel connected to people who, whose fate is quite different from their own?
Or?
>> yes, they, they can connect that way.
And that is indeed one of the biggest challenges, is that it is usually
the privileged classes, whether you think of that inside a country or
globally, that are able to consume at a level that's not sustainable.
>> Right.
>> And, off, offload
>> Yeah. >> the costs of their consumption.
And shield themselves from those costs. >> Mm-hm.
>> And, so it's the people with access to financial,
intellectual, public, political resources, that are in that position of.
>> Yeah.
>> Kind of being able to ignore the
problems, even though they're causing most of them.
>> Right.
>> Whereas the vulnerable populations feel it very intensely.
>> And it's, they don't, they don't need anybody else's narrative to motivate.
>> Right.
>> Like, they are feeling it everyday.
>> Yeah.
>> And so they don't need help motivating, but they often
don't have the political capital,
social capital, intellectual capital, to organize.
>> Right.
>> Which is tricky.
But some, one of the benefits of the environmental
thing problems >> Mm-hm.
>> is that it hits everybody. >> Right, eventually everybody.
>> Particularly air pollution.
So if you are the Prime Minister or Premier
of, of China, you go out your front door,
>> You still have air pollution. >> You still have it.
>> You still breathe your own air.
>> Yeah, you still breath the same air as everybody else.
>> Yep. Yep.
>> So you might have you know, purifiers inside your, inside your
house, or whatever, but you, you go out, you can't avoid it.
So.
It's a great equalizer.
>> In some ways it can do that so there are, there are ways in
which that's not the case and certainly in the United States we've been able to
>> Off load.
>> Offload in a lot of way. >> Yep.
>> Or con, concentrate it in certain ways but, trying to find ways to connect
and make people realize the costs that other people are, are enduring.
>> Mm-hm.
>> As a result of their own consumption patterns is one of the great challenges
of environmental activism today I think.
>> Tell, tell us a little bit about the things
your students do, because you teach courses in this area
and I know your Wesleyan is famous for having lots
of student activists and and people concerned about environmental issues and.
So how, how, [UNKNOWN], are there some particularly
in, great projects that you've seen students do where,
you know, I think it would be interesting
for the, the online students in this class to
hear a littlle bit about what happens on campus and, you know around these issues.
>> Yeah.
Well my students do great things, as I'm sure you've heard and know.
And so I teach a class on environmental politics.
And in that, it's a seminar so it's a small course, and in
that class each student has to take on and study a particular country.
>> Right.
>> It's often the case that they study a country where, where they're from.
>> Mm-hm. >> So they're native of whatever
country they're studying. >> Right.
>> Or they've been there or some other connection.
>> Uh-huh.
>> So throughout the whole course they have to study
this one country and study the issues related to that country.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Conservation, pollution, whatev, what have you.
But on top of that, so they're not just
studying the issues at a kind of an intellectual level.
>> Right.
>> You also need to do some environmental politics.
So I make them do this in a variety of ways.
>> Uh-huh.
>> I make them go out into the community.
>> Uh-huh.
>> And do it
in a form of a participant observation.
So it's up to them what they want to be participating and observing.
So it could be a trail cleanup. >> I see, okay.
>> It could be a protest. It could be a public hearing.
It could be a meeting. Whatever it is.
Until you.
>> They just gotta get out of the library and into the public sphere.
>> Get out of the library. Get out of where, of our classroom
>> Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
>> And try to make a connection
between the theoretical concepts that we're talking
about in class, >> Mm-hm.
>> The sort of factual things that you've been
studying about your country and the place where you live.
Because it's easy in this
>> Yeah.
>> ivory tower to think that the
problems that we're talking about are far away.
>> Right. >> But, they're right here.
>> Yep. >> They're in Middletown, Connecticut.
>> Yeah. >> They're in, they're in Connecticut.
So, that's one of things I do.
And we also had an onli-, a social media related
>> Mm-hm. >> activist project
right here on campus. >> Tell us a little bit about that.
>> Partnership with it was a partnership with joulebug.com.
>> Mm-hm. >> Which is a new app company.
>> Yeah. >> And that worked great.
Motivated a lot of students to join teams.
>> Uh-huh.
>> And they got credit for everyday sustainable actions.
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