[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.
