Month: September 2023

The Cabin we live in has a porch on the outside. Often, at the end of a long week, all I want to do is go and sit on the porch. I might read, listen to music or (my personal favorite) talk with some of my cabin-mates. It’s wonderful – being able to sit and do nothing, having the earned privilege of laziness after working tirelessly through the week. 

 

When living in South Housing, I didn’t get this opportunity. I remember waking up on a weekend and wishing for nothing more than a chance to just sit and do nothing, but the only option was an inhospitable “backrooms” corridor down the hall that didn’t even have a window, much less access to the open air and a gorgeous view. I would just go to breakfast, but to do that I had to shower, and if I showered I might as well start on my day, get my homework done, or if not, I would go drive to town to spend my time with friends getting food somewhere. Without an opportunity to expend my time uselessly, I fell into the endless cycle of productivity followed by high-energy leisure. 

 

This isn’t a “me problem.” This is a socio-economic problem. 

 

Since 1950, global resource use has increased steadily and exponentially (Steffan et al. 2015). The global economic system has pushed itself to an existential extreme, tearing apart the intricate systems that keep our world functioning. This dramatic increase is not strictly necessary for our survival – it is only the most wealthy that are responsible for the majority of our ecological overshoot (Wiedemann et al. 2020). From this it follows that we can feasibly reduce production, redirect existing production towards equitable distribution, and thus increase equality while reducing our global ecological footprint. One of the most popular means by which we can reduce material throughput is something that typical economists would scoff at – work-time reduction and increased leisure. If we work less, we can use less materials for production given the surplus is distributed equitably. 

 

BUT, it is crucially important that our leisure time is spent doing non-materially-intensive things, and Ryan Gunderson says “there are perhaps no more ‘environmentally friendly behaviors’ […] than idling or doing nothing” (Gunderson 2018). This is where the porch comes in. Common spaces, access to the outdoors, and proximity to others create perfect conditions for social idleness and enjoyable laziness. But why, even when provided these spaces and opportunities, do we still choose to work? On a personal level and on a societal level, why would we rather pursue something that is so destructive?

 

Georges Batailles, a 20th century philosopher, would argue that this is an economic and existential problem. Our continuous pursuit of growth, he argues, exemplifies the struggle for survival. Even though we have accumulated well more than enough to establish our survival, social and economic atomization reduces the amount of excess that we can use as individuals, whereas the immeasurable excess that society produces collectively could allow us all to live comfortably and joyously. Bataille argues that part of the reason why we choose to focus on survival (or growth), and avoid expenditure is that survival as a goal is provided to us when we are born – it’s easy to fall back on. Expenditure, on the other hand, forces us to confront the existential freedom that we are all faced with and say: “What are we going to make of ourselves in this terrifyingly free world?” (Romano 2014)

 

So what do we do? Having a porch in a collective living space can help us to firmly, collectively choose – against economic, social, and existential factors – that we have a right to be lazy, and we are going to take advantage of it. 

 

Works Cited:

 

Gunderson, R. (2018). Degrowth and other quiescent futures: Pioneering proponents of an idler society. Journal of Cleaner Production, 198, 1574-1582.

Romano, O. (2014). Dépense. In D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (Eds.). Degrowth: a vocabulary for a new era. Routledge.

Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O., & Ludwig, C. (2015). The trajectory of the Anthropocene: the great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2(1), 81-98.

Wiedmann, T., Lenzen, M., Keyßer, L. T., & Steinberger, J. K. (2020). Scientists’ warning on affluence. Nature communications, 11(1), 3107.

Since the beginning of last year, I’ve made it my mission to switch as many household items to reusable as possible. It started simple, switching disposable Keruig pods, once I used up what I had, for a few reusable ones and switching out disposable round cotton pads (for your face) for some cloth ones. These were a few of the simple things that were easy to switch to when moving into college for the first time. But as I have moved into the Eco-cabin I’ve learned it’s not just about switching products from disposable to reusable, it’s also about changing one’s habits to a more sustainable one. 

 

You might be asking yourself ‘How can one change their habits or where would I even start’. Let’s start by talking about what a habit is. Habits are a subconscious repeated manner that helps dictate some of the things we do in our day-to-day lives. Habits can range from small things like looking up when you hear a noise, to looking at your phone constantly when it pings. Habits are formed by four cues: number one is cue, which could be the pinging of your phone: number two is craving, now you crave to check your phone to see the notification: number three is response, now you pick up your phone to see the notification: number four is reward, now you are satisfied after looking into what the message was. These four cues all relate to James Clear’s model, The Habit Loop. 

You now might be asking yourself how this relates to sustainability. Well, to become more sustainable one has to change their habits. For example, looking back at my Keurig example., When using disposable Keurig pods, I always felt guilty about throwing them away when I knew they could be composted and recycled. To fix this, I got reusable Keurig pods to satisfy my craving for having the ability to compost the coffee grounds and, if needed, recycle the Keurig pods. This is an example of fixing a small habit, something easily manageable to do in a short amount of time. But the bigger the habits that need changing, the harder and longer it takes to do. The new types of habits that I want to form require more time and patience, as well as starting to notice when the habits are in effect.

 

To create a good habit, we first need to know what our cue is. Finding out what are cue is will make it so we know when the habit will trigger into action. The second step is making the craving look attractive enough to break the old hold. The third step is making the response easy to change. Finally, the fourth step, making the reward to be satisfying. Combining all of these steps, from James Clear’s chapter, will allow you to start making new good habits. But with every good habit, there will always be some bad habits that need to be changed.

 

To make new habits have an effect, we might need to break a few old habits because they might counteract what your new habit might be doing. Like the previous times, we always start with cues and work our way down. To break a bad habit one must make their cue invisible, out of sight out of mind. Second, making the craving unattractive. Third, making the response difficult to do. Lastly, make the reward as unsatisfying as possible. Following these steps that James Clear has set up, will start you on a path to creating new sustainable habits. 

 

If you having trouble starting new sustainable habits start with something small. For example, eating out less, going thrifting before buying new, buying in bulk instead of in small quantities, etc. Starting out small and seeing what you can accomplish is the best way to try to change some of your habits into more sustainable ones. 

 

Sources:

Clear, James. Atomic Habits. Chapter 3,  How to Start New Habits that Stick.

https://jamesclear.com/three-steps-habit-change#:~:text=All%20habits%20proceed%20through%20four,the%20same%20order%20each%20time.

Duhigg, Charles. The Power in Habit. What we do in life and business

https://courses.furman.edu/pluginfile.php/760606/mod_resource/content/0/Habits%20book%20chapter.pdf

(Thank you Dr. Allen for showing this resource to SUS 120 last semester)

Image Source:

https://jamesclear.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-habit-loop-01-e1537283945960-971×1200.png

In late February 2015, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe, brought a snowball from outside the Capitol building onto the Senate floor to prove that the Earth is not getting warmer (Barrett 2015). We can address Inhofe’s misinformation with simple ecological definitions: in which, the climate is the general trend of atmospheric conditions, and the weather is the atmospheric conditions of a discrete moment in time.

Ontology is the branch of philosophy concerned with being. It attempts to answer questions like, “What does it mean for something to be a thing?”; “If you were to break a table in half, do you now have two half-tables or one table that is in two pieces or all three of those things?”; and “How do our interactions with objects change their identities?” With that in mind, Inhofe unintentionally raised a very interesting ontological question that we could frame as, “Without the use of any specific scientific jargon, what is Climate Change?”

Philosopher Sean Esbjorn-Hargens provides one answer, stating, “Climate Change is a complex phenomenon that is enacted by multiple methodologies from various disciplines. No single method by itself can ‘see’ or reveal climate change in its entirety.” He continues, “[Climate Change] is a multiple object. So, while it may be multiple… it is an object nonetheless… it is real!” (Esbjörn-Hargens 2010). So, climate change is a complex web of intersecting and interrelated causes culminating toward a trend. The warming of the Earth is not the only aspect of climate change; it also encompasses poverty, famine, instability, flooding, drought, disease, etc. Climate change’s identity is necessarily entangled with all these factors.

This complexity is very difficult to unravel.

Perhaps this is why much of the up-to-date literature on how we ought to think about climate change, sustainability, and the environment seems to draw an opposite conclusion: mindfulness. Mindfulness, as Ericson et al. write, “[is a meditation practice that] means being aware, taking note of what is going on within ourselves and outside in the world… It can be defined as ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally’… one simply pays attention to one’s experiences, from moment to moment” (Ericson 2014). This doctrine, when applied to the environment, resembles Inhofe’s snowball. Mindfulness seems to suggest that we should care that it’s snowing, not just that it will be warmer next summer.

However, research shows that this perspective is useful for developing a more sustainable mindset. “Mindfulness meditation [is] widely practiced for the reduction of stress and promotion of health” (Tang 2015). Additionally, “stress, depression, and physical pain make it harder to consider societal concerns such as climate change” (Ericson 2014). See fig. 1.

This leaves us with a seemingly intractable dilemma—how can we balance the ontological fact of climate change’s complexity and interconnectedness while thinking about it in a way that does not feel completely overwhelming? This can lead to stress and, consequently, more unsustainable behavior.

Tang et al. suggest something akin to what a psychoanalyst might call ego-death. They propose that an ideally mindful practice looks less intrapersonal and more like a breaking down of the walls between the self and the rest of reality. “The distinction between self and object is absent… awareness is itself the subject of awareness” (Tang 2015). On the other hand, Esbjorn-Hargens offers a perspective that claims that the real nature of what climate change is is  contingent on your personal relationship with it. “The argument is no longer that methods discover and depict realities. Instead, it is that they participate in the enactment of those realities” (Esbjörn-Hargens 2010).

These arguments are not mutually exclusive, but I don’t think that they are universally applicable. Which I find problematic. Tang’s account is logically consistent but pragmatically unhelpful. Per their own account, years of intentional practice are often necessary before we can measure physical neurological changes from mindfulness (Tang 2015). We must also remember that meditation is hard, achieving ego-death even moreso. Esbjorn-Hargens’ suggestion may fail to resonate with the layperson; if I am not a climatologist, political analyst, or an Arctic researcher, am I really ‘participating in the enactment of reality’? Or, if I am, what else is there to do?

My perspective is that the simple awareness of one’s climate-related stress—or any stress—is as good as it gets. I would still suggest that anyone practice mindfulness; it does help you become happier, healthier, and more sustainable. However, it may not alleviate the overwhelming nature of climate change because it is not designed to do so. As Viktor Frankl once wrote, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior” (Frankl 2006). Meditation will not make climate change any less overwhelming; it will only provide you with more freedom in how you experience being overwhelmed. For me, even the simple act of saying to myself, “I am feeling overwhelmed, I am feeling stressed, and the reason is climate change” can provide almost immediate relief.

It’s worth noting that I try to avoid “I am…” and instead start the mantra with “I am feeling…” or “This person is feeling…” in order to create distance between myself and the emotion. When I just state “I am overwhelmed,” that feels like tying up the entirety of my identity with my momentary mental state. This is what separates mindful reflection from Inhofe’s snowball argument. The distinction is between existing in the moment and being tied-up in it. There is a difference between me and the weather, or the climate and my emotions.

References
Barrett T. 2015 Feb 27. Inhofe brings snowball on Senate floor as evidence globe is not warming. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/james-inhofe-snowball-climate-change/index.html.

Ericson T, Kjønstad BG, Barstad A. 2014. Mindfulness and sustainability. Ecological Economics. 104:73–79. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.007. [accessed 2023 Sep 9]. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914001165.

Esbjörn-Hargens S. 2010. An ontology of climate change integral pluralism and the enactment of multiple objects. Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. 5(1):143–147. [accessed 2023 Sep 9]. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283763880_An_ontology_of_climate_change_integral_pluralism_and_the_enactment_of_multiple_objects.

Frankl VE. 2006. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.Tang Y-Y, Hölzel BK, Posner MI. 2015.
Tang Y-Y, Hölzel BK, Posner MI. 2015. The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 16(5):312–312. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3954.