Tag Archives: ruth ann barrett

Climate Justice and Sustainability Advocacy

The chief curator (me) at EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability, has created a new channel addressing Climate Justice. The impetus for doing so arose out of a study by the Yale yale Program for Climate Change Communication. They conduct scientific research on public climate change knowledge, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior, and the underlying psychological, cultural, and political factors that influence them. Of particular interest was their audience research, Global Warming’s Six Americas. A must read.

For climate change communicators I assume that this study formed the foundation for your present programs and campaigns. However, for those of us sustainability advocates with an environmental, social, and economic bent the Yale Program research may have been missed given the information overload that climatographer Mark Trexler addressed in his whitepaper, The Problem of Infinite Information in Corporate Climate Change Decision-Making.

Initially, these are the voices we are advancing on the topic of Climate Justice with more to come. Start with Linda Haydock of the Inter-community Peace & Justice Center’s What is Climate Justice? Continue on with Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former imgres United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on “Climate Change as a Human Rights Issue” and Julia Olson of Our Children’s Trust on “Securing the Legal Right to a Stable Climate.” If you parent or work with the more youthful among us, especially millennials, you might want to listen to the conversation between Dr. James Hansen and his grand daughter, Sophie Kivlehan on ” Young Peoples Burden.”

There are other voices to include Pope Francis, M.E. Tucker, David Korten, Anthony Leiserowitz, Tim Brennan and HH Dalai Lama.

“Most Americans say global warming is personally important to them, but don’t talk or hear about it much.” Yale Program Climate Note of September 29, 2016

I can’t do much about the talking part, but I can improve on the number of people, like you, hearing about it. It’s up to you to re-frame the conversation around climate change to climate justice and talk with your family, friends, and work colleagues.

“More than half of those who are interested in global warming or think the issue is important “rarely” or “never” talk about it with family and friends (57% and 54% respectively).”

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, October 7, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

P.S. What sparked my interest was the Yale Program report, Faith, Morality, and the Environment: Portraits of Global Warming’s Six America’s which led to an EarthSayers’ initiative, Faith and Climate Justice. More on Faith and Climate Justice in my next blog post.

Picture Earth Right Now

I was reminded of this 1946 photograph of Earth, the first photo from beyond the atmosphere when I curated one of the latest views of Earth, a NASA Goddard visualization entitled, One Year on Earth as Seen from 1 Million Miles, (2:46) noting how far we’ve come from that grainy black and white photograph taken nearly 70 years ago to the breathtaking visualizations of today.

We are getting to know more about our Mother Earth from “out there” and heart hopefully it translates to a better understanding and love “in here” nothing short of a change in consciousness, a move from head to heart guided by the Laws of Nature.

There are many such visualizations on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel and I have curated those I found most interesting and added them to EarthSayers.tv, the Voices of Sustainability including this video, The ‘Voice’ of our Earth. (4 minutes)

“Our Universe Is Not Silent~Although space is a vacuum, this does not mean there is no sound in space. Sound does exist as electromagnetic vibrations. The specially designed instruments on board the Voyager and other probes, picked up and recorded these vibrations, all within the range of human hearing (20-20,000 cycles per second).” – NASA Space Recordings Of Earth, Published on Aug 13, 2011.

The NASA Goddard visualizations also capture changes to our Earth that make it difficult if not impossible to ignore the effects of global warming to include this recent video, Earth’s Long-term Warming Trend, 1880-2015 (30 seconds) which shows temperature changes from 1880 to 2015 as a rolling five-year average. Orange colors represent temperatures that are warmer than the 1951-80 baseline average, and blues represent temperatures cooler than the baseline.

Many of these visualizations are enormously popular on YouTube such as the One Year on Earth video mentioned above with over 1.6M views. The number of views for videos addressing global warming suggest our citizens, unlike some elected officials, are active in the learning cycle. An example is another recent video, NASA Sees Temperatures Rise and Sea Ice Shrink -Climate Trends 2016 (47 seconds) published a week ago with over 68,000 views. This news story is what we should be talking about in all sustainability conversations – even informal talk about the weather one hears over cocktails and around the dinner table if we are to increase awareness and change behaviors.

“Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880.” – NASA Goddard

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, July 29, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

Infinite Information In Corporate Climate Change Decision-Making

Climate Change Risk expert Mark Trexler and his partner, environmental lawyer Laura Kosloff, launched The Climate Web in a large part because of the problem of “Infinite Information.” This problem, Mark says, is analogous to the adage “water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.” Given the rapidly changing nature of conversations around both climate science and climate policy, it’s a critical problem for business. As corporate decision-makers are deluged by information, it becomes harder to discern what data, news, opinions, and analyses really matter to making wiser, more prudent decisions.

It’s the same problem that drove us to found EarthSayers.tv, a specialized search engine to all curated, relevant voices of sustainability. It is very difficult to learn from and be inspired by our leaders when you can’t find them. There are now over one hundred and fifty YouTube channels relevant to sustainability, including those channels of our Indigenous Peoples, our wisdomkeepers with video content that is valuable but not necessarily findable.

There are a legion of search engine optimization (SEO) experts in the highly commercialized web. So, Mark, Laura, and myself are not the only ones addressing the infinite information problem. But we have distinguished ourselves by providing access to “actionable knowledge” on climate change and calling out the unfiltered voices of the sustainability leadership using technology coupled with curation in our two unique websites, The Climate Web and EarthSayers.tv . We invite you to visit and use them in your research, due diligence, and educational activities and programs.

cover shot Mark and Laura have some helpful resources for users to learn how to effectively use The Climate Web. For one thing, see this video, An Introduction to The Climate Web with Mark Trexler on the EarthSayers’ channel, Climate Change Risk. Secondly, I recommend you take a look at their recently published white paper, Infinite Information – A Key Barrier to Business Decision Making on Climate Change? — your complimentary copy is available for download here.

As publishers and curators Mark and Laura can help you use the Climate Web to your best advantage in developing executive briefings, supporting decision-making workshops, conducting topical trainings, engaging in climate risk scenario planning, and much more to include customized spotlights and decision dashboards.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, July 22, 2016, Portland, Oregon

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Are We Afraid to Call It Climate Change?

First, let me raise a few more questions.

Will we continue to talk about the changes in climate, climate variability, warming temperatures, extreme weather, exceptional drought, or Hurricane Sandy, but not use the term climate change so we as sustainability advocates don’t step on anyone’s toes? Why are we targeting the 12,000 folks a month using Google to search on, say, climate variability, only a fourth of them from the United States and not the estimated 2,240,000 citizens searching monthly using the term, climate change, 30% of them in the United States?

Should we even care about the 3,600 searchers using the term climate change hoax, considerably less than the 18,000 wanting information on the global warming hoax, a majority of these searchers, 66%, being from the United States? Are we not at the back of the pack addressing the stragglers when we fail to title, describe, and tag properly our papers, blog posts, reports, and videos addressing global warming and climate change?

The mainstream media appears to be in the back somewhere. When on June 25th the President of the United States makes a major address on climate change it doesn’t register on the dial with the press, but it does cause a spike in search traffic, so the Web part of the awareness cycle is working even if TV isn’t. We need both.

Just how much of a snoozer was the President’s speech in terms of “news” was discussed by Bill Moyers and Marty Kaplan, the Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society. Here is a four-minute video clip of their conversation. In the video see how Fox News used a smidgen of the President’s speech as a segue way to the author of Red Hot Lies – a lesson in distraction and manipulation. Bill Moyers references an infographic by Think Progress that sums it all up as in zero seconds for major programs.

In the case of building awareness, no news is not good news.

Are people afraid to talk directly about climate change? Some may have a good reason to be afraid. There are reports of climatologists loosing jobs because they expressed a belief in climate change, or didn’t, depending on the political climate in their State or their boss. For a flavor of the pressures professionals can find themselves under listen to This American Life, podcast 495, Hot In My Backyard, May 13, 2013 featuring the story of Colorado’s State Climatologist, Nolan Doesken.

Three years ago I wrote a blog post citing Elizabeth Kolbert reporting in the The New Yorker “a quarter of the TV weather-casters AGREE with the statement ‘global warming is a scam,’ and nearly two-thirds believe that, if warming is occurring, it is caused mostly by natural change.” While I can’t find a study to confirm a shift in the thinking of these folks over the last three years I can appreciate this headline on the Weather Channel last week (Jul 24, 2013) as a sign of a shift, an increasing awareness:

“Poison Ivy is Growing Out of Control, Thanks to Climate Change”

Robinson

Fortunately, business leaders such as General Motor’s Mike Robinson, Vice President of Sustainability and Global Regulatory Affairs are openly discussing the importance of preventing climate change. In this video posted by 3BL Media Mike talks about the steps GM is taking to stop climate change and why it is important to address it. The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) hosted a panel, Business in the Age of Climate Change with leaders from the Ford Motor Company and the WWF (video here). Elected officials including President Obama are stepping up to the plate such as Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s presentation at a state-wide Climate Change Summit, and Mayor Bloomberg”s speech, “A Stronger, More Resilient New York.”

GM Works with Ceres, an advocacy .org for sustainability leadership, “to reduce carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency and increase investment in a clean energy economy.” The Ceres Climate Declaration (full list here) signed by GM and a host of companies makes it clear where they stand on climate science. Sign the declaration as an individual and/or company here and join with Levi Strauss & Co., The Weather Company, Method, L’Oreal, Nike, AMD, Intel and many more.

What’s in a name? When it comes to search and using the Web to educate and inspire, terminology is extremely important. Denial of climate change is what the stragglers are chatting about. Let’s move on. As sustainability advocates target those active in the learning cycle on climate change (searching on Google and YouTube qualifies an individual as active) to increase awareness and emphasize the connections to the pressing issues of water, energy, and even poison ivy. Let’s as sustainability advocates emphasize in our conversations and communications the leaders among us who openly discuss climate change and are working to do something about it. Distance yourself and company from organizations associated with skepticism, the Heartland Institute being identified as the most prominent one by the Economist in May 2012, a quote featured here on the Heartland Website.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, July 29, 2013, Cleveland, Ohio

VP of Social and Environmental Sustainability

Meet Michael Kobori. He is VP of Social and Environmental Sustainability at Levi Strauss and Company.

He is the person I had in mind when in March of 2011 I wrote a blog post comparing sustainability to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and noted “Up to now the C-level sustainability officer is generally focused on environmental concerns, water and energy being high priorities, and cost reductions. At the social and environmental sustainability intersection is where companies can begin to examine their role in externalizing risks and costs, a practice and mind set that has greatly harmed the environment and all living beings.”

So look at how Levi’s represents sustainability on their Website.

Follow the leader.

Listen to a video interview of Michael by 3BL Media at the BSR 2012 conference on EarthSayers.tv, voices of sustainability.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, November 12, 2012, Portland Oregon

Playing on the Edges? Move to the Center of Sustainability

The MIT/Sloan Management Review article, How to Become A Sustainable Company, addresses playing at the edges in one clear statement:

Currently, organizations that exhibit a broad- based commitment to sustainability on the basis of

their original corporate DNA are few and far between.

I was reminded of this statement listening to Canadian sustainability pioneer, David Suzuki, being interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now yesterday on RIO+20 and the so-called green economy. Here is the interview.

There is one observation in particular that addresses a fundamental paradigm shift that needs to be made in our thinking, in our consciousness in order to survive beyond this century. It rests on our ability as leaders to “reassess everything.”

“And if we don’t see the that we are utterly imbedded in the natural world and dependent on nature, not technology, not economics, not science — we are dependent on Mother Nature for our very well being and survival. If we don’t see that, then our priorities will continue to be driven by man-made constructs like national borders, economies, corporations, markets. Those are all human created things. They shouldn’t dominate the way we live. It should be the biosphere. And the leaders in that should be the indigenous people who still have that sense, that the earth is truly are mother, that it gives birth to us.”

The indigenous people are our citizens who actually live in places of “extreme sources of energy” as referenced in David Suzuki’s comments and referred to by Erick Gonzalez, the founder and spiritual leader of Earth Peoples United, as the “last frontier.” Erick emphasizes the last frontier for extreme sources of energy are in the territories of the indigenous people. Give him a listen. It takes less than two and half minutes and is a move from the edges of sustainability to its center. Click here.

Next look more closely at Tar Sands as a place and what it means for the biosphere by listening to the indigenous people living there such as Clayton Thomas-Muller and Alanna Hurley and then listen to the Canadian artists, such as Garth Lenz and Edward Burtynsky present their photography as they capture in pictures what is meant by “extreme sources of energy.” Move your attention to the center, but hurry, as “Our Scarcest Resource is Time,” as emphasized by Sustainability Pioneers David Suzuki, Lester Brown, Maurice Strong, Rajendra Pachauri, Bill Ford, Sha Zukang, and Jonathan Porritt in a video of the same title. It is part of the Ray Anderson Memorial Video Series by The Regeneration Project an initiative of the think tank, Sustainability and the research company, GlobeScan and sponsored by SC Johnson and the BMW Group.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, Portland, Oregon on June 27, 2012.

Seek Out and Learn from Sustainability Leaders

In a recent article, How to Become a Sustainable Company, in the Summer 2012 issue of the MIT/Sloan Management Review they ask the question, “What differentiates sustainable companies from traditional ones?” To the answer in a minute.

Although the article references commitment to sustainability, noting that few companies are born with it, an issue arises for me that goes beyond terminology and suggests a fundamental misunderstanding – to be a sustainable company is not equal to being a company committed to sustainability. The adjective, sustainable and the noun sustainability are not one in the same. Unfortunately, the former is what is popular in business, both public and private and the answer to the question above demonstrates what I mean. According to the article the differences are:

Sustainable organizations are effective at engaging with external stakeholders and employees

They have cultures based on innovation and trust

They have a track record of implementing large-scale change

These are not unique to sustainability nor to sustainable companies. Petroleum and toxin-based companies, for example, may be successful at all three and yet have no commitment to sustainability, to the seven generations, mired as their leadership may be in the short term, and, ultimately, in denial about global warming and the inability of an economic system that externalizes risk and costs to ever bounce back.

Sustainability is a goal, a desire, a hope and it signifies the ABILITY to drive change, first, at the personal level. We need sustainability leaders to drive a sustainability culture in their organizations. This point is raised in the MIT/Sloan report:

“When leadership commitment drives the process, it usually comes from the personal resolution of a CEO to create a more sustainable company. In general, top-level executives have the ability to create an enterprise-wide vision and the clout to see that it is realized. Without this commitment, becoming a sustainable company is a “nonstarter.”

While leadership commitment is talked about as critical, the report continues with the language of ” leaders of traditional and sustainable companies” rather than sustainability leaders of companies directing our attention to how things are not working rather than who is working. Our sustainability leaders need to influence their “traditional” peers, first, to raise their consciousness as quickly as possible. There are two very effective ways to advance the personal and model the behavior that is desperately needed.

Online Video

Here’s an interview with Dominique Conseil , Global President of Aveda and Karl-Henrik Robert founder of the Natural Step, both sustainability leaders. Or listen to The Regeneration Project’s Ray Anderson Memorial video series, here is one video, Why Meaningful Progress Depends on Activists – Spotlight on Civil Society, featuring sustainability leaders Jonathon Porritt, Vandana Shiva, Nitin Desai, Lester Brown, Bill Ford, Kris Gopaladrishman, Yolanda Kakabadse and Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Online Video and Research

Dr. David Hall of Portland State University stepped out of the box and advanced the personal by producing a series of sustainability leadership videos as part of his research called Native Perspectives. Here you can listen to the indigenous voices, sustainability leaders, of the Salmon Nation.

Face-to-Face

The Regeneration Project, between July and October, will host a number of Salons – curated, facilitated conversations with influential stakeholders from across industry and sector. These Salons will take place in major international cities across the world. Attendance is to be limited to approximately 50 people, on an invitation-only basis. Great work and hopefully the start of something fresh in sustainability awareness, education, and innovation. The project is an inititiave of GlobeScan, a public opinion research company and Sustainability, a think tank and strategy consultancy.

All of this is to say go ahead and read the research digging into sustainable companies, but give more time to listening to your peers who are sustainability leaders, pioneers, heroes, and innovators. Look for research and events that emphasize the personal over organizational. Rely less on processed information when you can now hear directly from the sustainability leadership as found in the hundreds of companies that are for-benefit and in the hundreds of voices of sustainability from across the Web, the reason we invested in bringing together these voices for you in one place, EarthSayers.tv, voices of sustainability.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, June 19, 2012, Portland, Oregon.

What is Sustainability?

The 1.2M citizens per month* searching Google on the term, sustainability, very often ask, as we do here, What is Sustainability? It shows we have some work to do to raise awareness by starting with the basics. The definition I use most frequently comes from the Constitution of the Iroquois Nations:

Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation.

Here are thirteen other voices, some you may recognize, others, until you listen, are strangers, but all are sustainability advocates. We begin with Dr. Stuart Hall of Cornell University, Sustainability Has Many Definitions, 1:37

Larry Merculieff (Aleut), Alaska Native Science Commission, Use of the Term Sustainability 4:52. This is one interview of a series conducted by Dr. David Hall on Native Perspectives of Sustainability.

Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt of The Natural Step, Defining Sustainability:Business Insights, 1:39 and The Responsibility of Civic and Business Leaders, A Personal View 5:56. No better source for sustainability than Dr. Robèrt.

Dassault Systemes, Definition of Sustainable Innovation, Elementary Style, animation, 2:50

Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism Solutions, What is Sustainability? A Nest of Issues 9:26

RealEyes, Definition of Sustainability, animated feature 2:02. More videos on their YouTube channel such as Sustainability in Turkish.

Dr. Albert Bartlett, Sustainability 101: Exponential Growth, 59:12 Even the first 3 minutes is worth the listen especially about percent growth rate, but this is really stuff we should have all learned in arithmetic.

Chris Farrell, Being Frugal: The Original Sustainability, 5:34 He makes a good point.

Christoph Lueneburger of Egon Zehnder, Definition of Sustainability by Corporations, 3:01. Biggest barrier is just starting with the definition.

People 4 Earth, Consumer Awareness of Sustainability, animation, 2:50. More of this kind of education and we further consumer and sustainability awareness.

Allison and Bud McGrath, R&K McGrath & Associates, What Is Sustainability? (audio only) and a father-daughter team.

Professor Julian Agyeman, Tufts University, What is Just Sustainability? 38:11. This is Julian’s keynote speech before the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Professor Nikos Avionas, What is Your Vision for Sustainability, 4:56

These voices of sustainability on EarthSayers.tv will give you more to talk about, new people to reference, and great quotes when the topic of sustainability comes up as it does often. We hope you will be inspired to do your own definition and “broadcast yourself.” When you do post it to YouTube to let us know about it and we will add it to our special collection, What Is Sustainability? If you want to do more online video around sustainability to increase sustainability awareness for you and your business, call us. With over 1,000 voices now in our collection, all curated for relevancy and quality, we have learned a bit about sustainability and online video.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, March 12, 2012, Portland, Oregon, 415-377-1835.

Note: *This is about the same number for those searching on corporate social responsibility and those wanting to know the price of an iPhone.

Advancing Science, Serving Society in a Hostile Environment

In Friday’s post about climate change I referenced four videos, one of which features Prince Charles denouncing the climate change deniers. What I didn’t refer to is the public Statement of the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Regarding Personal Attacks on Climate Scientists. “We are deeply concerned by the extent and nature of personal attacks on climate scientists. Reports of harassment, death threats, and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policymakers and the public.”

Prince Charles notes, so clearly and directly it takes your breath away, “the corrosive effect on public opinion of those climate change skeptics who denounce the vast body of scientific evidence that shows beyond a any reasonable doubt that global warming has been exasperated by human industrial activities” and then asks, “Will such people be held accountable at the end of the day for their absolute refusal to continence a precautionary approach? For this plays, I would suggest, a most reckless game of roulette with the future inheritance for those that come after us…”

The role of associations, like the AAAS, in educating the public and alerting citizens to issues not covered in the mainstream press (they express it as “advancing science, serving society”) needs to be increased if we are to hear the unfiltered voices of sustainability above the din of ignorance, self interest, and disinformation, information intended to mislead. Here’s a popular video, How It All Ends, on thinking it through for yourself; using risk management to end the debate; and how YOU can help make things happen.

Sustainability Advocate, Ruth Ann Barrett, February 5, 2011, Portland, Oregon.

Sustainability and Occupy Movements

John Friedman, CSR-P, in his Sustainable Life Media blog post asks the question, Is the Occupy Movement a Call for Sustainability? His response is well thought out and makes for excellent reading. The article spurred me on to express my thoughts on Why the Occupy Movement is a Call for Sustainability. This is a perspective gleaned from having reviewed hundreds of videos based on a Web-wide query for sustainability voices; being at the Occupy Portland event as a video documentarian, and writing several blog posts.

Julia

As John points out “The initial media stories were somewhat dismissive; focusing on the lack of clarity and focus as the movement grew, perhaps forgetting that democracy is inherently a messy process…” reinforcing my belief that mainstream media folks are suffering from what activist Julia Butterly Hill calls “disconnected consciousness.”

From my perspective, the occupy movement reflects connection and consciousness, especially around issues, programs and actions that may be legal, but are immoral as well as those that are illegal and immoral. It should come as no surprise that those in seats of power and leadership who have chosen to see and profit from the world only through the green lens of consumerism (and also suffering form disconnected consciousness) are shaking their heads, mystified over what exactly it is that these folks are doing out there and where, for heavens sake, is the deal, the offer, the ROI, the plan for fixing every little thing.

It has taken sometime for our citizens to wrap their heads around the concepts that corporations are individuals, big money is to be made from caring for the sick and the dying, and mothers and children who are poor are the scammers out there we need to be protected from, especially if they come from Mexico to work in our fields and contribute to food production. I hear the voices of sustainability in the signs and speeches at Occupy events and who now join hundreds of others in the sustainability movement such as Julia Butterfly Hill or Raj Patel who advises us generosity is the

Sharif

antidote to greed or author Sharif Abdullah who explains economics in terms of criminality and morality or economist John Perkins who rightly points out we – producers and consumers – have “looked the other way” to social and economic costs in order to maximize profits and buy more and more cheap stuff or or any of the thousands of voices of sustainability out there who if they not on the street (yet) are at least online and in our libraries, accessible to all.