Boykoff: Wise up for positive (environmental) change

We’re a month into the new school year here at CU Boulder and across our area in elementary, middle and high schools. While welcoming earlier sunsets, turning of leaves as well as the cooler breezes of lovely fall weather, students engaging in fall coursework can tell that finding common ground among classmates, neighbors, friends and family has become strained in these challenging times. 

Literally finding common ground has meant that university students’ return to the city and area has translated to a bustling place, as thousands of students are back on campus in the classrooms and nearby communities. This dynamism can cause consternation, though, among cynics longing for quiet summer days. Figuratively, the return to classes has involved opportunities to connect and discuss pressing (environmental) issues — from developing news to chronic problems — in meaningful ways. Rather than stridently talking past those with differing experiences and perspectives, it means a disposition of curiosity, listening and learning. 

Finding common ground may feel especially tenuous these days amid larger contemporary hostilities. Yet, these efforts are vital to addressing many collective action problems associated with climate and environmental challenges. We know it is often much easier to muddy the waters of public discourse than to keep them productive. But common-ground postures can forge productive positive change. 

There are certainly many ways to confront climate change, environmental challenges and many routinized acts of unsustainability, including calling out culprits involved in perpetuating associated problems. Of course, those who cling to contrarian beliefs despite overwhelming evidence are, at best, annoying. And it may be cathartic, palliative and even satisfying to villainize chief contributors to climate challenges while disparaging obstructionists to environmental action and venting frustrations in the (social media) world. Yet at times it is easier to yell at or lament than to listen to and consider other points of view, while giving those with opposing views outsized attention that many of them seek. 

Adversarial approaches can then also be tone deaf about what may be most effective in certain contexts and may then blunt and undermine communication goals of engaging and inspiring each other — and us together — to take action in the face of daunting challenges. While it remains important to expose deliberate strategies and campaigns spreading misinformation and disinformation about the causes and consequences of climate and environmental change, we must also work together toward significant, transformative and positive change. 

There are certainly many who have persuasively argued that this effort to find common ground across the political spectrum has shown itself to be futile. Yet, consistently castigating other points of view can be counterproductive to tangible progress on shared environmental challenges. Commitments to respectful, open and considered dialogue can lead to bridge-building discussions of shared worries and concerns as well as aspirations and hopes. 

An important part of this process of finding common ground is overcoming what is often a sense of psychological distance from environmental challenges. As such, finding common ground on sustainability challenges in present times involves processes of bringing these issues “home” to the “here and now” in our everyday lives. It means connecting with place and with each other by overcoming perceptions of distant environmental impacts in far-flung places and considering present and local risks. This can also help overcome abstraction or “not my problem” stances by tapping into visual, visceral, and experiential ways of knowing and learning. 

Social science and humanities research have confirmed notions that people prioritize events near to them in time and space, and overcoming perceptions of distance improves environmental awareness and propensity for action. This may also mean connecting economic, political and social concerns that may seem to impact us each day, rather than sustainability, environment and climate concerns that may be perceived as slow-moving threats unfolding in real time. 

Let’s work smartly to more capably access care, compassion, sympathy, and empathy in the context of suffering and surviving alongside opportunities for thriving in a 21st-century environment. When we may feel surrounded and consumed by cynicism and nihilism, we must work wisely to (re)capture shared spaces and common ground. The start of the school year provides renewed opportunities to author new narratives for us to wise up together for better shared futures.

This is a biweekly sustainability and environment column authored by Max Boykoff. Max is a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, though the views expressed here are based upon his scholarly expertise and research/creative experience as well as personal views and should not be considered the university’s official position on any specific issue.