Daily Green Dilemmas

  • Paper or plastic? Just one of the decisions we face everyday. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Sometimes, the more choices you have, the more stress you feel.
That’s the case with some people when it comes to taking care of the environment.
As Karen Kelly reports, being environmentally aware can be a burden:

Transcript

Sometimes, the more choices you have, the more stress you feel.
That’s the case with some people when it comes to taking care of the environment.
As Karen Kelly reports, being environmentally aware can be a burden.

(sound of buses)

So I’m standing at a bus stop.
I’ve been shopping all day and my arms are
weighed down by bags.
It’s freezing cold and I face a moral dilemma.
Do I wait for the bus, where I will stand in the aisle balancing my bags?
Or do I slide into the comfy back seat of a nearby taxi?
Taking the bus is a better choice for the environment because it uses less fuel.
But taking a cab is the better choice for a lot of other reasons.

And that is the type of choice that we face all day long.
It seems that a lot of people here in Ottawa, Canada debate these choices – and often feel kind of guilty:

“Do you ever find that you’re agonizing over decisions in terms of how they might affect the environment? Yes, often… for example, I like to consume a lot of water, I take a lot of baths. So I find myself making compromises: if I take two baths this week, then I will hang my clothes on the clothesline as often as possible.”

Anything I wish I did better? I wish I would stop indiscriminately throwing stuff on the ground.

A litterless lunch. Is that hard to do? Yeah, because if you want to take a chewie or something, you can’t take it out of the wrapper, you just throw it away anyways…it’s hard.

Seriously, these issues are everywhere, and it can get a bit overwhelming.

June Tangney is a psychology professor at George Mason University in Virginia.
She says no one person can do it all:

“I think it’s a good thing, actually, that we’re that aware of so many different ways that we have an impact on the environment. But I think it’s better to consider it as a menu of options and then make informed judgements about which ways will have the biggest impact on protecting the environment.”

Tangney says we also have to decide what works in our life.
Do I have enough money for a hybrid car? It costs more.
But maybe I have time to walk instead of drive.
Now, some people argue that we should be feeling anxious about the environment, but Tangney says that won’t help us solve the problem:

“If we have a serious emergency on our hands, what we don’t want is a population that’s depressed, anxious, ashamed, and overwhelmed. We want people who are aware of the facts and psychologically able to make important decisions on how to best meet the challenges.”

Tangney suggests making trade-offs.
For instance, she used disposable diapers on her three kids.
Then her family volunteered for a clean water advocacy group.

She says there’s always another environmental choice to be made. You won’t have wait long.

For the Environment report, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

How Opinions Form on Climate Change

  • This report found that while most Americans think climate change is an important issue, they don’t see it as an immediate threat to their lives. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

A new report indicates social circles have
more to do with what people believe about
climate change than the facts gathered by
scientists. Lester Graham reports on
research presented to the American
Psychological Association:

Transcript

A new report indicates social circles have
more to do with what people believe about
climate change than the facts gathered by
scientists. Lester Graham reports on
research presented to the American
Psychological Association:

This report found that while most Americans think climate change is an important issue, they don’t see it as an immediate threat to their lives.

Janet Swim with Pennsylvania State Univerity chaired the task force looking into the issue. She reported to the American Psychological Association that getting people to go green will mean getting past psychological barriers.

For example, a politician might cite scientific facts regarding climate change, but that politician’s party affiliation might be more important to people than the scientific facts.

“Party lines determines to some extent people’s beliefs about climate change. And so, when somebody’s not in your party in the government, telling you something about climate change, you’re already starting with a sense of distrust.”

So Swim says policymakers need to recognize getting people to change their behavior will take more than just science and facts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Study: Coffee Dates Best

  • A new study shows that if you're holding something warm, you might like people more than if you're holding something cold (Source: MarkSweep at Wikimedia Commons)

A study published in the journal
Science suggests that there might be a link
between how warm you are and how much you
like someone. Jessi Ziegler reports:

Transcript

A study published in the journal
Science suggests that there might be a link
between how warm you are and how much you
like someone. Jessi Ziegler reports:

The study was really simple.

Researchers pretended to have their hands really full, and
asked people to hold their coffee for them. Some of the
coffee was iced, some was hot. The people were then
asked to rate others’ personalities.

You know, like in terms of being a “warm” person or a
“cold” person.

They discovered that those who held the hot coffee rated
people as warmer. The people who held iced coffee? Not
so much.

Lawrence Williams at UC Boulder is co-author of the study.

He thinks this has to do with associations made when
you’re a baby. Your first concept of social warmth
coincides with physical warmth.

So, what does this study mean for you?

“This work suggests that going out for coffee might be
effective in getting the relationship off on the right foot,
as opposed to going out for ice cream, for example.”

You heard it here. Coffee dates are a much better bet.

For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.

Related Links