Greetings Earthlings! Today we begin our section on the psychology of sustainability. It's all about using psychology to save the environment and promote human health and well-being. But first we have to start off with some environmental problem basics. Now if you're like most people you want to live long and prosper, and you hope to have children one day, and you have a family that you love. So maybe if you're not initially sympathetic to the idea that you should care about environmental problems and that you should act to address them, then maybe you'll change your mind once you think about it from a sustainability point of view. Now they're different definitions of sustainability but one of the most agreed upon has to do with the idea that sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising our ability to meet needs in the future. Now the truth is that much of our economic Development and the way we live our lives does not contribute to environmental sustainability. In fact, the very opposite-- we're already starting to see some of the consequences of that now. These consequences are only likely to grow in the future if we don't act now. Let's start off by getting clear on what I mean by environmental problems. Most environmental problems fall into three different types: they're aesthetic environmental problems; there are health-related environmental problems; and there are resource-related environmental problems. Some environmental problems fall into all of these categories, so keep that in mind as well. So first so first let's talk a little bit about problems of "environmental aesthetics." These have to do with problems that impair the quality of our lives and the appearance of the environment. Litter is a really obvious example of an aesthetic environmental problem. Air pollution is another example. Air pollution is destroying some of the world's most beautiful vistas. In our national parks here in the United States, air pollution is an aesthetic problem when it affects the clarity of park views. According to the U.S National Park Service, almost all U.S national parks have been affected by haze resulting from air pollution particles. Haze affects the color ,the forms, and the textures of natural and historic vistas. Another type of environmental problem is the health-related environmental problem. These are problems that pose a threat to human health and produce disease and illness. Air pollution also falls into this category. It is considered one of the world's biggest environmental health threats and it causes upwards of seven million deaths a year. According to the World Health Organization, around 91 percent of the world's population lives in areas where air pollution exceeds healthy limits. Here in the U.S, the American Lung Association estimates that four in ten Americans live in communities with unhealthy air. you might also find it interesting to know that f the top 10 air polluted areas in the United States, four of those are in California. They include Bakersfield, the Fresno-Madera-Hartford area, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland area, and also the Los Angeles Long Beach area. Air pollution creates and exacerbates lung problems and cardiovascular disease and in some cases can cause cancer. Air pollution arises from cars and power plants, petrochemical plants, construction, and also wildfire smoke. Warmer temperatures from climate change increase some sources of air pollution like ozone. There are lots of different health related environmental problems, air pollution is not the only one of them. Toxic wastes are another good example of a health-related environmental problem. These wastes are called "toxic" for a reason-- they harm the health of people and they harm the health of ecosystems. The U.S alone generates upwards of 25 million tons of toxic waste every year. Toxic waste often contains cancer-causing and mutagenic agents that can affect cellular DNA, and when improperly disposed of, toxic waste can accumulate in water and soil andcause harm to human, animal, and ecosystem health. In the United States, the biggest source of toxic waste is the manufacturing of chemicals and petroleum and coal products but the manufacturing of chemicals, petroleum, coal products aren't the only sources of toxic waste. Toxic waste also comes from farming and other types of manufacturing. They come from the disposal of medical waste and the disposal of our used electronics--our televisions, our batteries, our computers, our solar panels, our phones-- and also from the disposal of our leftover paint and chemicals, pesticides for example. Resource problems are a third type of environmental problem and these involve the depletion of resources upon which we depend. Things like fossil fuels, clean water, arable land (that means land that can grow crops), forests, landfill space... these types of resources that we depend on. Most of the wood, the metal ,the minerals, consumed in industrial countries are only used once and then disposed of. Those wasteful practices contribute to some of these resource related environmental problems as does high consumption. In fact, according to the Global Footprint Network, world consumption is increasing and we need the equivalent of 1.6 Earths at our current rate and we'll need the equivalent of two Earths to meet our demands by the 2030s. Water scarcity, also known as water stress, is an example of a resource-related environmental problem. Extreme water stress occurs when irrigated agriculture, industries, and municipalities withdraw more than 80 percent of their available supply on average every year. It means there's no buffer, no wiggle room, no backup, if supply drops due to drought, unpredictable precipitation, or increased withdrawals. According to the World Resources Institute, 17 countries where 25 percent of the world's people live, face extreme water stress. The Middle East and North Africa region are the most highly stressed. Qatar, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and Jordan are the most stressed-- meaning that agriculture, industry, and municipalities used up to 80 percent of available surface and groundwater in an average year leaving the supply extremely vulnerable to shortages. 44 countries, home to one-third of the world, face high levels of stress where on average more than 40 percent of available supplies are withdrawn every year. Half of the world's population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025, and by 2040, one in four children will be living in areas of extreme water stress. Currently, as much as one-quarter of the world's people experience water scarcity for at least one month out of the year. Now periods of water scarcity aren't just for other parts of the world. Due to climate change-related weather and disasters and technological failures, there are also increasingly common in the United States. For example, due to drought in the western U.S, two of the largest reservoirs in America (Lake Mead and Lake Powell) are at their lowest levels in history due to climate change and over consumption of water. They provide water and electricity to millions in Nevada, Arizona, California, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico. They also provide irrigation water for agriculture. Water cuts are expected and may not be enough. Can you imagine not being able to turn on the tap and get safe drinking water? In the summer of 2022, 150,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi had no safe drinking water and little to no water pressure to flush toilets, to fight fires, etc. for over a week. The cause: flooding overwhelmed the city's water treatment plant. In Eastern Kentucky, more than 25 000 people lost their water after major flooding and in Texas, hundreds of water mains broke during a stretch of record heat. Water stress is complicated and it has multiple, often overlapping causes. Generally speaking, there are two broad categories of water scarcity: diminished quantity and diminished quality. Diminished quantity or diminished supply is when there is simply not enough water to meet existing needs. One cause of that is wasteful use by individuals, agriculture, and Industry. Another cause of diminished supply is poor management of supply by governments. For example, governments frequently allow economic development that's unsustainable from a water supply perspective. Climate change related drought and shifting precipitation patterns are also reducing supply in many places. Population growth poses yet another supply problem. Population growth usually increases demand for water in all sectors of the economy-- agricultural, industrial, and domestic. More people means more agriculture to feed them. Economic development requires water for manufacturing and cooling processes, as well as for removing the waste generated by these processes. Domestic use also increases which includes more drinking, food preparation, washing, cleaning and watering gardens. However, Agriculture and Industry use more water than domestic users. Poor quality supply is another source of water stress. Technological failures from poor maintenance of water infrastructures is one cause. Recent water crises in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi were partly the result of deteriorating municipal water systems that were largely ignored by federal, state, and local governments. Climate-related storms are also leading to increased flooding of water and waste treatment plants and flooding also contaminates water sources. Poor quality supply is also caused by lacking governmental regulation. Some water stress happens due to the discharge of untreated municipal industrial or agricultural waste into waterways. Water stress matters. It places an area at risk for humanitarian disaster when you have narrow gaps between supply and demand. Countries are vulnerable to fluctuations caused by droughts or increased water withdrawals such as that from increased population growth or increased economic development. According to predictions by the United Nations and the World Bank, drought could put up to 700 million people at risk of displacement by 2030-- forced to leave their homelands in search of food and water. Scarcity is also an example of a health-related environmental problem caused by the scarcity of an environmental resource and that can lead to humanitarian crises. When water needed for agriculture becomes scarce, people may often go hungry-- that's what we mean by "food insecurity." When waterways or water systems are polluted people are forced to drink and bathe in polluted water and they may get sick from water-borne pathogens or toxins or chemicals in the water. Water scarcity is an intersectional issue and by that I mean that demographics like race, gender, and class often interact to play a role in its impacts. For example, in the U.S, water infrastructures are more likely to be neglected in low-income communities of color. In developing nations, water scarcity impacts women differently than men. It can add hours to women's daily labor when women are responsible for water collection and have to travel further and further to obtain water. Water scarcity also contributes to social conflict and unrest. Recorded incidents of water-related violence have more than doubled in the past 10 years compared with previous decades. In some regions, the conflicts are between farmers in the same community, but sometimes the violence is between police and protesters. Conflict between countries is also growing since water sources often traverse multiple countries. Another thing I want you to think about is the complexity of environmental problems and how a lot of times one alteration of the natural environment-- one thing that humans do that affects one aspect of the environment--often has a ripple effect through the rest of the natural environment. In other words, what I'm talking about is how the environmental impacts of human actions often have cascading effects because ecosystems are comprised of many interlocking synergistic elements and systems. That means that a change in one part of the system reverberates throughout the entire ecosystem. This makes environmental problems complex and it also means that the consequences of human actions on the environment are often magnified as they reverberate through an environmental system. So I'm talking about these cascading effects of humans' impacts on the environment and let's think about this with a few examples. And the first one I'll mention is deforestation. So this is the conversion of a forested land to non-forested land as a direct effect of human activities. This is a problem based on almost every continent and the main causes are logging; clearing of forests for conversion to agriculture, cattle ranching, buildings; fuel wood collection; and forest fires aggravated by climate change. Now trees hold soil in place and consequently deforestation contributes to soil erosion, and agricultural yields that are significantly decreased when valuable topsoil washes away. And that topsoil can clog and pollute the waterways. Desertification sometimes results. What that basically means is that the land no longer supports vegetation. That means the land is no longer useful for cattle, or for agriculture, or for lumber. Deforestation also threatens biodiversity since 80 percent of the Earth's plants and animals live in forests. Remember too that deforestation contributes to climate change because trees consume the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The World Resources Institute notes that tropical rainforest deforestation is the third largest source of carbon dioxide emissions next to China and the United States. So let's talk some more about climate change. It's another good example of this idea that human impacts on the environment have cascading effects because of these multiple ecosystems that work together synergistically such that change in one part of a system affects the rest of the environmental system. And I was saying that deforestation contributes to climate change because trees are major consumers of carbon dioxide which is what we call a "greenhouse gas." And climate change is another example of how economic development can be unsustainable. A heavy diet of fossil fuels-- this has served economic development for some time and has created and contributed to a high standard of living in the United States and many other in industrialized countries. But it is a major contributor to global climate change. Billions of people, particularly in developing countries, are expected to face shortages of water and food and risks to health and life as a result of climate change. Climate change results largely from human activities that lead to a buildup of greenhouse gases that trap heat near the Earth's surface. Greenhouse gases from human activities include carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use, and and by fossil fuel use I mean petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Methane is a another greenhouse gas. It is the world's second largest contributor to climate change among greenhouse gases. iI is a byproduct of oil and natural gas production, and also agricultural practices and livestock. Methane is also trapped underneath the permafrost in the Arctic and so as climate change heats up temperatures and the polar ice caps melt, and the permafrost defrosts, more methane is also released. Nitrous oxide is another greenhouse gas. This is from fertilizers, fossil fuels, and also biomass burning. And then there are also chlorofluorocarbons-- more greenhouse gases that arise from industry. Once again, as I said before, climate change is also partly the result of deforestation because forests "eat" some of this carbon dioxide. Now there are lots of different effects of climate change. Rising mean temperatures across the globe; more severe weather events and related natural disasters; increased ecosystem stresses; shifting precipitation patterns; and rising ocean temperatures which affect food and water security, which increase the likelihood of pest and disease outbreaks; more wildfires; rising sea levels and flooding from the melting of the polar ice caps; and even social effects like increased conflict due to increased poverty and resource shortages from climate change. Now when you study climate change's sources and its consequences it seems obvious that we need to act now and human behavior needs to change--but let's face it, people being people makes it complicated. So let's talk a little bit about that. So now that we've covered some sustainability basics, let's think about the role of psychology. So these are (for the most part ) human-created problems, so psychology certainly is relevant. The goal of the "psychology of sustainability" is to understand people's pro-environmental attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors so that we can promote environmentally sustainable behavior and so we can motivate people to act for the greater environmental good. Sometimes you'll hear this called by some other names. Those include green psychology, pro-environmental psychology, and conservation psychology. We've already studied a few things that are relevant to the psychology of sustainability. One of those is bounded rationality and motivated reasoning. So let's take a quick visit to the past and talk about these concepts in regards to sustainability, using the example of climate change. When you study climate change's sources and consequences it seems obvious that we need to act now, but people being people makes it complicated. Think about our section on environmental risk perception and all those risk perception errors and biases. Those also apply to climate change. Present bias, or temporal discounting bias, happens because our attention is usually focused on the here-and-now. The present bias partly explains why it's been so hard to get people to reduce their consumerism and carbon footprints to reduce climate change. The effects of climate change seem far away but the benefits of the SUV, the regular plane travel, and the fossil fuel use are immediate. It's also hard to imagine--though becoming easier and easier as the effects of climate change are starting to bear down on us-- remember the availability heuristic? We tend to judge things as probable based on how easily we can imagine them. Motivated reasoning also applies. People tend to perceive environmental problems in ways that allow them to keep doing what they want to do and that often translates into ignoring or downplaying the environmental consequences of our choices due to the affect heuristic. Remember many people don't like the solution so they're motivated to ignore the problem, which you'll remember is called solution aversion. And as we noted earlier in the quarter, our risk perceptions are also influenced by social influences. Most of us aren't experts on environmental problems and are subject to informational pressure--taking our cue from experts and from the people around us. Likewise, as we said before, risk perceptions can be social norms policed with social approval and disapproval-- what is known as normative pressure. The optimism bias is also relevant. Remember that this motivational bias involves denying or downplaying environmental risk to reduce our anxiety and help us feel safe. For example, 61 percent of Americans say climate change is a risk in the U.S but only 43 percent believe it will affect them personally. However, it's expected that 169 million Americans have a high risk of water stress from climate change; 104 million have a high risk of experiencing hurricanes; 22 million have a high risk of being affected by sea level rise from climate change; 92 million have a high risk of heat stress; and 7 million have a high risk of wildfires. Environmental risk perception matters because it affects whether we prepare, and whether we do things to prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change and other environmental problems.