Can a Public Meeting Catalyze a Tipping Point for Both Accelerated Conventional and Creative Efforts to Address Climate Change?

(This was originally submitted as a comment directly on an article in New Jersey Spotlight. Their automated comment processing system is on the fritz, and threw it out after posting it for a few minutes, calling it “Spam.” With a quick fix unlikely, I, therefore, added to it and posted it as an article here.)

Tom Johnson’s article, “DEP’s First Step Toward Reducing Greenhouse Gases Dismissed as Too Tame by Critics,” on a NJDEP forum on climate change held Tuesday of this week was an incomplete view of what occurred.

While, yes, certainly “critics” thought it was “too tame” to achieve the State’s ambitious carbon reduction goals, and it was, that pretty much was going to be the case. We, and by that I mean all of us, should have started on this decades ago. NJDEP is just one agency; with limited resources; (usually) extremely limited vision, as is true of most organizations; and Air Quality, the host of the meeting, is just one division.

And yet despite this, another perspective is that at the very start of the meeting it was clarified that the usual frame that implicitly determines–and limits–what could and could not be discussed, was challenged and broken. We wound up departing from the nominal boundary: the department’s thinking to potentially just further regulate permittees, such as utility electric generating stations. Instead, it became the most open, creative, out-of-the-box forum for ideas I’ve ever heard from decades of going to these NJDEP things.

As NJDEP Director Frank Steitz stated, “Business as usual won’t get us there.” I’m not sure I’d ever heard “the long term” mentioned before at a NJDEP meeting. So he listened to non-business-as-usual ideas from attendees, non-passively, asking questions as necessary for clarification. The facilitators shushed no one. I, for one, had the opportunity to say several things not usually heard at a state government forum, such as taking advantage of, and building on, the businesses coming around on addressing climate change; linking our state’s recent interest on the latter to the still unrealized need to do the same for biodiversity; and moving much harder on efficiency at the demand level, including bringing in underutilized ideas from psychology to it.

And what was so personally rewarding, I heard urgency and creative ideas from so many around the room, such as market restructuring, putting a price on carbon, looking at advancements in other states to see what we might do, and sequestration. The “practical” interspersed with the innovative. As one environmentalist said to me afterwards, the businesspersons present seem to realize we’re in a different era now and they need to be a part of it.

Seems like an opportunity to me, for business and otherwise. While there were no illusions Air Quality or NJDEP could do all the things suggested, maybe it’s less crazy than it had been to figure out how they could be a critical part of the much larger efforts it’s going to take.

Of course, it was just one day. What happens next is unclear and rests, in part, on many others stepping up. The regulatory issues raised are important. But actually addressing the climate change issue will take many other strategies as well. Actively listening, much better than usual “Stakeholder Participation,” an audience thinking out-of-the-box, are not bad places to start and to continue to practice.

To that end, there are over a dozen articles and reports on ideas for New Jersey on this, as well as the interrelated topic of a green economy, here at GreenEconomyNJ.org that don’t usually come up (although a few did this time, which is why this article was not made “Part 7” of the earlier “What Are We Still Missing” series). For anyone who wants to go even deeper on the green economy in New Jersey, an Appendix in this one summarizes several other reports, etc., done over the decades, but which we weren’t ready for at the time.

For those interested in getting involved in climate change in New Jersey, as we really are going to have to do—and think—differently in what a European field I follow calls a Transformation, this seems like a really good time for your unique contributions. You might just have a piece that others could then build on.

Consider taking NJDEP up on its offer to send your ideas to NJDEP-baqp.dep.nj.gov (using the subject line: “Reducing Carbon Emissions in New Jersey”). Perhaps offer something about implementation as that will be challenging. Hopefully, they’ll consider them, and save the “really too far out there” stuff for a time when we need even those.

Returning to the mundane, I hope when that comments processor gets fixed it at least comes to see the earlier version of this is as “Elite-level” Spam.

Possible Planet Holiday Party & Fundraiser – Saturday, Dec 14, 2019, 2-6 pm

You’re invited to our

 Join us for community, thoughtful discussion, and the opportunity to make a difference.

Saturday, December 14
2-6 p.m.
@ 8 Revere Drive, Basking Ridge, NJ

Bring something to share / BYOB
Bring your voices, instruments & holiday songs!

Meet people who care about restoring our communities and the climate.

Can’t Attend But Want to Support Us?

At the party, we’ll share our mission and initiatives, and you can contribute to the “mother ship,” Possible Planet, or earmark your donation to one of our initiatives:

Global Carbon Reward 
Ecovillage New Jersey 
Ecovillagers Alliance
New Jersey PACE / Regenerative Financing 
Possible Planet (General Fund)

 

Attend the Party

New Jersey Now “Gets” Climate Change. What We Are Still Missing: Why We’re Not Talking About What We’re Not Talking About: Part 4

By Matt Polsky

Image result for pie of knowledge image

Image by Claire Bryden[1]

Introduction and Importance

Why are we not talking about the things we don’t usually talk about that need to be involving climate change? Why is it so hard to talk about or hear certain things like a carbon tax, a zero carbon emissions goal, or the many other steps we can or may have to take to address this immense problem, or it’s taking decades which we no longer have?

Mindset barriers or traps are a big part of the reason. They overlap to various degrees with many other concepts, such as world view, mental models, obsolete paradigms, cognitive biases, cognitive sticking points, blind spots or blinders, myths, ideology, stories, narratives, unquestioned assumptions, dogma, mantras, emotionalism, faith, group think, and certitudes. Some of these can have a positive or neutral side, or are necessary in some way.

We also can include unquestioned beliefs about business-as-usual practices—and not just in business, or “that’s just the way it is” shrugs. In certain contexts we can add references to someone’s “mentality,” “psychology,” “temperament,” or “the way the person is wired.” There are also language, framing, and communications issues.

Continue reading “New Jersey Now “Gets” Climate Change. What We Are Still Missing: Why We’re Not Talking About What We’re Not Talking About: Part 4”

New Jersey Now “Gets” Climate Change. What We Are Still Missing: Starting with Organizational Culture: Part 2

By Matt Polsky and Lawrence Furman

You may have caught the release of the latest IPPC report two weeks ago. That report, Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (IPPC 2018), found that the intense damage of droughts, floods, and everything that goes with that, anticipated to occur at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, will occur at this lower concentration, and earlier, by 2040.

It mentions the term “transformation,” saying “avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has ‘no documented historic precedent” “within just a few years (Davenport 2018).” We’ll mention that term a little later. But a major implication is that we’re going to have to extend our reach, the required speed of getting there, and fundamentally question business-as-usual assumptions which, consciously or not, justify seeking the much smaller, incremental levels of change we usually pursue and, to those of us on this issue, had seemed acceptable.

However, the report says levels of greenhouse gas emissions would have to drop to zero by 2050 (which sounds like a close cousin to New Jersey’s 100% renewable energy goal).

Continue reading “New Jersey Now “Gets” Climate Change. What We Are Still Missing: Starting with Organizational Culture: Part 2”

The Transformation Game

Having Transformation Go Viral in New Jersey

New Jersey, like the rest of the world, is in a period of profound transition. As we come grips with the fact that humanity’s impact on the planet is creating serious risks for all of us, and that each of us must do what we can, where we are, to make a difference—we simultaneously realize that our individual actions are insufficient, and that we need, at all levels, transformational change. We need to foster an awareness within both local and global communities that change is both essential and inevitable. Whether we’re concerned with climate change, or biodiversity loss, or social injustice, it’s clear that above all we need to restructure our economy, to make it cleaner, and fairer, and more restorative of Earth’s systems in order to achieve any degree of sustainable prosperity.

For many people, the sheer size and scope of this challenge may seem beyond their ability to comprehend, so they withdraw into narrower realms of life — making a living, maintaining a relationship, or pursuing “professional development.” Those who do recognize what the planet confronts us with may become cynical and resigned, get burned out, or simply feel overwhelmed and unable to take any meaningful action. The challenge, in this game, is to engage with other social change agents in a common search for the levers of regenerative transformation.

Continue reading “The Transformation Game”