When I was a younger person, I made resolutions every year and worked hard to keep them. In the past several years, my energy has been scattered in too many directions to even make resolutions, much less to keep them.

This year feels somewhat different. I achieved several goals I set for myself personally in the last half of 2011 and doing that has made me more open to a resolution or two in 2012. Both of those I am setting pertain to my work and are shared with me by other members of the SOS team…particularly those of us in customer service.

1. We have resolved to provide customer service that is strikingly above expectations to our clients. Those who trust us to provide software and support to accomplish their business needs deserve nothing less.
2. We have resolved to help all of our customers to send their claims electronically . . . especially those who have already purchased our claims module, but who have never begun filing.

Neither of these resolutions is earth-shattering. We hope that makes them reasonable to accomplish. We trust that you will let us know how we are doing.

Please share your resolutions, or let us know why you have decided not to make any.

We hope for a healthy, happy and extraordinarily successful 2012 for all of you!

When we moved to South Florida, our wildlife encounters were mostly ocean-based. As scuba divers, we reveled in our viewing of reef fish and mourned the gradual degradation of the reefs due to human pollution. We occasionally saw alligators and egrets in our passage across the southern part of the state, but rarely thought a great deal about how our dwellings impacted them.

Almost 18 years ago, we relocated to central Florida. We moved to what was at the time a semi-rural community onto five acres of land on a small lake. All the other properties on this lake are at least the same size, and when we moved here only about half had homes on them. Sadly, the area has now become mostly suburban.

Moving here awakened me to the wildlife around us. Within our first year, we started seeing bald eagles regularly. We watched for the large alligator resident of our lake. Red foxes, rabbits, gopher tortoises, sandhill cranes. . .all were regular visitors to our abode. While our property used to be orange grove and had been scraped clean of all trees, we have gradually planted hedges and shrubs, trees and flowers, vegetables and fruit. 

Several years ago I attended a training sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to produce habitat stewards, residents who are willing to care for their own property in a way that will protect and provide habitat for wildlife and encourage others to do the same. I had long been a gardener, but had not realized the impact that our gardening methods and plant choices have on wildlife. I began to choose native plants as I had been instructed. Rather than placing branches and large yard debris in plastic bags to send to the incinerator or landfill, I started to allow some piles to remain as nesting sites for critters. I made sure there were water and food sources for the birds and mammals who share our property.

For the past three years we have watched a succession of birds, both ordinary and uncommon, come to the feeders off our dining room or the oak and pine trees that surround the house. Cardinals, sparrows, Eastern bluebirds, towhees, mockingbirds, brown thrashers, woodpeckers, Northern harriers, red shouldered hawks and ospreys all pay us regular visits. It is major daily entertainment to welcome our painted bunting family
and to feel good that we are providing a place for this threatened bird for four or five months of the year. It was with great excitement six weeks ago that we watched  a Florida scrub jay hop into the feeder environment, pick up a shiny stone from a pile, and fly off to the hedge…repeatedly. This endangered bird is endemic to central Florida and has lost so much of its habitat that sighting in a backyard is cause for much excitement. Hearing the raucous call of the local flock of sandhill cranes as they fly into our yard and take their time digging grubs out of our grass is a regular pleasure. [The painted buntings were photographed by Seth; the jay and crane were shot by our friend and wonderful nature photographer, Reinhard.]

When I got an email from Eliza Russell, the Director of Education Programs at the NWF, I was not sure what I could do to encourage people in my life to slow down a bit and look around them at the wild creatures in their immediate environment. Her email stated the following:

NWF has been celebrating National Wildlife Week since 1938 – it is one our longest running programs.  Each year during the third week of March – National Wildlife Week highlights opportunities for students and adults to explore wildlife or issues about wildlife.  NWW started as an educator engagement to have teachers talk with their students about wildlife or wildlife issues.  Over the last 10 years we have expanded to include parents and added youth service as key component.

NWF’s mission is to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.

Then I thought of you! Who better with whom to share this challenge?

Some time before this week ends, stop for a little while, walk or sit outside, look and listen around you. It’s spring! Even in a city, you will hear the sounds of birds. Who lives near you? If you are as lucky as I am and get to live in wonderful natural setting, what wildlife do you see or hear? Once you have taken a few moments to nurture yourself with a bit of nature, take another moment to share your own favorite wildlife story with us!

Please enter your comments below.

This memoir was a depiction of the several years in Armstrong’s life after she left a Roman Catholic convent. For seven years she was in training to live a religious life in one of the orders in England. While she knew that she had been subjected to mental training that we would today call brainwashing, it took her years after she left the convent to begin to recognize that even the religious history that she had been taught was not accurate. It had been written by priests to shape the beliefs of those who read it. To accomplish that goal, it omitted and distorted many facts.

Karen Armstrong is a scholar. She does exhaustive research before she writes and footnotes the sources of the information she uses to draw the conclusions to which she comes. One of the most important things I have learned from Armstrong’s work is the importance of who those sources are, the beliefs they hold about the material they are writing, and their integrity in the use of those resources.

One of my frustrations with researching any topic on the internet is the difficulty in determining how much weight I should attribute to the opinion presented. There is no shortage of strong opinion, but when I cannot see the reference list of the author and compare/contrast it with the lists of those who hold different positions, I tend to get frustrated. After all, I know it is possible to select information to support any position. I learned how to do that early on.

For four years in high school, I was on my school’s debate team. In the first year, our coach assigned us to take one side or the other of the issue at hand and charged us with gathering necessary information to support our positions. From the Affirmative position, we were required to observe problems with the status quo and charged to develop a plan that would solve those problems. From the Negative side, we were required to resist change and to defend the status quo. We were never at a loss for experts on all sides of the issues. I spent my first year arguing the Affirmative.  That may have influenced my worldview that readily sees problems with the status quo and changes that might be an improvement. Coming from a politically conservative household and a very traditional religious background, this was a new way of seeing the world.

I later went on to learn that much of what we have been taught is not fact, but someone’s representation or interpretation of events. Even two people seeing the same identical set of occurrences may report them with such profound differences as to make a person wonder if they actually observed the same event at all.  This phenomenon is examined by the body of research on eyewitness testimony and eyewitness unreliability.

Furthermore, in less enlightened times, the victor of a war or the holder of power was the person who got to tell the story. We all know now that African-Americans and their accomplishments were just omitted from many of the histories of America that we studied in school. Except for a few female monarchs, women had largely been considered irrelevant to human history. It was not until I was in college that I started to realize that this was because it was ‘his’story.  Until those of us who had been omitted from events started to tell our own version, we received one-sided presentations of most information.

This omission of the powerless from the official stories may have had something to do with my development as a feminist. I sought out the alternative views and perspectives of those who had been denied a voice. In fact, I sought those alternatives with such determination that I came to totally distrust the ‘official’ versions. Merely the fact that a position was advanced by those in power (in whatever the situation) was enough to cause me to reject the conclusion. The baby certainly got thrown out with the bathwater.

My own tendency to hold onto my own strong opinions and to avoid exposure to contrary information is shared by many in our society. The avoidance of cognitive dissonance is well documented. No need to enlighten me with the facts…just tell me who presented the information and I will know whether I consider it of any value. I just don’t believe the things told me by people I do not trust.

Oh my, that is the same perspective as those who hold other strong opinions…just on the other side of the same issues!

Research suggests I am in the majority in this style of being-in-the-world. If that is so, and we all resist information that may contradict strongly-held beliefs, how can we ever hope to effect change? If we are unlikely to entertain information that contradicts our positions, how can we grow? Are we doomed to alternate back and forth between the extremes of positions based on who has the power at the moment?

What do you think about your beliefs and how they affect your willingness to entertain conflicting information? Are you open to new ideas? Or are you only willing to listen to those who agree with you? Please share your comments below.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the home of friends in our book club planning to watch a movie together. When we arrived, we did not know what movie we would be watching, but I was delighted with the choice. We saw a movie called Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. 

In spite of being a bit younger than those most likely to know and appreciate the work and music of Pete Seeger, I have very fond memories of hearing and learning songs like Where Have All the Flowers Gone and This Land Is Your Land. I was surprised to learn that Pete Seeger had introduced the folk song We Shall Overcome to Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, and I was inspired to learn that for the last 25 years he has lead and worked on efforts to clean up the Hudson River in New York. For most of his 90 years, Pete Seeger has used music to influence and inspire one aspirational movement after the next from the labor movement of the 1930s to the peace movement to the environmental revolution. He could teach well beyond Activism: 101.

One statement in the movie reminded me of a task I had set for myself. Pete talked about never hesitating to wade into some overwhelmingly large task. He said that he reminds himself to ‘think globally but to act locally’ because you can only be where you are and work to change that one place. While local action usually has the most impact on our daily lives, in this highly connected time in history, the ‘place’ we are is dramatically expanded by electronic media, so I’ll take the opportunity to work in this ‘place’.

Last Monday, I read a NY Times opinion piece by Thomas Homer-Dixon. The author was writing from his perch aboard the Louis S. St-Laurent, the floating laboratory for Arctic science that is part of the Canadian Coast Guard. Professor Homer-Dixon reported that the ice in the arctic looks completely different than when he was in the same location at the same time of year 20 years ago. The rapid changes in Arctic ice are not visible to most of us, but Professor Homer-Dixon reports that the severe melting and expected thinning of Arctic winter ice are indicative of rapid changes occurring in many aspects of our climate.

The year 2010 is turning out to be the warmest year since temperatures have been recorded globally. Mudslides in China, fires in Russia, flooding in Pakistan….all are considered by climate experts to be manifestations of the changes in climate that can readily be measured.

One of my colleagues returned from a summer visit to Mexico. While he was there, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico made a speech about climate change. Sr. Calderon wondered why it is only in the United States that there is still debate about whether climate change is occurring, when everywhere else in the world, the issue is what to do about it.

Professor Homer-Dixon is also concerned about the ‘what to do’ part of this issue. He suggests that our governments need to be developing interventions in case a large, catastrophic event occurs. He thinks this ‘Plan Z’ should be our outline for how to proceed if and when a large climate catastrophe occurs. Having evacuated from my Mother’s New Orleans home two days before Katrina hit five years ago, and then dealt with the results of 8 feet of water in her home, I am well aware of the effects of no plan, and a big fan of developing real plans to deal with possible climatic catastrophe.

My only question about a plan is whether it needs to be large-scale (national or world-wide) or small-scale (local communities and individuals). Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute believes that our plan (he calls it Plan B) must be comprehensive and must focus on what actions we can take prior to the catastrophe. Since I am a planner and a taker of action, I like Mr. Brown’s approach. His books are extremely intelligent and detailed assessments of what each of us as individuals as well as what governments and multi-national organizations and corporations can do to prepare for and to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The report of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change explores in depth aspects of human behavior, thinking and emotion that must be studied and addressed in order to impact climate change. The report discusses denial as one reaction to being faced with the possibility of catastrophic results of climate change. As our friends in 12-Step programs would tell us, denial is not a river in Egypt…it is what we do unconsciously when we cannot face the data presented to us. But face that data we must.

This week marks the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. Most of us know of the physical devastation caused by that storm. Some of the data released last week indicate that the effects on the mental health of those who were directly and indirectly affected by Katrina were equally devastating. But what are we doing to plan for the effects of climate change? How will we prepare ourselves personally and our organizations professionally to intervene to protect and recover the mental health of our communities when we are faced with catastrophes caused by climate change? What do we do now rather than after the fact?

This is my sixth post on climate change since last September. There are a total of four comments on those posts . . . two made by readers and two made by me in response. Are we in denial? Please share your comments below.

I found myself strongly empathizing with practitioners, administrators, and behavioral health care personnel of all stripes who spend their days trying to provide quality mental health services to their patients…and then spend their nights worrying about what has occurred that day that might get in the way of or assist them in doing their job, but not having the time or the energy to pursue that information. Certainly, the information is readily available on the Internet, but who has time.

There have been numerous discussions of the effects of too much information (TMI) on our functioning. In July, 2008 Nicholas Carr wrote an article in The Atlantic called Is Google Making Us Stupid? This year he has written a book length exposition of that subject called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain. His thesis is that our brains are literally being changed by the way the Internet is organized. He posits that jumping from one place to another by way of hyperlinks results in shallow pursuit of topics rather than the in-depth exploration of a subject allowed by books. In my brief exploration about his book, I found an extremely articulate review and commentary by Venkatesh Rao who mentioned and hyperlinked to the blog of Jason Kottke, a writer whose name I had heard but had never read. I have demonstrated for you an example of Carr’s thesis. I got distracted from obtaining support for my original thought by the way the Internet presents information and by the ease of pursuing that linked information.

Back to my original thought…here I am adding one more place where there is a bit more information for you to take a look at…or not. You might find this a convenient place to check for information about behavioral health care and its place in the world-at-large, or you might drop in occasionally just to see if there is anything that interests you.

For those of you checking in for something interesting, here are a couple of tidbits.

1. ONC (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology) has published a final rule in which it establishes a temporary certification program for electronic health records as required under HITECH. As reported by Healthcare & Technology blog, this rule should allow progress toward approval of certifying organizations for EMR products.
2. iHealthBeat reports on release of final rules for “Meaningful Use”. Many observers believe that the easing of requirements for the meaningful use of an electronic health record required to receive stimulus funds made available under HITECH will make it easier for eligible providers to receive funds. Other observers believe that even the easing of the standards will not make it simple for stimulus funds to be acquired, even for those who have already purchased and implemented EMRs.

It appears that life gets more complicated all the time, even if we have information. Since I do believe that knowledge is power, I will keep trying to pass some of what I come across on to you. Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you are thinking about. Just enter your comments below.

Last weekend, we watched the critically unacclaimed remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves. While the movie left a great deal to be desired, it reminded me of the ongoing issue of human behavior and how we affect our world. This particular movie ends on a hopeful yet doubtful note that we will be able to change our behavior in time to keep climate change from destroying our species.

The American Psychological Association’s Climate Change Task Force Report has now been published in a nice booklet format. I am hopeful that the shorter, more attractive read will make the report accessible to more readers.

Section 2 of the report discusses the human behavioral contributions to climate change along with psychological and contextual components of the contributions. As is frequent in reports and studies by psychologists, ethical concerns are high on the list of issues to be considered. Since population growth and consumption of raw materials to manufacture those things which increase our perception of quality of life are two factors documented to contribute to the manner by which humans impact climate change, how we address population growth and consumption is crucial. Expecting developing nations to forego growth and consumption while the developed countries (like us) continue to consume is blatantly unjust. Many argue that expecting the developing world to forego growth is unjust even if we were to completely alter our own patterns of consumption.

Demographers have developed formulae to demonstrate the effect humans have on the environment. The basic

and widely known formula from the 1970s is I = PxAxT where I = Impact, P = Population, A = Affluence per capita and T = Technology. (APA Climate Change booklet, p 30, from Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971; Commoner, 1972; Holdren & Ehrlich, 1974)

Newer models take into account that countries with the highest per capita Gross Domestic Product plus intense consumption of goods and services requiring greenhouse gas production (environmental consumption) produce the most emissions and therefore the greatest environmental impact. These models are lovely ways to show in graphical form the impact of our reproductive and consumption choices. They do not, however, in any way address the variety of factors that contribute to growth in population (for example , individual and cultural religious beliefs; gender role beliefs; beliefs about individual vs. government control of reproduction; norms about when to start having children and how many to have; infant mortality; availability of food resources; and longevity. Population growth is a very complex phenomenon).

Consumption is an even more complex set of events and requires equally complex analysis. Each consumption behavior is multifactorially determined and requires analysis at different levels including institutional, sociocultural and physical environment context, individual factors such as demographics and psychological drivers, consumption of economic resources, consumption of environmental resources, greenhouse gases produced and emitted, and specific climate change.

The APA report discusses the need to separate consumption behaviors so we can determine which have the greatest impact on climate change. To spend significant resources researching behaviors with minimal impact will not be cost effective. To spend our time and energy learning about and affecting behaviors which have the most direct and largest impact on climate will be the best expenditure of psychological expertise.

While this report assesses what psychologists and the behavioral science community can do to impact climate change, the booklet is an articulate and readable explication of human behavior and climate change.

The question I have asked you before and will ask you again is the following: should we just sit helplessly by while the world (and our climate) changes around us, or should we learn what each of us can do in our individual and organizational lives to affect that change? What do you think?

On Saturday night, we finally saw Avatar. Among the themes explored in this movie was the strong prejudice that exists today against science and scientists. Technology…the practical outcome of scientific endeavor… is valued. Everyone on that space settlement was a technician of some sort. But the science that got them there and the science allowing the use of real avatars was denigrated by the majority.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about behavioral health professionals use of evidence based treatments. Behavioral health professionals and psychologists in particular are generally well-trained scientists, having a good understanding of the scientific method plus training in critical judgement of research. One goal of this education is to choose the soundest methods of providing care. And yet, large numbers of psychologists indicate that they do what they “believe” is best for their clients rather than what scientific research indicates is likely to provide the most effective course of treatment.

Numerous writers and commentators have bemoaned the state of science education in this country. At one time the U.S. was generally regarded to be the place to get the best education in science. Students from across the world came to the U.S. to study. Some stayed, some returned to their home lands to teach others. A 2007 article in the Christian Science Monitor ranked U.S. high school students 29th in the world in science literacy. While others would argue this figure, the common perception is that we have slipped as a nation in our interest in, and understanding of, science.

Simultaneously, we have become technology addicts. I would venture to say that many young people who are technology drones have never really thought about the science that went into creating the devices they cannot live without. Nor do they care that they do not know about the science. Just make sure that they continue to have access to their toys and to the technological infrastructure that supports them.

I believe this trajectory puts us as a nation in a very vulnerable position. Technological innovations are only one aspect of scientific endeavors. The knowledge gained from pure science is one of the things that keeps me most in touch with my creativity and my humanity. Take a listen sometime to Science Friday, an NPR program and podcast that weekly explores a whole variety of science topics and themes. It is impossible for me to listen to more than two or three of these shows without coming away with a book I want to read. I referenced one of these shows in my article on Evidence Based Treatment.

Those who provide behavioral health care services are unlikely to find the bulk of their work taken over by technology. There will be technologies that facilitate treatment and technologies that become treatments, but the bulk of human services will still be provided by humans. Assuring that we are good scientists, or at least can judge when a study is good science, is a worthwhile goal for behavioral health providers of every stripe.

How do you rate our science literacy? Are you interested in or bored to tears by science? Do you see science as relevant to your life…as a human being or as a provider of services?

Please enter your comments by clicking on the title of this article and typing in the box at the bottom of the page.

The cold temperatures across the nation this week have had some individuals scoffing at the notion of global warming. On the other hand, most scientists explain that extremes of weather are part of the whole pattern of global warming; these freezing temperatures are the other side of the extreme heat we experienced this summer and fall.

The American Psychological Association’s (APA) report on global climate change is a thorough examination of our current understanding of human attitudes, emotions and behavior relevant to climate change. Whether or not you have seen the movie “An Inconvenient Truth“, you might benefit from reading the introductory section (pages 24-30) of the APA report which does an excellent job of reviewing the background of the intersection of human systems and earth systems, and how human behavior impacts earth systems.

Section 1 of the report explores how people understand the risks presented by climate change. One of the primary challenges in changing behavior is to understand the perspective of the person whose behavior we are trying to change. Any psychotherapist worth his or her salt will tell you that a good assessment of the individual with whom one is proposing to work is essential to effective therapy. The nature of the assessment is less important than its outcome…an understanding of the experiences and motivations of the potential consumer of services, along with a sense of their strengths and limitations.  The beliefs and points of view of that person, about their problems and about their power to impact those problems, is crucial in designing a treatment plan.

So before we design a climate behavior treatment plan for our families, our neighbors and our communities, we must understand how they perceive the potential risks of global climate change. Psychological research leads us to believe that the impacts of distant or rare events tend to be underestimated. From pages 6 and 7 of the APA report, we learn that

…small probability events tend to be underestimated in decisions based on personal experience, unless they have recently occurred, in which case they are vastly overestimated. Many think of climate change risks (and thus of the benefits of mitigating them) as both considerably uncertain and also as being mostly in the future and geographically distant, all factors that lead people to discount them. The costs of mitigation, on the other hand, will be incurred with certainty in the present or near future…. Yet, emotional reactions to climate change risks are likely to be conflicted and muted because climate change can be seen as a natural process and global environmental systems perceived as beyond the control of individuals, communities, and quite possibly, science and technology.

Accordingly, when we communicate about the potential risks to humans of global climate change, we must recognize that different human responses will result based upon the individual’s perception of the risk to them and theirs posed by climate change. If the risk is seen as low and completely outside their control, no change to current behavior will occur. Even if the danger is seen as high, if it is seen as outside the ability of the individual to have an impact, there will still be no change in behavior.

Based on this understanding of how people behave in the face of risk, we must assure that our interventions allow people to experience a sense of efficacy and empowerment. We need to believe that the things we are doing to affect climate change can possibly have the effect we seek. Without such a belief, we will not likely take action.

For most of us, the source of information about climate change has been media reports of the observations of climate scientists. Few of us have personally seen melting glaciers or arctic ice. Psychological research on risk communication is important in this regard. What is the most effective way to communicate about climate change to inform individuals and communities and to empower them to take action? Just how should we be communicating the reports and projections of climate scientists to maximize change in human behavior? Will we be successful in enlisting the media as educators rather than as sensationalists or naysayers?

The summary of section 1 of the APA report (p 48-49) clearly states these issues.

Feeling (or not feeling) vulnerable and at risk in the face of climate change seems to be instrumental in moving (or not moving) people to action (see section 4), and thus the sources of these feelings are in need of further study. Research in cognitive psychology suggests that certain perceived characteristics of climate change (e.g., that it is “natural,” not new, and in principle controllable) may lead citizens as well as policy makers to underestimate the magnitude of the risks. Other psychological research provides additional hypotheses related to emotional reactions to climate change such that the absence of feeling at risk may be a psychodynamic reaction (see section 3), the result of psychic numbing or denial in the face of overwhelming and uncontrollable risk (see section 4 and 5). These explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though sometimes contradictory in elements of their hypotheses (e.g., is climate change seen as a controllable or uncontrollable risk?). Such contradictions need to be resolved by empirical investigations.

The ability of different educational interventions in shaping perceptions, attitudes, and action related to climate change should also be a topic of empirical research (see section 6). Existing knowledge about the relative impact of direct personal experience vs. more abstract statistical information on the perceptions of risk in domains like financial decisions or with the relative effectiveness of emotional vs. analytic processes in prompting protective action can guide the design of different educational interventions about likely climate change scenarios and their repercussions and about the pros and cons of different courses of adaptation to climate change and/or mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

If you have not yet taken a look at the APA report, you should do so. Set aside some time to focus on the issues facing us as behavioral and psychological experts, then share your perspectives here. To enter your comments, just click on the title of this article and type in the box at the bottom of the post.

I do have a history with APA; I have been a member for 30 years. I joined as soon as I was eligible after completing my Ph.D. In the early 1990′s I served on two different committees within APA—the Public Information Committee and the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice. I have read more than my share of scholarly papers and APA organizational documents. Since retiring from the practice of psychology in 1993 and moving to full-time involvement in the business of psychology billing and clinical record software, I have become more removed from scholarly work and more involved in the action orientation of the business world.

Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges, while perhaps intended to be a call to action, is actually a carefully written and documented organizational treatise on the psychological phenomena involved in this crisis, the psychological research and knowledge which are applicable to these events, and recommendations for the role APA as an organization and psychologists as professionals and individuals can and should play as this crisis unfolds. It is what I should have expected, but not what I hoped it would be.

In order to make this document useful, I believe it needs to be broken down into parts and digested in that fashion. Accordingly, over the next few months, I am going to take each section of the report and tell you about what is in that section. I hope this will have the result of helping us glean the recommendations of the APA and determining what constructive actions individual mental health professionals and behavioral health community organizations can take.

The APA Climate Change Task Force considered six questions:

1. How do people understand the risks imposed by climate change?
2. What are the human behavioral contributions to climate change and the psychological and contextual drivers of these contributions?
3. What are the psychosocial impacts of climate change?
4. How do people adapt to and cope with the perceived threat and unfolding impacts of climate change?
5. Which psychological barriers limit climate change action?
6. How can psychologists assist in limiting climate change?

In examining these questions, they reviewed the psychological literature to focus areas in which additional research might be useful and in which current data might enhance the work of climate scientists.  By way of this report, the task force attempted to create bridges between the climate science community and the psychological community.

It is also clear from these questions that the authors were considerably concerned about what the psychosocial effects of climate change might be. Since those of us who work with individuals, families and communities about various emotional and behavioral health concerns will undoubtedly need to address these impacts, it behooves us to be prepared…at least with knowledge.

Finally, the task force recommended that specialists in behavioral and psychological research adopt the following principles in an attempt to maximize the value and use of psychological principles in climate change work:

1. Use the shared language and concepts of the climate research community where possible and explain differences in use of language between psychology and this community.
2. Make connections to research and concepts from other social, engineering, and natural science fields.
3. Present psychological insights in terms of missing pieces in climate change analysis.
4. Present the contributions of psychology in relation [to] important challenges to climate change and climate response.
5. Prioritize issues and behaviors recognized as important climate changes causes, consequences, or responses. 
6. Be cognizant of the possibility that psychological phenomena are context dependent.
7. Be explicit about whether psychological principles and best practices have been established in climate-relevant contexts.
8. Be mindful of social disparities and ethical and justice issues that interface with climate change.

If climate change continues and has even some of the potential impacts that are predicted, mental health and behavioral specialists will be deluged with people caught in and reacting to those impacts. What can you and your organization do to prepare for addressing the fallout of some of these impacts? What would be the result of a Katrina-equivalent in your community? What knowledge and expertise do you need to gain?

Please share you comments by clicking on the title of this article and entering your comment in the box at the bottom of the page.

This morning, as I was doing one of the lowest-tech tasks I do, I realized how it fits in to this ongoing discussion.

You see, two months ago, I started raising worms. I can hear the muttered “you did what?”s and see the disgusted expressions on some of your faces. I have seen and heard these often in my face-to-face conversations about vermiculture. Last month, we saw friends at a tandem bicycle rally with whom we had not visited for the last five years. Within three minutes she and I had gotten to our separately-arrived-at but shared new endeavor. Not surprisingly, we both got there by approximately the same route.

If I were retired, I would be an avid gardener. Since I co-run a small business full time, share our residence with my 89-year-old mother, and ride a tandem bicycle for recreation on the weekends, time is at a premium. Traditional gardening will have to wait.

About 18 months ago, I purchased a single recirculating hydroponic garden from a nearby company that specializes in vertical agriculture. One of my neighbors started a hydroponic strawberry farm as his retirement business several years ago and he told me about Vertigro. The unit I purchased (the VG-1) sits on my patio, has a 10.5 gallon nutrient-water tank and is run by a small electric pump controlled by an electric timer. At last, I had the possibility of growing vegetables without killing everything for lack of care!

I was so enthralled by the crop of lettuce and spinach and how easy it was to grow that, six months later in late December, I went for the big time…I purchased a four-tower unit that holds 16 pots in which up to four plants can be grown. I am now beginning to harvest from my third round of planting. Because of how the units are set up, I can easily plant crops that have different starting and best harvest times. Right now, I am still harvesting the last of the late summer basil, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants and starting to pick sugar snap peas and green beans while we wait for the broccoli. In a small in-ground garden, I have carrots, onions, cabbages and Brussels sprouts.

I have tried to grow vegetables since we first moved to our current location in Central Florida. I have had varying degrees of success. Now that we are eating vegetarian, and since I am becoming more aware about how far produce is shipped on average within the U.S. (1500 miles), I decided that it is important that we diminish some of the fossil fuel we use by producing at least some of our own food.

My in-ground garden is fertilized mostly by composted food and plant waste, but my towers are still using manufactured nutrients. Organic is my destination…thus the worms.

Apparently, using organic fertilizer requires assuring that the correct ingredients are present. Without the right starting ingredients, the fertilizer is lacking necessary amino acids for the plants and for the people who eat the plants. Worms do an excellent job of composting food scraps and paper, lots of things that usually go to a landfill or incinerator. Annnnnd, when their feed is supplemented with certain minerals, they produce extremely high nutrient “castings”…the polite and technical word for worm poop.

I raise my worms in a unit called The Worm Factory. It is a vertical stack of cleverly designed bins into which I put food scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells, shredded paper, and the secret ingredient supplement minerals. The pound of worms I bought to start my farm has been busily munching through the first of the bins for the last three months. Today I harvested my first batch of worm poop…I mean worm castings…from the bottom bin. I now have almost two gallons of highly nutritious worm waste that will soon be added to my plantings. I am hopeful that this process will allow me to move away from using mined and manufactured fertilizer to grow my veggies.

Why, you wonder, would I consider going to such trouble to grow my own vegetables when I have my choice of supermarkets, and even a local farmers market. What could possibly make it worth the additional effort, and probably additional cost, just to get a few veggies on the table?

My answer is that getting veggies on the table is only part of the goal. The goal is to find reasonable ways to balance out how much carbon dioxide my household and business dump into the environment. I do not expect that I will be able to diminish our input to zero any time soon, if ever. As a software company, we use lots of electricity to run the computers that allow us to do our work. Our local utility utilizes coal-powered and atomic-powered electricity generation facilities. Not a spec of solar power is generated by this company in the Sunshine State…yet. While we are waiting for that to change, I am working to minimize the number of food miles (the distance food travels from farm to table) expended by my family.

Yes, this is a small change…both in my lifestyle and in contribution to diminishing the production of carbon dioxide by human activities. I will need to do a lot more to make a significant contribution. The electric company energy audit is later this week. I drive a Prius and I vote for leaders who share my goals. I hope other responsible activities will follow, but this is what I can do now given my circumstances.  I can only try in small steps to do less harm to the earth by how I tread upon it. Balancing what I take and what I replace is the current goal.

What are you doing in your daily life to diminish your personal effect upon the environment? What is your organization doing to “go green” and serve as a role model? Please share the ideas you have considered or adopted to walk more gently upon the earth. We would love to know your ideas and experiences.