In two weeks people will have forgotten about the Oil Spill in the Gulf. Remember Haiti?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am working on an ecological approach to sustainable cities through some research I am doing with a local state university. Today we were talking about the human side of ecological sustainability, we are talking about how sustainable inititatives across the country bubble up in “blooms” and function for a time them fizzle out. It’s a common phenomenon and one that has been going on for quite a long time.
What came up from one of the grad students [who so generously gave us his summer to be a research cog] was Haiti. He mentioned that one of the poorest nations on earth was ravaged by an earth quake, and for a couple weeks it was on the news and people were sending supplies and money towards the effort. He happened to be down there personally for a month doing some work with OXFAM. He mentioned that 3 days after the story ceased being a headline donations [$$] dropped significantly and now they are just trickling in. People were dying, and the devastation is such that the idea of Haiti sustaining itself is only a far off dream.
He then asked how long before we all forget about the spill in the Gulf? I said, the people in the gulf who were directly affected, and maybve their families, would remember and be affected for months possibly years; however, those not directly affected would probably forget within a few weeks…

What does this say about the humans and empathy for ecological issues? For sustaining an ecosystem [which we all live in] for the long haul? We are still grappling with this question, we are still trying to understand what keeps any one movement going for the long haul. What I see in this discussion of earlier today is a collective conscious tied directly to the media - an egocentric notion that brings people away from the ecological issues affecting where they live, and closer to what means most to them personally.

So - why do you think people forget big issues affecting the global community so quickly?

Do you follow any local environmental causes?

What means most to you about the environment?

Diverse array of questions…but meaningful to those of us trying to make sense of a global issue. The teeming millions always have a good cross section of views!

2

Not necessarily; I think a lot of folks still remember the Exxon Valdez spill, for instance.

3

Wellllllll … there’ll be another disaster along shortly to distract folks. And another one after that … and another disaster after that …

People only have so much mental energy, emotional energy, and plain cold hard *cash *to spread around. They still have their own lives to attend to, workplace drama and family issues and relationships to nurture or mess up.

Besides, selfish as it sounds: the Gulf Coast disaster will affect us here, close to home, on a daily basis. If nothing else, the fish counter at the grocery store will continue to show the effects for a long time. The disaster in Haiti was, well, remote. You could still go about your day-to-day life whether or not it happened. But if you, say, enjoy eating fresh shrimp, for example, your life is impacted in a measurable and personal way.

That keeps things fresh in people’s minds.

4

I don’t think people forgot about Haiti. They just stopped doing anything about it.

I’m sure that the oil spill will be in people’s minds when it matters - like whenever Congress takes up another off shore drilling bill.

It’s just that after you figure out what happened and who’s responsible you really can’t do much else until there is another law being debated about the issue.

5

I think of it as “concern fatigue” or “anxiety fatigue”. Our physical responses to stress aren’t very sustainable; fear and anger are tied to fight-or-flight, and therefore suited to intense, but relatively brief experiences. You can only be actively, seriously scared or angry for so long before your body decides it’s had enough and backs down on the related neurochemicals. The fear and anger may still be there, but they become more abstract.

With the emotional link to the issue numbed, it becomes easier for other things to shove it aside and claim your attention. There are always other issues, both local and global, clamoring for your attention. We’re inundated by reports of disaster and tragedy, disturbing predictions, and rumors of violence, and the most recent gets the lion’s share of our emotional attention. People who were worried about the oil spill last week got tired, and now that they’ve recovered, maybe they’ll worry about North Korea instead.

It’s not necessarily that people actually forget the issues. It’s more like they get shoved to the back of the queue, and the queue never actually gets emptied. If something happens to bring it back to the forefront, the concern will kick back in. If you want people to remain focused on an issue, you have to get them to take it out of the emotion queue. It requires a commitment beyond the emotions of the day–and to get that, you have to give them something to do, something concrete, beyond donating money or signing a petition. You have to make them establish a stake in the problem.

You want an actual suggestion for keeping an issue in people’s minds? Make it a game. I know: it’s too awful, it’s too tragic, it’s too disrespectful to make it a game. Suck it up and do it. I don’t mean make a first-person shooter or something out of it. Just add an ongoing cooperative or competitive element to it. Give them a positive emotional attachment to progress on the problem, instead of just a negative attachment to the problem itself.

For example, if you’re soliciting donations, treat the donations as sponsorships for particular teams, or machines, or whatever you’re using the money to pay for. Make a website that lets people track whatever they sponsored. Post polls. Let them name things. Post milestones. If possible, break your goals up into small pieces, and show progress bars (or other illustrations) toward them. Compare progress with other teams or devices. Make it something people will bookmark and check every morning, and talk about with other sponsors. Set up a small forum or chat room for them, so they can reinforce each other. Who knows? You might get some good ideas out of it, and some dedicated members who will even volunteer if you ask for help.

Fear and anger are transitory. A sense of belonging lasts.

6

“Concern fatigue” sounds about right, because I don’t think it’s about forgetting. For me it’s about helplessness. What exactly are you expecting me to do? How much more money should I be giving to Haiti, and in what intervals? I don’t see anyone asking donations for the oil spill, what then should I be doing about it?

Nobody I know has forgotten these events, nor the Iranian election, the Buddhist monks protesting in Myanmar, or the rape laws in Afghanistan. Is there something I can be doing about any of this that isn’t just donating more and more money? I only have so much. I don’t have a summer to go to Haiti. I recycle and I try to live smartly. I vote with my conscience. Adding guilt to my powerlessness helps nobody.

7

I think the effects on the Gulf Coast fishing industry will be felt for several decades, and doubtless thousands will lose their livelihoods due to BP’s unending, unquenchable greed…

8

When an earthquake happened in Haiti a person may have whipped out their credit card and made a donation. What they got in return was an emotion reward for doing something good. But what about a month later? Would they get the same emotional reward by donating again? No. The emotional reward for altruism is temporary and not sustainable.

When you are looking to design a long term program that requires a commitment to participate you need to look at what works and can maintain that commitment over time.

A good example is the recycling of aluminum cans. Great success story! Almost no on I know throws them away anymore. Why? Because there is something in it for the person who recycles. In my area they are worth a nickel each and a full garbage bag is about $8. This small amount encourages our commitment to go to the trouble of collecting them and returning them.

Now let’s talk about garbage. In my rural area I am not required to pay for garbage pickup, it is available at $36 per month if I choose. Instead I recycle as much paper and plastic as possible. I wash the bottles and cans and put them in 2 large bins. Food scraps go to the compost pile. And about 3 times a year I have to take the bins with the cans and bottles to the transfer station for a total yearly cost of $45. If I move into the nearest town I will be required to pay the $36 per month for garbage service, even if there are only a few items in a mostly empty bin. Would I continue to go to the trouble of recycling? Hell, no. I would just dump it all into the service that I am required to pay for. I am greatly committed to recycling AND it provides a tangible benefit to me also. Remove the benefit and my emotional commitment to recycling disappears.

What I am trying to get at is that a practical return to the user in exchange for participation is more likely to provide for a successful long term participation rate. Emotional appeals or appeals to reason are short lived. Successful long term solutions to environmental issues should address the ‘what’s in it for me?’ attitude.

It means you need to include a tangible benefit reward for participation as well as an emotional one.

That is just how most people work.

9

Anyone for Icarus? Wouldn’t that be nice?

10

I think people in the Gulf Coast states are going to be aware of this spill for a long, long time.

11

Because there is a huge difference between covering a story and actually working on something. My work does not involve Haiti or oil, therefore my focus on those stories is limited to whatever happens to be covered in the news. When was the last time you heard about Madoff? Awhile I bet. But there are still a lot of people who have jobs related to working on that case and they are still working on it, even though it doesn’t get media attention.

It’s sort of the reason we have private businesses instead of everything being run by government driven by public opinion. People typically create businesses to meet some need in society and those businesses continue to meet that need so long as they are sustainable.

The flip side of that is we have government to force businesses to clean up their messes even when it isn’t profitable to do so.

12

I disagree with the premise that people forget. Using Haiti or the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 of as an example, great amounts of money were poured into the region and not all of it in a single shot. It wasn’t meant to help for one day or one week. It was meant to get them back on their feet. To the extent that people give money with the intentions of making everything whole again is an unrealistic expectation.

Yes. We just spent a ridiculous amount of money on a solar farm in my area. A very poor use of money. It could have been rolled into cleaner coal or nuclear plants.

Trying to impact it as least as possible. The goal as a society should be getting the best return on money spent toward that goal.

13

People react to what they see and what they are focused on.

For most of the world Haiti is far away. When it was in the news it was in our living room, on the front page of every news search engine, etc. The news media outlets (TV, newspapers, magazines, internet sites) are all businesses. If you pull up Yahoo and everyday it’s headline is Haiti, eventually people will start thinking, “I’ve seen this story enough, let me check google news and see if there’s something different.” Therefore all news media outlets have to keep looking for fresh news to keep viewership, readership up.

It’s not that people don’t care, it’s that we care more about what’s in front of us at the moment, and we like to see new things.