{"id":737,"date":"2013-09-19T11:57:50","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T18:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/?p=737"},"modified":"2016-01-13T14:10:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T22:10:04","slug":"wheres-the-salt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/2013\/09\/19\/wheres-the-salt\/","title":{"rendered":"Where\u2019s the salt?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just attended a risk communication workshop put on by the BC Water and Waste Association<\/a>. James (Jim) Hoggan, from the communication consultancy Hoggan and Associates<\/a> and Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation<\/a> inspired me to write this post.<\/p>\n

Jim has been travelling around the world, interviewing communication reearchers, cognitive psychologists and spiritual leaders (even the Dali Lama) on public trust. Jim asked them all why, when all the scientific evidence points to the need for urgent, global environmental action, are we doing so little?<\/p>\n

Jim has put all of this into a new book, The Polluted Public Square<\/i>. \u00a0He got the name for this book after talking to Dan Kahan from Yale\u2019s Law School<\/a>, who believes that public conversations can be polluted in the same way that the environment can be polluted.<\/p>\n

Industry public relations experts and environmental advocates are jointly to blame for this polluted public square, according to Jim. \u00a0He says that the polarization and disagreement we see from scientists, government, industry and advocacy groups on environmental issues is equivalent to hearing people shouting outside our homes. He quotes Linguistics professor, Deborah Tannen<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When you hear a ruckus outside your house you open the window to see
\nwhat\u2019s going on. But if you hear a ruckus every night you close the shutters
\nand ignore it.<\/p>\n

People are tuning out because environmental issues seem unsolvable, and while Jim doesn\u2019t profess to have all the answers, he\u2019s devoted a good chunk of the last few years trying to tune people back in to public debate. But communicating in a polluted public square requires us to take different approaches. Jim quotes Psychology professor Jonathan Haidt<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m right, you\u2019re wrong. Let me tell you what you should think\u201d doesn\u2019t
\nwork because we all think we are right.<\/p>\n

From Jim\u2019s conversations with Haidt, he came to understand that humans are wired for \u2018group righteousness\u2019, and that we need to step outside this frame to reach others. Jim says that not demonising the opponent makes sense in theory but people have a hard time resisting. Harvard Public Policy lecturer, Marshall Ganz<\/a> told Jim to watch Al Pacino\u2019s locker room speech scene<\/a> for inspiration.<\/p>\n

Jim wants to see a compelling sustainability narrative that incorporates environmental information but also focuses on fairness and justice \u2014 an emotional dialogue. Jim says that people need to tell their own story and then tell the \u2018story of us\u2019 as a population and what we stand for. \u00a0We won\u2019t find this story without listening.<\/p>\n

\u201cGhandi had salt to bring people together,\u201d Jim says. \u201cFind the salt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ghandi<\/a>
Ghandi picking up salt after his march. Source=http:\/\/www.calpeacepower.org\/0101\/images\/1930-pick-salt-GS_BG.jpg |Date=April 1930. |Author=unknown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just attended a risk communication workshop put on by the BC Water and Waste Association. James (Jim) Hoggan, from the communication consultancy Hoggan and Associates and Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation inspired me to write this post. Jim has been travelling around the world, interviewing communication reearchers, cognitive psychologists and spiritual leaders (even … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,19,10,5],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advocacy","tag-environmental-communication","tag-social-change","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1134,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/1134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}