Making a Difference
Be the Change You Want to See: Research on Demonstrating Pro-environmental Behavior
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Reuven Sussman
From climate change to waste management and over-exploitation of natural resources, environmental concerns are growing and becoming increasingly problematic. As individuals, we do our best to work against these environmental and social problems, but do our actions really make a difference? Research conducted at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) demonstrates that, although the direct results of individuals’ actions may be small (e.g., turning off the lights), the power of seeing others engage in these actions can be dramatic! The act of using a compost bin in plain view, for example, can greatly increase the percentage of other people who will subsequently use it. This, and other research, attests to the power of the individual to make a change. With many people engaging in these sorts of behaviours (and discussing them), the world can, indeed, become a better place. This paper introduces research in environmental psychology and social norms and discusses how it can be applied in the community to make real change in sustainable actions.
Unearthing Understudied Motivations for Pro-Environmental Behavior
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Adrah Niccolo Parafiniuk
It has been clearly demonstrated that environmental knowledge and environmental awareness have relatively small impacts on pro-environmental behavior (PEBs.) (Finger, 1994) ( Vicente-Molina, M. A., Fernández-Sáinz, A., & Izagirre-Olaizola, J. 2013) (Bamberg, S., & Möser, G., 2007). Decades of public information campaigns and other programs that attempt to inform the public of the growing probability of environmental calamities in the US have not significantly changed personal behaviors that are large drivers of climate change such as growing average house sizes, driving alone, and gas powered SUV ownership. These three behaviors among others continue to move in an unsustainable direction. (Desilver, 2015) Research into motivation in the fields of environmental psychology, the psychology of sustainability, game and economic theory, and sustainability communication demonstrate new insights into what motivates behavioral change. Defaults, group norming, positive personal experiences in nature, social norming, and higher self-efficacy have all been demonstrated to have measurable effects on increasing pro-environmental or ecologically sustainable behavior which includes pro-environmental, frugal, altruistic, and equitable conducts. The existing research demonstrates that there are four understudied but promising areas for motivating PEBs: meditation to increase altruism, engaging rebellion to increase PEBs, framing PEBs as social norms, and presenting PEBs as methods to increase health and happiness outcomes.
The Role of Soil Carbon:Nitrogen in Understanding On-farm Carbon Dioxide Emissions: A Case Study of Midwestern US
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jay Devkota, Amy Landis, Pragnya Eranki
Carbon footprint from agriculture is directly proportional to the amount of fertilizer applied and indirectly proportional to agricultural management practices such as use of cover crop and tillage. Soil Carbon-Nitrogen ratio (C:N) is important because it provides an overview of change in carbon and nitrogen stock due to change in land use. Existing databases that model agriculture have high levels of uncertainty associated with processes such as bacterial denitrification and nitrification, application of synthetic fertilizers, tillage and crop residues; we hypothesize that the use of scaling factors to estimate carbon footprint underestimate nutrient management in a watershed. Therefore, in this study on-farm CO2 emissions for the crop rotation were simulated using a watershed-scale biogeochemical model called SWAT. Simulated physical processes were then coupled with IPCC guidelines for C-footprint estimation. A biological agricultural scenario was considered with a continuous corn–soybean–oats rotation using alfalfa and cereal rye as cover crops, conservation tillage using lemken cultivator, and a mix of conventional and biological fertilizers while conventional scenario used no cover crop, intensive tillage and conventional fertilizers. Biological agricultural practice, showed 25% reduction in carbon footprint than conventional practice. C-footprint from bio-based practice could be further reduced to 27% and 33% by adopting strip till and no till practice respectively. Results concluded soil C:N was rich in nitrogen indicating residual nitrogen as the major source of N2O emissions. Bio based approach had higher soil C:N ratio than conventional baseline scenario. The result showed that with the increase in soil C:N ratio, on-farm emission decreased.
