On Changing Behavior

Remember, answering a poll is a way of asserting identity. Beliefs tend to be reverse engineered, as it were: People tend to construct an identity around what they (and their tribe) do. That suggests that they will only construct a different identity when they start doing different things.

So imagine the same guy who rejected human-caused climate change in the poll. Imagine that bike riding were made convenient and useful enough that he started doing it. Imagine that his neighbors started getting solar panels, to the point that he felt pressured to do it, and he became a power producer. Imagine he’s in the military and his platoon started insulating their tents and carrying solar water purifiers.

Next thing you know, he’s a guy who uses solar power and rides a bike. His behavior has changed, so he’s telling a different story about himself. That new story, that new identity — the guy who rides a bike and uses solar power — is much more likely to incorporate climate change concern than the previous one.

In other words, Gore may have had it exactly backwards. Belief doesn’t come first; action comes first. Changing people’s behavior — in small, incremental, but additive ways — is the best way to open their minds to the science. It all comes down to change on the ground. Climate hawks need to get smart about driving behavior change wherever they can. Those behavior changes will pull changes in consciousness in their wake.

~ David Roberts

The No Labels movement: Aiming for the political middle

This WSJ articlelooks at the No Labels movement.

I’m thinking No Labels. Tea Party. The Tea Party is practically an official Republican faction, and could make up its own third party if it were so brave and less parasitic.

No Labels?

Can we get some honest people in the government? Or are we forever doomed to corporate control and corruption?

Perhaps organizing a social movement to introduce new government parties or party factions is one way of getting trustworthy new leaders into the woodwork. Trustworthy?

If the No Labels movement grows, could they produce trustworthy, reliable, shrewd, and capable new leaders? Or are they just hollering for power, crying wolf without the ability to deliver?

David Gilmour, Lull My Soul to Peace

I love Pink Floyd. Eccentric, talented, deep, soul-piercing.

David Gilmour, lead singer of Pink Floyd, also has his own solo work based off Pink Floyd’s works. His voice is beautiful, natural, calming, mollifying. I am soothed, relaxed by his words.

We lay side by side
Between the moon and the tide
Mapping the stars for a while

Let the night surround you
We’re halfway to the stars
Ebb and flow
Let it go
Feel her warmth beside you

Columbine in China

Some heavy news for you today: Nine killed in school attack in China

There have been a string of murder rampages in the past couple of months, targeting schools and children, and using sharp knives like a kitchen cleaver. It’s similar to the Columbine shootings, but the perpetrator is always a middle-aged man. I see it as a symptom of society.

In June, a British medical journal published an analysis of mental health issues in four Chinese provinces and concluded that an estimated 91 percent of 173 million Chinese adults believed to be suffering mental problems never receive professional help.

Generally, repressive societies where freedom of expression is limited, mental problems are more prominent. Mental illness is extremely stigmatized in China.

Twenty.four.

The timing can’t be better. It’s my 24th birthday. I am caught between two worlds, shedding layers of old skin. Something new, more powerful, more beautiful, sensible, sophisticated, wants to emerge. Will it be okay for a new me to enter this world, will you accept me? What is holding me back? I fear the loss of old friendships. I don’t want to face my past mentalities and see that I did wrong, or could have done better. I don’t want to admit to error, fallacy, psychosis, or immaturity. But in the end, we will all suffer the same story. What better time than now? Good-bye, youth. Hello, adult. What is adult? Independence, liberation, intention, results, happiness. And still, it is not an overnight process. Today is another significant day on this path towards a better, more beautiful tomorrow. Today is a recognition of the inevitable, another attempt to embrace this great reality. Perhaps today I can have a better grasp.

I am reminded of this blog post, What is Dying to Be Born?

Something old must die for something new to be born. I must let go of the old to make room for the new. Something ugly must die for something beautiful to take place. What is ugly in me? Fear. Anxiety. Self Loathing. How can these die? Can they dissolve into thin air, as swiftly as they were made? I like to imagine them as such, fear leaving my body like a toxic smoked sucked out of my being, dispersing into the atmosphere where it may cause no further harm. In practice, fear is still ever-present. Will I recognize it and push it aside? I can. I must. Exert my will.

A Poem

For your reading pleasure… [untitled]

I am a wanderer,
An explorer of minds,
Of music, food, art,
Love.
An inquisitor to the beauty,
mystery, and darkness which surrounds
And envelopes us all.
I want to spill my soul,
My great findings of awe,
Yet keep it locked inside where
It may remain sacredly mine.
I am warm, I am cold.
I am here, and not.
I am inside my mind, pondering what is in yours.
I am at once experimenting, experiencing, observing,
Indulging in all of life’s offerings.
I want to be appreciated, but fear too much.
Or the wrong kind.
I have been plagued by the thoughts of Others.
I have heeded them, and ignored them.
I have incarnated again
Into a being more liberated, loving, empathetic, grounded,
Aware.
Never again shall I diverge from my path.
It is solely my own, arduous,
Twisting, winding, into corridors of great panic
And those of euphoric bliss.
Not to be understood by all, but perhaps a few
Who see that beauty lies more in the mysterious,
in the contradictory proclivities which constitute our nature,
Less in the everyday rules by which we govern ourselves.
And so I embark again,
Piecing myself together between antagonizing desires.
I wander through the woods, and
They reveal to me
A beautiful path to ride through.

QPuzzle

My dad wrote an iPhone app called QPuzzle, which essentially takes a photo included with the app or one from your own album, and randomizes it into a puzzle. It is quite nice and fun!

Some pics:

Download QPuzzle here. Visit developer’s website here.

Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World

A TED talk given by mycologist Paul Stamets. Some of my favorite points, better told in the talk:

1) Mushrooms create soil and are the bedrock of old growth forests.

2) Mycelia can eat petroleum and byproducts, turn these hydrocarbons into fungal carbon sugars, and produce more mushrooms! And if you keep letting it grow, eventually it will attract insects, which will lay eggs, and birds will come eat these larvae, and you have a whole new ecosystem!

3) Mushrooms are the richest source of antibiotics for humans.

4) Mushrooms can kill carpenter ants that are screwing up your home, and then after they are killed, they take over the ant’s body… To produce more mushrooms!

Watch this!!!!! and Enjoy!

Neat Links

I registered on another forum site, The Environment Site, and it has been pretty cool, lots of good feedback =]

Some cool things I discovered while perusing the forums:

Sustain Design Studio’s modular homes, which are much like trailers except they are meant for comfortable, year-round living. They aim to be sustainable, energy efficient, with off grid potential. It sounds pretty cool!

The Boston Indicators Project takes in a wealth of data and uses them as indicators for various aspects of community health. For example, indicators of sustainable development include studies on income inequality, access to public transportation, green buildings, etc. It would be great if we could learn to use this enormous amount of data in our policymaking.