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To Walk the High Road of Beauty (MLK)

9/4/2011

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The Tree of Life by Diana Bryer
We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. (Rachel Carson, from Silent Spring, 1962)

Being a leader is hard. "Leadership" is different from "management" - good leaders inspire, take risks and make strong stands, listen carefully, and surround themselves with wise people who will argue with them. They do not set out to prove themselves right... they work hard to do right, to do what is in the best interest of all. They do this in an inspirational way, looking deeply into their own vision as well as those of others, and moving creatively toward possibilities.

An effective leader does not do the expedient thing. While she listens carefully and considers others' ideas and hopes, she does not make difficult decisions primarily based upon whom she might please or displease in the moment.  She has to hold the future in her mind and heart at the same time she is firmly rooted in today. There are times when short-term benefits might yield significant long-term costs. 

Considering the future and thinking about the best interests of all - these are not simple perspectives to develop and promote, particularly in a culture driven by immediate gratification of individual needs and in a political system in which decisions rise and fall based on popularity stats and donated dollars.

So, a couple of things have come down the last couple of weeks, midst news of earthquakes, hurricanes, and tropical storms. A couple of important things, nationally and locally, that I hope we all think about.

First, under former Governor Rendell, Pennsylvania's government had been part of five federal environmental lawsuits supporting health protective regulations of greenhouse gas emissions and ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog. Under current Governor Corbett, the PA government has pulled out of these lawsuits. This is, unfortunately, consistent with the current administration's lack of action on another environmental front - there has been a failure to ensure that fracking and gas drilling along the Marcellus Shale area are safe activities, a failure to consider environmental safety issues impartially with the best interests of all in mind. 

Second - and we will see that simple party affiliation seems not to matter - this from the New York Times...                

                    President Obama abandoned a contentious new air pollution rule on Friday, buoying
                    business interests that had lobbied heavily against it, angering environmentalists who
                    called the move a betrayal and unnerving his own top environmental regulators.

It must be very difficult for Obama to juggle all of the needs presented to him, many of which he has inherited. I have no doubt that job growth is a high priority, that fixing the economy is important. At the same time, the sad -- oh so sad -- reality is that the least of us is hurt the most by a failure to give equal attention to the environment. Pollution of air and water is a social justice issue. Poor people are disproportionately exposed to pollutants that result in acute and chronic health problems. These are people who have the least power to effect change in the system - the least economic clout, the least access to high quality education and health care, the fewest opportunities to reverse trends that have plagued generations before them. 

Our economy may be protected - may be - in the short-term by decreasing regulation of industry-related air pollution, but the long-term costs of ignoring environmental issues are huge - in terms of damage to physical and mental health, stunted education and job preparation, and economic instability. The costs to the viability and sustainability of our ecosystem are enormous.

Maybe Obama has a plan - I am hoping that his decision to back off air pollution regulations is truly just a delay, that he will get back to this very soon. I am hoping that he keeps environmental issues in a prominent place on his desktop.

I don't have easy answers obviously. But I do think about what makes good leadership and have a few thoughts gleaned from conversations with Michael and Julie this weekend...
  • This semester, at Washington University, Julie is taking a Praxis course focusing on leadership. She related a class discussion about "energy" in leadership - and talked about how a leader must be aware of her own energy, up or down, positive or negative, and learn to manage it and to understand its sources. A leader must also be sensitive to the energy of her co-leaders and those she is leading -- must learn to "read" this energy accurately and to use this information in the leading and decision-making process.
I have thought about Julie's comments -- where is Obama's energy? what is its quality, its sources? what is the energy of those around him and the larger citizenry like right now? how might that affect his leadership?
 
When I try to put myself in Obama's shoes, I have a hard time imagining what it might feel like to carry as much responsibility as he does, what the nature of his work energy might be. Were I in his shoes, I suspect that, along with determination and hope, fear and uncertainty would be frequent visitors.  Who among us doesn't often feel afraid and uncertain in these times? Our lack of ultimate control over weather and natural events has been evident in recent weeks -- and the same goes for our economic system. And yet... and yet. There are ways of living long-term -- most of which will admittedly require change and unfamiliar perspectives and experiences -- that can begin to shift these things a bit into a better direction. 

Can a leader recognize fear and uncertainty when these feelings arise, in herself or in those around her? Can she understand how these feelings might affect her and her decision-making? A leader might fear making the wrong decision, letting people down, or not having enough information to really know the best decision. A strong leader must dig deep down into such uncertainty, then come back up to lead with clear-eyed strength and courage, avoiding compromises that are too, well, too compromising, avoiding paralysis. It must be hard - it must feel like Whack-A-Mole at Chuck E Cheese - you bop one problem down, and another two pop up - faster and faster.

I sense a different kind of fear among some industry leaders - a fear of a different future, in which power might be more equitably distributed. If this fear exists, one response is to do what is necessary to protect one's own power base. I might be wrong. I wish that I were wrong, that the vision of our leaders in government and industry extended well beyond themselves. Please tell me and show me that I am wrong.
  • Michael has recently started his job at BCG, which, according to its web-site and Michael's comments, is a global management consulting firm and the world's leading advisor on business strategy. Michael does not give me any details about the projects he is working on - this information is confidential (and I secretly think he loves telling me that he can't tell me stuff). But he has talked with me about the processes involved in the projects. He describes working on a team of really really bright people from all over the world who are not afraid to ask difficult questions - indeed, asking as many challenging questions as you can before drawing conclusions or making any recommendations or decisions is required. According to Michael, the team goes into a project without assumptions, or at least aware of assumptions which they will then question. The team does not work in order to support or prove a particular hypothesis or to buttress a pre-existing vision of how someone wants things to work out. The goal is to think it through from all angles - first just deciding how the questioning process should itself be framed - and then to draw some initial conclusions. I can see that this process might need to be repeated many times as new information emerges.
So I wonder what it would be like if the people leading us worked in this way? I guess I cannot assume they are not, but I am not seeing the evidence that they are.

Think again, think deeply, about what Rachel Carson said almost 50 years ago - The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. 

The other fork of the road does involve uncertainty and risk - it is, after all, less traveled and less familiar - but it also offers possibility. Possibility! What if? Can we? What if we were actually to step  off that too easy, smooth superhighway? I dream of each of us driving, leading into a future of possibility in our own small but significant ways, in our own corner of the world. 

Always remember that your own path, your own voice, matter. On the Resources page is information about how and where to communicate your ideas about what needs to be done.

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One year later...

4/20/2011

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Christian Science Monitor - 6-18-2010
The British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred one year ago. Or I should say - began one year ago. The spill stretched over weeks, and the devastation to animals, plants, water, and human well-being continues to this day. And the spill tragically affected a region that was barely recovering from Hurricane Katrina - a region with "a history of health disparities, environmental-justice concerns, recurrent impacts of natural disasters, and poor health metrics" (NEJM, 2011). 

I was at the Hibiscus Bed and Breakfast in Grayton Beach, Florida just a few weeks after the spill, and witnessed first hand how this event hurt the communities. I saw sadness, fear, and anger, and heard worries about how the region could economically survive the assault on its primary sources of income - tourism and recreation. Each day, citizens walked the beach to monitor the status of the water and shore, and reported back to community leaders who were making difficult decisions about how to respond.

What is the situation today? Research cited recently in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that, while the long-term effects of the oil spill on physical health of the human residents of the Gulf Coast are uncertain, there is clear evidence of negative effects on the residents' economic, mental, and social well-being. There is also clear evidence from a variety of sources that the damage to the region's ecosystems is vast. 

Also in the last year - floods, droughts, AND wildfires in Australia, the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear plant disaster in Japan, and floods and landslides following a cyclone in New Zealand - all related to natural disasters and extreme weather. Topic for another day - how has climate change and global warming affected the frequency and severity of extreme weather events? There is a connection. More directly related to human choice - ongoing mountain-top removal and related air and water contamination - and negative health outcomes - in West Virginia. These are just a few of thousands of environmental situations and events that put health and well-being at risk.

What rays of hope have we seen in the last year? I look for rays of hope each day when I read the news, and I do find them, midst the darkness. What shines most brightly for me are reports of the voices and actions of ordinary citizens and a few government agencies in protest against destruction to the environment and in support of healing and protection of the earth. There are many many examples of this - here are just a few:
  • Possible contamination of water by drilling for natural gas is a BIG issue in western PA -- and just last Tuesday in Pittsburgh, over 700 citizens turned out for a public forum to discuss the Marcellus Shale project - both to educate themselves and to speak their concerns. That is 700!
  • In related news, the PA Department of Environmental Protection asked the state's natural gas drillers to stop delivering contaminated water to water treatment plants, setting a May 19 deadline - don't know yet what will happen if the drillers don't comply, but it is a start.
  • Activists in Chicago occupied a local coal plant, protesting its pollution of nearby residences, restaurants, shops, and schools.
  • In West Virginia, a march on Blair Mountain is planned for June 5-11, 2011, to demand an end to coal-mining via mountain-top removal, a strengthening of labor rights, and a transition to a sustainable economy.
I could cite many, many more rays of hope. Scan your local paper and another paper like the NY Times each day - buried under the heavy news about corporate influence of government, extreme weather events, and the spread of radioactive substances from the earthquake-tsunami area to places thousands of miles away, you will see glimmers of courage and strength. And when you read or hear about something that makes you angry - that threatens the well-being of your children, go right to the Resources page and let someone who has power in the government know how you feel and what you want. Teach your children to do the same.

We ordinary citizens are beginning to really understand that everything is connected, that damage to the earth affects human health and well-being in addition to the ecosystem, and that humans can make better choices in the interests of our grandchildren's futures. 

 



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All I Really Need...

4/1/2011

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Gotta love Raffi... All I really need is a song in my heart.... And I need some clean air for breathing...

Wednesday night, I attended a symposium about air pollution in western PA. Speakers included the authors of a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series on Mapping Mortality, Don Hopey and David Templeton, EPA representatives, climate and pollution scientists, and most important, residents of communities who have felt first-hand the negative effects of pollution caused by coal-burning electricity plants. These effects are not small - they include chronic asthma and respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and significant property devaluation. The daily lives and futures of citizens have been damaged.

What did I know going in? I knew that, as Alan Kazdin, former president of the American Psychologist Association, has said - sustainability, climate change, and environmental problems are wicked problems that have multiple causes and no simple solutions. I knew that thinking about these wicked problems is challenging and often disheartening - they feel so big and unwieldy, so out of the control of individuals or communities. I knew that, nevertheless, it is important to keep learning and to keep talking to people who know what is going on and have ideas about what to do.


What did I learn? Many things - my head is still spinning - but here are a few:
  • big corporations that pollute will seldom initiate efforts to reduce pollution from their industries without outside regulation
  • outside regulation is often not sufficient - enforcement of the regulations is necessary
  • some companies would rather pay fines than make necessary changes
  • many plants in western PA are becoming compliant with EPA standards.... from 1997.... they are nowhere near compliant with current standards
  • the federal government is currently considering reducing the power of the EPA to deal effectively with threats to the environment, including threats to clean air
  • this is in spite of the fact the the Clean Air Act and the EPA have had significant positive impacts on citizen health and longevity since their inception a few decades ago
  • few electricity generating plants are built next to the homes of CEOs
  • speaking up as a citizen is important - it is true that the squeaky wheel can get attention - it does take a lot of time and energy, but it can result in change
  • there are lots and lots of good people out there - professionals and ordinary citizens - who are doing this work
In the coming days, I will create a new page with information about how to contact your government officials about issues related to the environment (or other concerns). Stay tuned...


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Dedicated to Julie and Michael...

All I Really Need by Raffi

All I Really Need is a Song in my Heart
Food in my belly and love in my Family
All I Really Need is a Song in my Heart
And love in my family

And I need the rain to fall
And I need the sun to shine
To give life to the seeds we sow
To give the food we need to grow, grow

And I need some clean water for drinking (Drinking)
And I need some clean air for breathing (Breathing)
So that I can grow up strong and take my place where I belong

All I Really Need is a Song in my Heart
Food in my belly and love in my Family
All I Really Need is a Song in my Heart
And love in my family

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    Author

    Mary Beth Mannarino is a licensed psychologist and   an environmental and climate educator and activist. Dr. Mannarino is professor emeritus at Chatham University where she continues to teach courses to students in health professions related to environment and well-being.

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    Follow MBMannarino on Twitter
    My Bloggy Rules...
    I write about my own experiences, opinions, dreams, and ideas. I invite you to share your ideas, and to be part of a dialogue. I will make mistakes! But it is great to take the risk to put this out there and, more importantly, to hear from you.

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