An exploration of how insights in adult psychological development can enable more effective and transformative advocacy for climate justice
Select Fridays, September 11 – December 4, 2020, 9–10:30 am Pacific
Hosted by Abigail Lynam & Lucía Oliva Hennelly with guest speakers and offered in partnership with Reconstitute Initiative
This program is SOLD OUT.
One of the main challenges confronting the climate movement is how to appeal to both hearts and minds in order to move people into the kind of sustained, collective action that undergirds successful social movements. Recent field testing and research have shown that many Americans simply do not understand the problem and even fewer believe it will affect them. Others who want to affect change may struggle in their effectiveness. Insights for how advocates can overcome this challenge to activism can be gleaned from the field of adult developmental psychology. Social movement theory (McAdam 2017) has articulated that inadequate “framing processes” is one of the major factors contributing to the lack of significant grassroots activism and transformative collective action on climate change in the U.S. Understanding the developmental patterns that shape how people make meaning of climate change and what might motivate them to act can inform how we frame climate initiatives. Global change scholar, Gail Hochachka (2019), further emphasizes that how people make meaning of climate change affects their actions.
This Zoom-based offering intends to pick up where traditional climate advocacy leaves off: exploring the interior or psycho-social dimensions of people’s engagement, or lack thereof with climate change, including meaning-making, culture, cognition, world-views, awareness and understanding of systems dynamics. Research in adult development helps us understand not only what people believe about climate change, but why they believe it, and how they see themselves as agents of change or not. Understanding this can help change agents navigate values-based conflicts and design solutions or campaigns that address the needs and motivations of different communities.
Cost
We are asking participants to make a contribution to the program that will help offset program development and delivery costs and provide a modest honorarium to contributors. Suggested donation: $100–$250. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Intended outcomes:
To explore, evolve, and organize ideas and insights from research on adult developmental psychology in ways that are insightful and actionable for climate advocacy
To support participants to build foundational knowledge about adult psychological development and its application to climate work.
To support deepening self- and other-awareness regarding mindsets, meaning-making, development of consciousness and the implications for climate action
To extend the application of the study of human interiors (psycho-social development) to social change work and in particular climate advocacy.
To create relationships and collective learning experience among change agents and researchers interested in advancing climate action in North America (and beyond!)
To develop a practical handbook on adult development for climate advocates (that Lucia and Abigail will write), with other contributing authors
Who should participate:
This offering will be of most use to:
climate justice advocates of all stripes who seek to deepen their impact by learning about how people make meaning about climate change and what might motivate or demotivate their involvement, as well as developing skills in engaging people with different mindsets and values.
developmentally-informed researchers and practitioners passionate about applying adult development in the field of climate advocacy, specifically the climate justice movement.
Schedule
All sessions will be available as recordings and we ask that participants make a firm commitment to at least 5 of the 7 sessions to help maintain continuity throughout the program.
Dates: Fridays (7 sessions) - Sept. 11, Sept. 25, Oct. 9, Oct. 23, Nov. 6, Nov. 20, Dec. 4
Time: 12pm–1:30pm Eastern / 9am–10:30am Pacific
Session 1 - Friday, Sept 11
Getting started together – setting the context within the current crisis and building relationships and a strong container for the work together
Session 2 - Friday, Sept 25
Foundations of adult development – Understanding the framework(s) and how they can support transformative change
Session 3 - Friday, Oct 9
Accounting for cultural contexts & addressing social equity – with Sushant Shrestha & Akasha Saunders
Session 4 - Friday, Oct 23
How people make meaning about climate change – using psychological development to “meet people where they’re at” – with Gail Hochachka & Karen O’Brien
Session 5 - Friday, Nov 6
Application and action (1 of 2): a discussion with “practitioners” leading developmentally-informed social change work – with Stephan Martineau and Abby Ruskey
Session 6 - Friday, Nov 20
Application and action (2 of 2): a discussion with aligned practitioners from other social movement frameworks/modalities including Dr. Simon Divecha and Zack Walsh
Session 7 - Fri, Dec 4
Completion & next steps: an opportunity for shared reflection and integration, and to discuss next steps
Participants are asked to make a firm commitment to attend at least 5 of the 7 sessions to help maintain continuity throughout the program. All participants will receive access to recordings of the sessions.
Seminar Faculty
Hosts
Lucía Oliva Hennelly, M.S., is an interdisciplinary problem solver and collaboration catalyst passionate about solution-making at the intersections of climate change and social justice. As a climate advocacy professional, Lucía’s expertise is in cultivating authentic, durable collaborations that enable us to meet the demands the ecological crisis places on us individually and collectively. Trained at Stanford University in interdisciplinary environmental science and policy, Lucía has worked on campaigns, policy, and advocacy alongside some of the country’s foremost organizers over the last decade. Lucía currently works at the Climate Advocacy Lab and is also developing {re}CONSTITUTE, a leadership development program for rising climate justice leaders. Originally from Santa Fe, NM, Lucía now lives, works from, and practices at Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji, a Rinzai Zen training monastery in the Catskill mountains.
Abigail Lynam, PhD, is faculty for Fielding University’s PhD program in Human and Organizational Development and for Pacific Integral’s Generating Transformative Change leadership development program in Seattle and Ethiopia. Abigail’s scholarship and practice integrates the interior dimensions of human knowledge and experience (culture, worldviews, adult developmental psychology, wisdom traditions, etc.) with adult learning, leadership development, and social and ecological change work. She lives in the Seattle area and is passionate about supporting personal, interpersonal, and collective development for healthier and more just systems.
Contributing Speakers
Gail Hochachka, Ph.D.c, is a doctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo and is currently based at UBC as a visiting scholar in the Social-Ecological Systems Research Group. Her research is in climate change adaptation and transformations to sustainability. She co-founded Integral Without Borders Institute and has taught at John F. Kennedy University as well as at the University of Oslo. Gail’s enduring interest is on how to better understand and integrate the deeper human dimensions of global environmental change in a more comprehensive, integral, and transformative approach.
Sushant Shrestha, M.A., a founding partner at Humanitas Smart Planet Fund, is a researcher, analyst, and strategist in Social Finance, Smart Planet Technologies, Private Equity Valuation, and Investing and Transdisciplinary and Transformative Project Design. Sushant is a Research Fellow at Blockchain@UBC, University of British Columbia, and an adjunct professor at John F. Kennedy University. His research and data modeling integrates the fields of social finance, data science, blockchain, digital humanities, developmental psychology, and transdisciplinary studies. His current work includes a project on indigenous modernity with Dena’ina Athabascan community in collaboration with Alaska National Park Services and a financial equity project in Nepal in partnership with Kathmandu University. He worked as a Finance Director overseeing operations of five startups in three countries. He has worked with several companies in California as a business analyst and strategy consultant.
Photo credit: Jackman Photography
Karen O’Brien, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is also co-founder of cCHANGE, a company that supports transformation in a changing climate. Karen has 30 years of research experience, with an emphasis on the social and human dimensions of climate change and implications for human security. Karen’s current research focuses on the relationship between climate change adaptation and transformations to sustainability, with an emphasis on the role of creativity, collaboration, empowerment, and narratives. She is particularly interested in the role of beliefs, values, world views, and paradigms in generating conscious social change, and this includes an exploration of the potential for “quantum social change.” Karen has participated in four reports for the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change, and as part of the IPCC was a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2019 she was named by Web of Science as one of the world’s most influential researchers of the past decade.
Akasha Saunders, Ph.D., PCC
Nothing brings more joy to Akasha than supporting people’s growth and helping organizations foster deliberately inclusive cultures. He is an Associate with Cultivating Leadership and a consultant with Solfire Consulting Group. He designs and facilitates interventions that supports adult development and intercultural competence. He has worked with colleagues to develop and co-facilitate the Dare to Connect and Leading Inclusively programs. Akasha is a pilgrim and developmental coach. He teaches Developmental Psychology and Gender Inequality at St. George’s University in Grenada. His primary research interest is in cross-cultural adult vertical development. Akasha holds a Ph.D. in Human Development from Fielding Graduate University. He is credentialed through the International Coach Federation (ICF) as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC). He is ever on the move and spends most of his time between Grenada and Bermuda with his partner, their son, and a very protective cockapoo dog.
Abby Ruskey, M.S. is pursuing a Ph.D. at UC Merced where she is helping establish the University California system’s Center for Climate Justice. Abby is returning to the academy, after many years in the field as an action scientist, in order to delve more deeply into questions and research regarding individual and collective agency and capacities for local to global quantum systems change. She has worked with and learned from indigenous educators and wisdom tradition leaders and has developed an appreciation for the many ways of learning, knowing, and doing that are available to humanity at this time. Abby has researched and written books, strategic documents, articles, and policies geared towards empowering people to leverage their social position and resources in concert with others for substantive change. A newly published article in Environmental Research Letters may be of interest to participants of this session along with a climate solutions STEM Teaching Tool soon to be published. A current member of the UNFCCC Education-Communications-Outreach stakeholders (ECOS) steering committee and the founder of her local Youth-Education-Communication-Outreach (YECO) initiative, Abby seeks to continuously engage and link local to global networks.
Stephan Martineau, is a futurist and integrated systems change maker. His lifelong passion and pursuit is to move beyond ideas and theory to on-the-ground implementation of a potential future. In this vein he has focused on building and developing community through myriad avenues. He is the founder of the Slocan Integral Forestry Coop (SIFCo) and manager of 35,000+ acres of forested land in British Columbia, Canada, becoming a global expert on climate change adaptation in forestry, ecosystem-based management, economic diversification and bioregional/community resiliency; Founder of an intentional community (1992-2002), hosting the Global Living Project (six-week sustainability course for graduate students), researching/developing collective intelligence technologies, and developing communication and conflict resolution skills for graceful, effective communal living; Founder and president of Next Step Integral, a non-profit organization applying integral vision to Community, Parenting, Education and Ecology, with emphasis on transformative educational events (online and in-person conferences and seminars); Project management of Co-housing Development (2012 - 2015): The Heddlestone Village; Former boardmember of the Kootenay Coop; Co-designer (with his wife) of the Integral Parenting philosophy and methodology, influencing thousands of families around the world. Stephan loves finding fulcrum points for collective transformation. He currently lives with his family in the beautiful mountains of British Columbia, Canada, where he enjoys carpentry, alternative housing, permaculture, and homesteading.
Zack Walsh is a Senior Researcher of Economics and Governance at the One Project. From 2016-2020, he was a Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany where he co-led the A Mindset for the Anthropocene (AMA) project. He has completed doctoral coursework in Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology, and is a fellow of the Courage of Care Coalition and a partner of the Institute for Ecological Civilization.
Dr. Simon Divecha has been addressing climate change and sustainability for three decades. He's both an award-winning academic and a highly sought-after international consultant for all things related to climate change, carbon management, and sustainability. "We’ve moved from climate change being something important we address to it being a human imperative. We’ve known the technical solutions for two or three decades, but this is essentially a human problem. By which I mean it is as much about individuals’ cares and values and our societies' way of acting as it is about money, profitability, business models and government policies.“ Based internationally, Simon established and ran Adelaide University's Business School Carbon Management program. Alongside this, he continues to explore climate change implications for individuals, organizations, and cities and co-founded (be) Benevolution to support this. Simon’s work runs across environmental, social, community and business issues. He has considerable experience in identifying opportunities for collaboration and change at the local, regional and global levels.