Technology with the Environment in Mind

Green Homeowners as Lead Adopters: Sustainable Living and Green Computing

SOCIAL CHANGES IN ENVIRONMENTALISM

To set the stage for our research, it is important to consider the broader context of environmentalism. Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s [5, 6], environmentalism in the Western world began to change from a counterculture movement with a focus on saving endangered species and preserving the integrity of their ecosystems to a more holistic approach that began to integrate social, economic, and political considerations into ecology. This shift was accompanied by changes in terminology as well and is probably best represented by the increasingly common usage of the term "sustainability."

In keeping with this more holistic perspective, our participants' motivations for taking environmental action were wide ranging: they included everything from religious values to a desire to save on home energy bills to new forms of patriotism that focus on reducing dependence on foreign oil. In a recent report, Euromonitor [7] cites four primary drivers for sustainable behavior that may explain some of the rapid growth of interest and action in this area, especially among those who have not traditionally self-identified as environmentalists. These include motivators such as saving money by saving energy, a desire for a healthy home, freedom from guilt associated with purchasing environmentally-damaging products from ethically compromised companies, and an appreciation for "unspoiled nature." Janet's story below (in her own words) is evidence of a wide range of motivations, and it illustrates how reasons to take environmental action are not necessarily altruistic, or even always "green" (note that participants' names have been changed in order to protect anonymity):

Janet: Motherhood was really what got me on this. There is nothing like having children to plug you into the future and it so happened that when I came to California in '66 I felt as though I was coming home although I had never been here before. And I think one of the reasons that it felt that way is because I was able to reconnect to nature here in a way that I hadn't on the east coast for many years. And so I joined many environmental organizations and their newsletters and magazines provided me with my environmental education. And so in the 70s I was already aware of some of the environmental problems that were kind of lurking in the wings waiting to make their entrance on stage before mainstream media picked it up at all.

And so as I learned more and more about that, I became really concerned about my children's future and the future of all of life on Earth and that is what started me on my quest was, you know, I came to realize that it is our modern urban lifestyle except for the military which does do a lot of environmental junk damage. It is true. But other than the military, one can trace back virtually all of our environmental problems to our modern urban lifestyle which is that was me. You know. I was living it. And so it was both empowering and overwhelming. I decided to go with the empowering.

And so I started to just look into, well, how can I change my lifestyle so that it is not so destructive to the environment but is less destructive and maybe even in some ways can help to support three generations of a healthy environment within an urban setting. That was the big challenge of it because the resources that I had for these systems were magazines like Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening that were targeting really rural folk.

But as I read them and then I read it in my environmental magazines about the problems, I began to put the two together and realize well here I have a front yard and a back yard. There are a lot of these strategies that are described in...Organic Gardening magazine and Mother Earth News that I can implement right here just having a front and back yard. So that's what started me. I have a perfect little mini cosmos here to use as my lab to see if I can create a lifestyle that doesn't destroy the environment, you know. So that's what started me off. My children and my environment. So I don't have any formal training, although when I started my front yard I did take some courses in horticulture and native plants and landscape design and things like that to give me some skills that I didn't have.

As these more integrated views began to spread, some previously held positions within environmentalism began to be questioned and challenged. In particular, a notable shift away from critiques of technology began to take place, and a new optimism arose that technology and design could provide solutions to environmental challenges. Wikipedia describes this phenomenon (sometimes labeled "bright green environmentalism") accordingly:

"Bright green environmentalism aims for a society that relies on new technology and improved design to achieve gains in ecological sustainability without reducing (indeed, increasing) the potential for economic growth. Its proponents tend to be particularly enthusiastic about green energy, hybrid automobiles, efficient manufacturing systems and bio and nanotechnologies, [and] are supportive of dense urban settlements. 'One-planet living' is a frequently heard buzz-phrase.

Their ideas can be contrasted with what they consider traditional environmentalism: pessimistic, return-to-primitivism, unattractive, 'dark green' ideas that depend on a reduction in human numbers or a relinquishment of technology to reduce humanity's impact on the Earth's ecosphere."

Together, bright green environmentalism and the increasingly holistic view of the environment have set the stage for an expanded understanding of environmentalism in the Western world. It is here that the media—sparked in large part by rising energy costs, an unstable oil supply associated with conflict in the Middle East, major climate events such as Hurricane Katrina, and Al Gore's clear depiction of the causes and consequences of global climate change in An Inconvenient Truth—gripped the public imagination with an appeal far broader than 1960s counterculture-based environmentalism. As a consequence, people began to identify ways in which they personally could take environmental action without necessarily adhering strictly to the traditional strategies of protest and political action. Some called it the birth of green consumerism.

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