“Consumption is a tricky issue for us, but we need to start talking about it.”
So says Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. This is welcome news. Like the other big environmental NGOs, NRDC has shied away from telling people what to eat (less red meat and dairy), what kinds of cars to drive (smaller ones), whether to fly (not too much) or how many homes to own (one).
Peter Lehner
That may be about to change.
I spoke to Lehner last week after a three-day symposium on Climate, Mind and Behavior, sponsored by NRDC and the Garrison Institute, a nonprofit whose program on “transformational ecology” is led by Jonathan F.P. Rose, a New York real estate developer who also sits on NRDC’s board. The event was designed explore ways to change behavior on a scale big enough to have a major impact on global GHG emissions.
The stellar group of participants included environmentalists (Paul Hawken, Van Jones and Gus Speth), investors and business people (Mark Fulton and Bruce Kahn of Deutsche Bank, Jesse Fink of MissionPoint Capital Partners, Jack Jacometti of Shell) and academics (Dr. Benjamin Barber, John Gowdy of RPI, Jon Krosnick of Stanford and Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale).
The headline out of the event: Simple and inexpensive changes could reduce global warming emissions by one billion tons. [click to continue…]
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