Behavioral Change Journal Blog

Ecological Behavioral Change Goal: eating meat only when I know it’s local.

Over the past few weeks I have made an effort to only eat meat when I know that it’s from a local source. I have not been completely successful, due to the inconvenience and honestly my own laziness, but I have definitely cut down on my non-local meat consumption, and consequently, on my meat consumption altogether.

Talking to others about what I was doing helped me to change my perception of myself, and to see myself as more environmentally concerned. Even when I would admit to others that I had not been completely successful at abstaining from non-local meat, I still felt a sense of myself as environmentally conscious when I heard myself describing this goal that affects my daily life.

My parents were in town this past week, and when they asked me why I was doing this, and for the first time I had to explain it to a non-academic audience, it made me realize how much I don’t actually know about the reasons for doing this. I felt like a fraud, but in a way that just made me laugh at myself. I am used to being around people here in academia and in the liberal culture of Ithaca who don’t request an explanation because they have been indoctrinated with the reasons. And the main reason I chose to take on this goal in the first place is because of people whom I respect who were doing it, so I automatically assumed that it was something I should do too. I know many of the reasons on a basic level, but having to explain it to someone who knew absolutely nothing about it really made it clear how much more I should familiarize myself with the issue.

I had hoped that the changes I wanted to make to my diet would naturally influence my husband’s dietary choices as well, thereby creating a supportive and encouraging situation for us to motivate each other. However, while he has undoubtedly tried to help me with my goal by buying more non-meat choices for me, I haven’t noticed a big decline in his own non-local-meat consumption. It has made it very easy for me to “cheat” on my diet when he brings home a pepperoni pizza with pepperoni from who knows how far away.

I have tried to motivate myself with some prompts. I put a bumper sticker from Olivia’s Restaurant that says “Local Meat” on my refrigerator, and a little sign I printed out from the “100 Mile Diet” website that has the little bunny in the city saying “Why Eat Local” to remind myself to find out more about why I am doing this – which helps in those moments of weakness when I am hungry for meat even if I’m pretty sure it’s not local.

Social Change Goal(s):
- connecting the Ithaca Children’s Garden to a Cornell grant
and/or
- connecting our class to sustainable-themed films

After speaking with Harriet Becker, a co-founder of the Ithaca Children’s Garden, and hearing that they have been hoping to collaborate with a Cornell research project in order to get more secure (and sustainable!) funding, I realized I might be able to act as a bridge and connect her with a professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, Ardyth Gillespie, whom I worked with over the summer. Much of the work I did on the research team with Ardyth over the summer involved efforts to stem the rising tide of childhood obesity, and hearing about the projects at ICG such as their salad garden sounded like a perfect opportunity for collaboration. I have been talking to Harriet about this and she is putting together some ideas they would like me to take to Ardyth.

In the meantime, I am also trying to coordinate with either the CRP film series or Cornell Roots and Shoots to show a couple of films that have really influenced me on the theme of sustainable design that I’d like to share with our class. Thanks to suggestions from people in the class, instead of starting my own project which would have not had nearly as much potential for success as attaching on to something already in the works like the CRP group or Roots and Shoots. So far I haven’t been able to reach anyone from Roots and Shoots, but I have been corresponding with a really helpful girl named Sarah with the CRP group and she seems just as interested as I am in working together! Maya in our class emailed me right after class with Sarah’s contact information. Without the opportunity to discuss my social change ideas and difficulties in class, I don’t think I would have made any progress so far. I just love this evidence of everything we are reading and talking about; that sustainable change thrives with supportive community involvement!

One Page Reflection: Journal

For this week's reflection, I must admit that I am a bit confused. Should we be writing our reflections about our journals or about the assigned reading in Ecocities? Also, are we reading a chapter of our choice in Ecocities or are we reading all of the chapters listed? In any event, in the interest of time, I am going to write this week's reflection about my journal.

I began my journal writing experience extremely lost and a bit uncertain. As I mentioned during a class session, although I have been introduced to theories of environmental stability I have never been asked to put those theories into practice. Actually, I guess I have been asked, but I have never seriously challenged myself to make these types of behavioral changes in my life. For me, this expectation to write about my experiences has forced me to make a serious effort to put theory into practice. Interestingly, much of what we have been discussing with Agyeman, falls along the same lines. Agyeman challenges environmental organizations to put their theories of Just Sustainability into practice. Certainly as a planning student I recognize and fully accept the importance of developing ecologically and socially sustainable communities. Looking at the larger picture, I understand why these concepts are extremely important. BUT as they apply to my own personal life, I have never been able to put them into practice. This journal writing experience has been challenging, but it has also been extrenely positive. It is making me accountable and making me take on the difficult task of practicing what I preach.

Journal Entry: September 4, 2007

I'm sitting at my desk attempting to write in my journal, but all I can think about is how horribly I've failed at this behavioral change experiement. Even as I sit here writing, all of my lights are on as well as the television and fan. Not to mention the fact that my garbage, which is begging to be taken out, is unrecycled. The personal goals that I set at the beginning of the semester were rather general. I set out to recycle my garbage and conserve energy more efficiently. I thought that setting general goals would somehow increase my chances of accomplishing them. That obviously is not the case. So, I am going to turn off some lights and take my garbage out, right after I seperate the recyclable from the non recyclable items. I'm a little bit worried though about turning off the fan. My room gets unbearably hot. Its an old house that I live in and the heat gets insufferable. I think I'll leave the fan on and one lamp. Well, maybe I'll leave two lamps on. It's a little bit difficult to write in my journal in the dark. I'm defiantely going to turn the television off though. That appliance is definately unecessary.

In regards to my social interactions, that's coming along just as slowly. My relationships at the moment are in a fixed position. The people that I spoke to yesturday are the same people that I spoke to today and I'm certain that they will be the same people that I'll speak to tomorrow. To add to that, we talk about the same things everyday. Writing in this journal is making me realize how stagnant my relationships are and in some ways how two dimensional they are. I'm going to make an amendment to my social interactions behavioral change experiment. Everyday, I am going to share something new about myself to the people that I trust and love. This will force me to create a deeper more meaningful relationship with the people around me and help me move closer to achieving my goals.

Journal Reflection

Above are pictures of my lettuce garden which I began before this class started but is a huge part of my behavior change centered around trying to purchase only locally grown produce (and its even bigger now!). As we have already thinned the lettuces for many salads and they continue to grow it is great to see a little part of nature and food production on my porch. I have also committed to including more fruits and vegetables in my daily diet. I think my first roadblock/barrier was the assumption that it would be really easy. However, I noticed after the first couple weeks that everytime I went to the store, I simply bought what looked good and what was cheapest. I felt guilty buying more organic and expensive produce because I feel I should be living as cheaply as possible in grad school. After identifying this barrier and noticing that it happened on several occaisions I decided to buy our produce exclusively at the Farmer's Market. For three weeks now I have attended the DeWitt Farmer's Market, only two blocks from my house, every Tuesday (and it is made even easier after being inspired by class earlier in the day). I know by shopping at the FM I can achieve my goal, and while there I can still make choices that I feel are cost effective, so I feel I am reaching my goal while still conserving my money. I've done CSA's in the past and by shopping at the FM I am reminded that as an avid cook I really enjoy having a limited amount of choices (ie things in season and local). It is more inspiring because you have to be more creative in working with produce that you haven't cooked with before or adapting a new vegetable into a favorite recipe.

So how I overcame this barrier was to reread the Tools of Behaviour Change. In my journal I made a list of small steps that would help me overcome my barrier. My list is as follows: 1. Before writing in my journal I will read over my initial goals, being mindful that they may have changed. 2. Establish Sundays, when I usually write my blog to be one of the two days I journal. It is a good time to write after just having been introspective about an academic article. 3. Refine my goals to include some smaller milestones I can meet along the way. 4. Speand more time identifying barriers and creating direct solutions. Creating this list helped put my journaling into a framework that I could follow and setting a schedule helped me make a commitment to myself to stick to it.

Journal Reflection

Journal Reflection Blog Entry

Writing in the journal has been helpful in that it sets goals for me and keeps me focused. As mentioned in class, for my ecological lifestyle change I have decided to put a compost pile into my backyard in order to reduce the amount of waste going to the dump. I still need to actually go to Loews to get the materials for it, but I know how they work now and how to build one. My social change is a little more broad- I simply want to be able to communicate with my friends better how they can also become more environmentally conscious. I’ve seen some success with this so far- my housemates are showing interest in the compost pile and asking me what they will be able to put in it, where it will be in the yard, etc. The entry I have included below is a summary of some of the info I found on composting structures. Since writing this, I have actually decided to build something similar to the snow-fence design, but using chicken wire- my dad said this would be cheaper and easier to make.

September 11
So I am currently debating between constructing a snow-fence holding unit or employing a soil incorporation method. I did a Google search on how to build composting structures and a University of Missouri site turned up which lists several different types of structures and provides diagrams and instructions. The advantage with a snow-fence structure would be that when I have organic waste to dispose of, all I need to do is throw it into the bin. They’re relatively inexpensive to make and easy to construct as well. As long as I don’t throw away anything fatty or animal products, I should be able to avoid attracting rodents. With soil incorporation on the other hand, the items to be composted would be covered at all times. However, every time I would want to throw waste out, I would have to shovel out the dirt on top and replace it again. I don’t have a shovel, so cost-wise I might not be that much better off using this method than the snow-fence one once I buy the shovel. Also, I might have an easier time getting my housemates to compost if all they have to worry about is throwing waste into a bin.