So often what I face in my day-to-day eco-worklife is the same issue that we all face in our day-to-day lives. Soundbites. People who have already heard all they want to hear [insert person covering their ears and saying 'la la la laaaa']. There are real hazards of people not being able to listen with empathy and understand another perspective. We all have an inherent fear and ego of allowing ourselves to be challenged (let alone be proven wrong). But it’s an absolute must, not just on the society but on the personal level.
I have so many posts I’ve wanted to write these last months as I transitioned jobs and made big life changes to a shiny new city. This is the thing I wanted to say that tipped the scales (never fear though, Pope-est with the Mostest and Laudato Si will be coming in hot. Soon.) And it’s all thanks to a communications lead at Monsanto.
Last year I came to SXSW Eco and sat in the panel session when Monsanto underwent what I can only describe as a live feeding frenzy of pent-up anti-GMO fervor. A courageous woman from Monsanto did one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen from a sustainability professional: she invited more conversation in the heat of the moment. Which is exactly what these most thorny issues desperately need the most. Real dialogue. But how do we get there? How do we increase everyone’s personal responsibility to listen better?
I have so many posts I’ve wanted to write these last months as I transitioned jobs and made big life changes to a shiny new city. This is the thing I wanted to say that tipped the scales (never fear though, Pope-est with the Mostest and Laudato Si will be coming in hot. Soon.) And it’s all thanks to a communications lead at Monsanto.
Last year I came to SXSW Eco and sat in the panel session when Monsanto underwent what I can only describe as a live feeding frenzy of pent-up anti-GMO fervor. A courageous woman from Monsanto did one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen from a sustainability professional: she invited more conversation in the heat of the moment. Which is exactly what these most thorny issues desperately need the most. Real dialogue. But how do we get there? How do we increase everyone’s personal responsibility to listen better?
Photo courtesy of: https://canadiansituations.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/monsanto-protest_7946.jpg
On the issue itself, ever since reading a compelling article about GMOs helping reduce pesticides for oranges I’ve landed on the place that what people rail against in anti-GMO is really against a subset of GMOs and the entire science has gotten runover in the frenzy. I can't say I'm excited at the idea of plants making their own pesticides (freaked out too!), but I'm open to learning what science has to say about it. To understand the technology used in GMOs is to understand better how science has and will continue to work. (Thank you Microbiology class as part of my failed attempt to be pre-med in college…at least that C+ counts for something on this basic know how!) The CTO of Monsanto just spoke here at the conference and connected this conversation with the larger anti-science themes that crop up (pun intended) in climate change and vaccines. Dude has a point. Seriously.
But this post is not about the issue. It’s about listening. And why we don’t do more of it. Ultimately that all comes down to the harsh truth that has led us all to soundbites. All of us. Every person likes to think that they deep dive into issues and are above the fray of soundbites…and yet none of us have enough time *to* dive into issues to the extent we should. Case in point, who reads every label of the products they buy? I’m *in* sustainability and I don’t (I do buy from brands I trust to be more eco, but then like a normal consumer, call it a day).
In the wake of the overwhelming amount of issues and the intensity in which people often scream about them, we all do one thing consistently. Listen to people we trust. This is the reason why Facebook is so powerful on the whole and why marketers always strive for that precious word of mouth. Except it has one big gaping risk: the echochamber. People who agree with each other often segregate themselves into a subcommunity that agrees with itself, ad infinitum.
So it’s important to listen to the other perspective and to find ways and hacks so that you become truly open to new information. Mine? I thank my lucky enviroish stars that the first weekend in college I met the woman who would become one of my best friends. She is a conservative from a sheep and cattle ranch in the northwest of Colorado and one of the most intelligent people I know. The issues that crop up in her life of agricultural law challenge me to think about my progressive environmental stances. In the last week, her family’s ranch was a story on NPR Marketplace regarding pay and I know that because I know her, I listened more deeply on this issue. I cherish our relationship all the more because we don't always agree and can be respectful about it.
I’m here at SXSW Eco again, and yet again it’s my favorite sustainability/environmental conference. Kind of this small-d democratic counteroffering to the traditional big sustainability conferences. Example. Yesterday in a panel about how tech is helping on palm oil, the panel is Rainforest Action Network (activist NGO), WRI (solutions/big NGO), a major chocolate company, and a palm oil plantation company. Points were debated and refined in real time among these various stakeholders and it was amazeballs. Challenge. Your. Thinking. Then rinse, repeat.
Last year at this conference, I sat in the audience at a panel on GMOs that put Monsanto in the crosshairs. And how did they respond? They brought their CTO this year and committed to engaging with consumers in conversation on these issues. Acknowledging that they are scientists that talked to farmers but not the public at large and need to do better at communications. The correlation to climate scientists is obvious and real. And I admire the backbone of their company culture to stay engaged in the conversation. The power of Legal inside corporate America is a very real factor that can impede open dialogue, and so I take a huge hats off to Monsanto for deepening their engagement in this conversation. That’s what the world needs. That’s how we’re going to find solutions. Enviroish kudos to that.
I started enviroish on the principle that everyone can take actions – big or small – to be mindful of their impact on others and the planet. To not let the label “environmentalist” get in the way of actually doing good things that make sense. Learning to listen to each other is an extension of that credo, this belief I have that at our cores everyone is good and cares. Because I believe that the ties that bind us together in trying to do good will always be greater than the ties that divide.
I look forward to being a small part of this conversation. What do you think? Who or what do you rely on to challenge your thinking?
But this post is not about the issue. It’s about listening. And why we don’t do more of it. Ultimately that all comes down to the harsh truth that has led us all to soundbites. All of us. Every person likes to think that they deep dive into issues and are above the fray of soundbites…and yet none of us have enough time *to* dive into issues to the extent we should. Case in point, who reads every label of the products they buy? I’m *in* sustainability and I don’t (I do buy from brands I trust to be more eco, but then like a normal consumer, call it a day).
In the wake of the overwhelming amount of issues and the intensity in which people often scream about them, we all do one thing consistently. Listen to people we trust. This is the reason why Facebook is so powerful on the whole and why marketers always strive for that precious word of mouth. Except it has one big gaping risk: the echochamber. People who agree with each other often segregate themselves into a subcommunity that agrees with itself, ad infinitum.
So it’s important to listen to the other perspective and to find ways and hacks so that you become truly open to new information. Mine? I thank my lucky enviroish stars that the first weekend in college I met the woman who would become one of my best friends. She is a conservative from a sheep and cattle ranch in the northwest of Colorado and one of the most intelligent people I know. The issues that crop up in her life of agricultural law challenge me to think about my progressive environmental stances. In the last week, her family’s ranch was a story on NPR Marketplace regarding pay and I know that because I know her, I listened more deeply on this issue. I cherish our relationship all the more because we don't always agree and can be respectful about it.
I’m here at SXSW Eco again, and yet again it’s my favorite sustainability/environmental conference. Kind of this small-d democratic counteroffering to the traditional big sustainability conferences. Example. Yesterday in a panel about how tech is helping on palm oil, the panel is Rainforest Action Network (activist NGO), WRI (solutions/big NGO), a major chocolate company, and a palm oil plantation company. Points were debated and refined in real time among these various stakeholders and it was amazeballs. Challenge. Your. Thinking. Then rinse, repeat.
Last year at this conference, I sat in the audience at a panel on GMOs that put Monsanto in the crosshairs. And how did they respond? They brought their CTO this year and committed to engaging with consumers in conversation on these issues. Acknowledging that they are scientists that talked to farmers but not the public at large and need to do better at communications. The correlation to climate scientists is obvious and real. And I admire the backbone of their company culture to stay engaged in the conversation. The power of Legal inside corporate America is a very real factor that can impede open dialogue, and so I take a huge hats off to Monsanto for deepening their engagement in this conversation. That’s what the world needs. That’s how we’re going to find solutions. Enviroish kudos to that.
I started enviroish on the principle that everyone can take actions – big or small – to be mindful of their impact on others and the planet. To not let the label “environmentalist” get in the way of actually doing good things that make sense. Learning to listen to each other is an extension of that credo, this belief I have that at our cores everyone is good and cares. Because I believe that the ties that bind us together in trying to do good will always be greater than the ties that divide.
I look forward to being a small part of this conversation. What do you think? Who or what do you rely on to challenge your thinking?
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