Systems
"The GDP measures all kinds of things, but as Robert Kennedy said, we don’t measure what matters. The problem is the things that matter, like caring for each other or the community, don’t factor into the GDP. In fact, the GDP increases when more people are sick, because then the medical costs are higher, there are more medical employees that have to take care of you, there are more drugs that are bought, sold, and delivered, and more hospitalizations. That actually raises the GDP. So in our economy, we think it is better if people are sicker. We think more is better and my belief is as we move into a situation of economic chaos created by climate change that we need to have serious conversations very soon about what are our values and what really matters. Because this kind of consumption and production in the name of building the GDP -- which is the language all our leaders talk about this as being the measure of success and voters vote on the basis of the measure of success being how much we built, and how much we have grown, and how much our economy is growing and how we determine that -- actually is all screwed up. We don’t measure the things that matter, like family. There may be lots of other things that matter that we can’t measure economically in that way." - Lesley Fernow
" I think it is a little alarming that we can see such changes in our lifetime. And just even in the last decade, I feel like there has been huge changes. I see far fewer birds, fireflies, even dragonflies." - Eileen Lewandowski
"Because they’re vulnerable, I think it affects them first and I think it affects them the hardest. It takes a long time for it to climb up the ladder before maybe we care enough, because I think maybe when poorer people and homeless people are getting affected by certain things, we don’t care as much as when people who are in more of a social majority do." - Elyse Kiehn
"There's also the other aspect of the community garden [which] is feeding people, the whole food security thing. Campus is doing a really good thing. They have a food pantry for students isn't it? Students and their families -- stuff that's, during the summer, stuff that they grow or that we grew when I was a student there we distributed to different halls where students could take whatever they needed. And sometimes they offer classes or lunch-and-learns about all like here's zucchini, here's easy ways you can make it or different recipes or I think there was one about canned goods. But yeah, it's really something special." - Kaitlyn Norwood
"I feel like in the discussion we were just starting to get to some of the cultural mindsets that are present in this town. I feel like there are people who think of it as the whole world almost, and so I'm interested in something about the isolation of that or how it can be hard to, for me too, to think systemically or get out of the snow globe of this place and make those connections." - Julia Onoyama
"I would have been dead long ago without [plastic], and yet, how much can we take?... Each patient, we custom build a profile of what they’re going to need. I take a particular type of tape. I take a particular type of needle and tubing. We do have, at the larger clinics, we have patients who cannot have anything with rubber in it -- they have to make that. When we started to go to, every healthcare worker had to have gloves, at the time they were all latex gloves and people had allergies to those. Some of our nurses still wear, have to wear a cotton under glove before they can use anything. If they couldn’t do that, they couldn’t nurse. They couldn’t provide any of the nursing services. So, it’s a frightening thing and yet, it’s so incredibly beautiful to see it take place." - Orpheus Allison
"Maybe it shows you that try as we will as individuals, really, most of the solution to environmental degradation has to be at a much higher level. I mean, we personally, have been arguing among ourselves, between ourselves, whether we should have solar energy, solar power… in an analogy, my work in the past dealt with AIDS. I was really involved in taking care of patients with AIDS. So I knew a lot about AIDS and HIV infection. The big thing about this is how much poverty and social factors are the driving forces in how this gets transmitted. It’s not so much individuals, it’s all the complex social and economic factors that drive people." - Jonathon Gold
"It just seems to me that we're not always conscious of how fragile our food supply is.... If there was very much rain falling the way it did earlier today, too many days in a row and the spring with cold nights, and that little guy's not gonna make it. They're tough but they're not that tough. If their roots get rotted out, it just doesn't make it. If you know what you're doing, and if more people learn the skills or have practice, and people use every scrap of available land, we could probably produce a lot more of our food locally, and all this kind of stuff, but it's ultimately a fragile enterprise." - Stephanie Mattsen
"Our economy is very much dependent on snowmobiling and ice fishing and all of the outdoor sports thing[s] and ice skating. I feel like if our snow goes away or if our climate warms, this career center is [not] going to get very busy and not have enough jobs really, to sustain the area. So, that’s it." - Sonja Plummer Eyler
"Let’s say you are a potato farmer. You are not a potato farmers that is growing millions of dollars of potatoes, but you are growing seed potatoes, and it’s the way you make your living, and the way your family has made their living for a long time. The way those potatoes are harvested; two days before you harvest you spray the field with a defoliate, the plants and foliage dies, and then you go in and rake the potatoes up. That’s the way it’s done. We eat the potatoes and the FDA or whoever says that’s safe, but the fact of the matter is that is how potatoes are being harvested. That is somebody’s livelihood, and it’s not 'big farm,' it’s not a mega farm, it is not a farm that is making -- it is not like the industrial farms in the Midwest. This is a family farm." - Lesley Fernow
"Someone in the little town said, We have to do something. What can we do? And they sit in front of the cafe over there and you sign little pieces of paper and it got on the ballot. And now, all those people who said they wouldn't— how could they take away our plastic bags? That's terrible! They all come with their bags [now]." - Christy Joyce
"Well, the other thing about this is it isn’t just about extinction, I mean, extinction is one issue, but another thing it is about is the reality our impermanence. Everything is impermanent. And all of us will become cadavers and all of our animals will become cadavers, and all of our loved ones will become cadavers, and that’s a reality. And so, you know, that’s on [a] spiritual level a completely different conversation. Both of those conversations appeal to me." - Lesley Fernow
Kelly Doyle: You still can't live on $15.
Lesley Fernow: Right. I had an argument. I had a conversation with someone the other day who was really saying that people should not be getting more than $9 an hour, and --
Kelly Doyle: Television used to be free, phones used to be $15 a month.
Lesley Fernow: Right. And I said, Really? I said, People can't live on $15.
Kelly Doyle: No, you can't.
About CHANGE
CHANGE is a climate change research project directed by Dr. Kati Corlew and is dedicated to reaching a better understanding of peoples' perceptions of climate change. Our research was conducted using a qualitative research method called PhotoVoice. PhotoVoice, is a method “by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community”. (Wang & Burris, 1997, p. 369) Our participants met in focus groups to discuss the research topics, and then went out into their communities to take photographs according to their conceptualization, values, and priorities regarding the topic. They then selected photographs to present and discuss in a final focus group (Gleason & Corlew, 2019). By placing participants’ photos, stories, and conceptualizations at the center of the study, we hope to expand the exploratory nature of this research to include themes outside of current climate change conceptualizations. For more information, please visit our Main Page.