How to Save the World | The Psychology & Science of Environmental Behavior

Have you ever felt like you had a special kind of skill, or a calling, or some bigger reason for existing on the planet? Have you felt like there is more to life than just working a regular nine-to-five job? Or being a struggling activist working for a pitifully low salary in a sweet but ineffectual non-profit?

Do you get that weird feeling that “there’s gotta be more to life than this?”

I’ve had this feeling forever. I think you probably have it too.

I believe this feeling is a calling that is telling you that you are not operating from your creative genius zone and that you really need to be.

From my book, How to Save the World, pg 41.

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Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing! Xx

Did you know that heatwaves kill more people than all the other weather-caused fatalities (like from cyclones, floods etc) put together? Cities around the world are getting baking hot. Extreme heat gets a lot worse when you live in the city, because of all the concrete and asphalt and it’s called an Urban Heat Island. In this episode, I speak with the very fun and enthusiastic Jeremy Hoffman Ph.D. from the Science Museum of Virginia about a study he conducted that involved getting volunteer drivers and cyclists to ride around the city in Summer wearing a thermometer. What he got was a map of Virginia’s urban heat island. We talk about the frightening dangers of urban heat islands, but also the exciting opportunity we have to use heat data to catalyze a massive revolution in urban greening. The cities of the future are ours to invent. We can all get to work to plant more urban trees, install more green roofs, and turn old car parks into gardens, and really change the world with easy practical contributions to the built environment. 

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How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action.

Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at katiepatrick.com

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This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. You might enjoy joining their communities and events.

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Today is the launch of my book How to Save the World on Indiegogo! Click the link here and get your copy.  How to Save the World is a workbook that helps social and environmental change professionals learn how to implement powerful techniques, drawn from behavioral psychology, measurement, design, data, storytelling, visualization, and game design that are proven to have impact.

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Contribute a monthly donation at patreon.com/katiepatrick to help me continue to make these episodes possible.

Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing! Xx

Where does all your trash really go after you throw it away? Dietmar worked on the MIT Trash Track Project where they attached GPS sensors to hundreds of pieces of garbage and followed it around the country. We talk about the good and bad side of smart cities, the growing trends around data in urban legibility and we explore some significant flaws in the recycling industry for solving the waste problem. 

Dietmar has recently authored a book called "Waste is Information" published by MIT Press and is a consummate intellectual force in the urban data, design, and in particular the complex story behind all the stuff we throw away. Dietmar Offenhuber is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in the departments of Art + Design and Public Policy. See more of his work here http://offenhuber.net/

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Support the podcast 

Contribute a monthly donation at patreon.com/katiepatrick to help me continue to make these episodes possible. Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing!

I got this sense a few years ago, that if people could see the numbers that made up their environmental footprint (such as the litres of water they used in a shower or the number trees felled to make their toilet paper) in an immediate and easy-to-understand way, then this data must, absolutely must, cause the person to use less resources, right?

I had such a strong hunch about this connection that it has obsessed me ever since.

This episode is about why the public disclosure of data matters and how it enables change. 

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Contribute a monthly donation at patreon.com/katiepatrick to help me continue to make these episodes possible.

Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing! Xx

Why do some people seem to consider environmental issues deeply, while others glance over our greatest earthly challenges and seem to hardly care? Our capacity for a “systems thinking” mindset can help tell us to answer why. Today’s guest, research psychologist and geographer Stephan Lezak, conducted a study that measured people’s tendency towards systems thinking and how this correlated to their environmental values. He found that people who rank higher as systems thinkers substantially consider environmental issues to be more important. In this fascinating conversation, we discuss what it takes to see the grey areas and the vast interconnectedness in a complicated world, the mistakes we make in our reasoning, and how we can build a new generation of systems thinkers in schools and universities today.

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In this video I talk with Kimberly Hunter, the VP of Communications at one of the Bay Area’s most interesting new environmental data companies. Aclima is the first company in the world to map out air quality by specific address by attaching air sensors to the Google cars that take images for Google Street View. We discuss the fascinating evolution of electronic sensors that are now starting to cover the world that are telling us information that we never had before. This detailed environmental data is opening up a huge change in the way governments and individuals make decisions and could even lead to a future world where sustainability is fully automated.

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Contribute a monthly donation at patreon.com/katiepatrick to help me continue to make these episodes possible.

Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing!

Here’s the problem: Many people start projects without understanding much about what it is they are trying to change in the world. I mean, they don’t look into the data about their problem.

You may have heard the saying,

“If you can’t measure it, it probably doesn’t exist.”

That’s well and good for scientists, but what does this mean for social-change entrepreneurs, world changers, and designers? Or creative people in general? The brutally honest truth is: if we can’t measure the impact we are having on the world, we probably aren’t having any at all.

Let this sink in for a moment:

Despite your best intentions, you may very well not be making any meaningful impact on the world.

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Follow Katie Patrick

Get a copy of How to Save the World on Amazon

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Support the podcast

Contribute a monthly donation at patreon.com/katiepatrick to help me continue to make these episodes possible.

Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing! Xx