image credit | Harry Pappas

Season 4, Episode 14: On Connectedness to Nature and Community Resilience with Cindy Frantz

Thomas and Panu spoke with noted social and environmental psychology researcher Cindy Franz from Oberlin College. First, they revisited Cindy’s foundational research on people’s connectedness to nature. Then they discussed her new work on how communities adapt to climate change. Cindy noted that “adaptation begins in resilient communities” and saw her work at the local level as hopeful – “real people, attacking real problems in real communities.” She explained how she and her colleagues study the potential for feedback technology with the Oberlin Environmental Dashboard to encourage conservation behavior, connect people back to the natural world, and promote systems thinking. The message to communities was “we can deal with this, together” and we “don’t have to agree on climate science to work on weather changes.” She believed a cross-partisan approach could motivate action without triggering despair. Join us for a positive episode!

Links

• Cindy Franz 

• Past research in collaboration with Steve Mayer suggests that both individuals and the environment benefit when people feel connected to the natural world 

• Franz, Bushkin & O’Keefe (2024). Evaluating the usefulness of Protection Motivation Theory for predicting climate change mitigation behavioral intentions among a US sample of climate change deniers and acknowledgers

• Oberlin Environmental Dashboard 

• David Orr

• Past CCH episodes:

• Emotions and Climate Adaptation with Susi Moser

• Varieties of Hope with Guest Elin Kelsey