Ecologies Symposia

Excited to be part of the Ecologies Symposia this coming academic year. “How do we understand or represent the changing ecosystems that we both inhabit and are? What might the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities be able to teach each other about sustainable ecologies in the anthropocene? In posing such questions, the symposium aims to expand theoretical frameworks beyond siloed disciplines and take a capacious understanding of what “ecology” means.”

Muddling through Climate Change: A Qualitative Exploration of India and U.S. Climate Experts’ Perspectives on Solutions, Pathways, and Barriers

New paper just published in Sustainability:

Abstract: Climate solutions related to mitigation and adaptation vary across the United States and India, given their unique current socio-political–technological abilities and their histories. Here, we discuss results from online face-to-face interviews undertaken with 33 U.S.-based climate experts and 30 India-based climate experts. Using qualitative grounded theory, we explore open-ended responses to questions related to mitigation and adaptation and find the following: (1) there is broad agreement among experts in both countries on the main mitigation solutions focused on the decarbonization of energy systems, but (2) there are a diversity of views between experts on what to prioritize and how to achieve it. Similarly, there is substantial agreement that adaptation solutions are needed to address agriculture, water management, and infrastructure, but there is a wide variety of perspectives on other priorities and how best to proceed. Experts across both countries generally perceived mitigation as needing national policies to succeed, while adaptation is perceived as more local and challenging given the larger number of stakeholders involved in planning and implementation. Our findings indicate that experts agree on the goals of decarbonization, but there was no consensus on how best to accomplish implementation.

This work was funded by grant from the Environmental Resilience Institute, Indiana University’s Prepared for Environmental Change Grand Challenge Initiative.

Yoder L, Cain A, Rao A, Geiger N, Kravitz B, Mercer M, Miniard D, Nepal S, Nunn T, Sluder M, et al. Muddling through Climate Change: A Qualitative Exploration of India and U.S. Climate Experts’ Perspectives on Solutions, Pathways, and Barriers. Sustainability. 2024; 16(13):5275. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16135275

DOE Large Scale Solar project

New project: “A Comparative Analysis of Community Support for U.S. Large-Scale Solar Development” just approved for DOE funding of $2.5M. Lead PIs are Sanya Carley (UPenn) and David Konisky (IUB) with co-PIs: Jennifer Silva (IUB), Parrish Bergquist (UPenn), Gilbert Michaud (Loyola U.), Alison Knasin (UPenn) and Shahzeen Attari (IUB).

In this collaborative effort, our objective is to study the factors that influence community acceptance of LSS (large-scale solar). Our goal is to evaluate when and how the influence of siting practices and community perceptions and beliefs affect community support or opposition for LSS projects and the advancement of projects from planning to completion. To address these objectives, we seek to answer the following interrelated questions:

1. Which factors most significantly shape community perceptions toward local LSS projects?

2. What siting practices are most important in understanding levels and patterns of community support for LSS projects?

3. What LSS siting practices serve to effectively engage or disengage communities, and under what conditions do they meaningfully increase or decrease community support for LSS projects?

4. Do the effects of siting practices vary by community, and, specifically, do they shape community support differently in historic fossil fuel or disadvantaged communities?

Wrigley Storymakers Program

Excited to be part of the Wrigley Storymakers fellowship for 2024.

“Through the Wrigley Institute Storymakers program, scientists become storytellers, and academic research becomes a vision that changes the world. The Storymakers program is a weeklong intensive that trains full-time, mid-career researchers in the art of environmental storytelling. Held in residence at the Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC) on Catalina Island, the program includes lectures, workshops, studio time for creating original content, and networking opportunities. Instructors are chosen from the best in media, the arts, and publishing.”

Princeton conference: Global India Frontiers

April 12-13 - Heading to Princeton to moderate a session on India and sustainability. Looking forward to learning from all these speakers.

Global India Frontiers is the first pan-USA conference that brings together academics across multiple disciplines to discuss key themes relating to Global India - economy, sustainability, arts, innovation, inclusion and partnerships. The goal is to feature breakthrough advances, share diverse viewpoints and stimulate collaborations with potential to transform the world. The format of the conference is a series of plenary sessions around key themes, interspersed with breakout/networking sessions that facilitate collaboration and discussion.

Current service at IU

Here is a list of active service internal to IU (not including advising):

Promotion and Tenure Committee for O’Neill

“Environment at IU” Committee Chair

Cluster hire at O’Neill Committee member

Patten Lecture Committee  

Integrated Program on the Environment executive committee

Campus-level Tenure Advisory Committee

Awards Committee O’Neill

Environment Resilience Institute Steering Committee

Advisory Board for the Observatory on Social Media

Sustainability Psychology - Keynote for SPSPSP

Shahzeen will be giving a keynote at the SPSP Sustainability Psychology Preconference on Feb 7, 2024.

Welcome to the 13th annual Sustainability Psychology Preconference! This year’s theme is “Individual and Structural Approaches to Addressing Climate Change.” As sustainability psychology researchers, we often focus on individual actions but overlook the impact of larger structural changes necessary to create and maintain a sustainable planet. This year’s preconference showcases cutting-edge research that extends the predominant scope of sustainability psychology. We shine a spotlight on work that includes both top-down, research that focuses on structural change, policy and key decision makers, and bottom-up, research that emphasizes the need for changes in our day-to-day lives. Our preconference is open to participants at all career stages and professional backgrounds and will include two keynote addresses, an invited speaker session, single-presenter talks, blitzes, and a happy hour event. 

Paul H. O'Neill Professorship

Clockwise from top left: Joe Shaw, Shahzeen Attari, Allison Schable, Dena Carson

Received a Paul H. O’Neill Professorship to fund new lines of research!

The Professorship provides funding to help collect new data and supports new research ideas. Thanks to Paul H. O’Neill and the O’Neill School.

Congratulations to Professor Joe Shaw (Paul H. O’Neill Chair) and also Associate Professors Dena Carson and Allison Schnable who received a Professorship.

More here.

Recyling bias and reduction neglect

New paper out in Nature Sustainability:

Abstract: Waste generation and mismanagement are polluting the planet at accelerating and unsustainable rates. Reducing waste generation is far more sustainable than managing waste after it has been created, which is why ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ is ordered the way it is, with reduce first and recycling as a last resort. However, our research finds strong evidence for a recycling bias and reduction neglect. Across two surveys (NTotal = 1,321), most participants perceived recycling as the most sustainable action to manage waste. This error decreased when different waste destinations were emphasized and when choice options were reduced. When asked in study 2 (N = 473), 53.9% of participants recognized that the product design stage offered the greatest potential for mitigating waste and its impacts. However, participants only felt empowered to enact change via their consumption (72.9%) and disposal choices (23.3%). For consumers and producers alike, policies and interventions should motivate source reduction and reuse, which could help correct the misplaced preference for recycling.

Accompanying piece in The Conversation: Decades of public messages about recycling in the US have crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste

David Harold Krantz of Nashville, Tennessee 1938 - 2023

My brilliant, creative, kind, loving mentor Dave Krantz passed away. Here is his obituary. He leaves behind a legacy of deep interdisciplinary thinkers and a community of world wide collaborators. I was lucky enough to study psychology and statistics from him as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) which he directed at Columbia University. We were dear friends until the end of his life. He introduced me to Octavia Butler (and countless other scifi), taught me how to make the most delicious dishes, to enjoy poetry and humor, to slow down, to value precise inference, to navigate love and life…and so much more. He is missed.

To Know the Dark

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: A Workshop

Shahzeen will be speaking at the National Academies Workshop on societal responses to climate change, May 4-5 2023.

“Join the planning committee for Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: A Workshop as they explore the potential for synthesizing the human sciences (e.g., social, behavioral, psychological, political, organizational) to develop critical societal capacities for and responses to climate change. The 2-day, virtual (public) workshop will consider how to integrate, align, and converge the broad mix of social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences to produce new insights and inform efforts for enhanced human responses to environmental change. Earth System Science increasingly incorporates human systems in its analysis of climate change, but social, behavioral, and social sciences have yet to align internally in prioritizing and addressing the range of challenges faced by individuals and communities in responding to the various stresses and opportunities posed by climate change. The planning committee is formed under the auspices of the Board on Environmental Change and Society at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.”

Knoxfill by Michaela Barnett

Change maker Michaela Barnett created Knoxfill to offer better alternatives to wasteful products. She says: “We all need things like soap and toothpaste - but we don't need the single use packaging these products usually come in! I care about making our community a more sustainable, safer, and equitable place.”

At Knoxfill (located in Knoxville TN) you can bring in your containers and fill up all that you need for your home. Way to go, Change Maker Michaela! So proud of you.


Congrats to Ananya Rao and Sangeet Nepal on their new climate solution positions!

Ananya Rao accepted a position with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in New Delhi. CSE is a public interest research and advocacy organization based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable. Ananya has joined their Climate Change team as a Program Officer and will be working in the climate mitigation space.

Sangeet Nepal accepted a position as a specialist with the Carbon Capture Coalition. Carbon Capture Coalition is a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, unions, conservation and environmental policy organizations, building federal policy support to enable economy wide, commercial scale deployment of carbon management technologies. Sangeet will oversee development of a dedicated program of work on direct air capture and carbon conversion to complement and build on the Coalition’s broader carbon management priorities and activities. 

Congratulations Ananya and Sangeet!!! ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗