Advanced Lake Leaders ConferenceThomas A. Heberlein

Sometimes it is OK to judge book by its cover

Attitudes are like rocks in a river

Many are underwater and you cannot see them –perhaps the most dangerous

You don’t go down the river trying to move them out of the way (dynamite!)

But you must know their location and how to read the water to successfully navigate.

Attitudes and solving environmental problems: The Three Fixes

Technological FixCognitive FixStructural Fix

The environment doesn’t have problems, we as humans have problems When we have problems with the environment, there are three ways of trying to fix them

Problem of Flooding in the US•Huge Flood Loses 1920’s-30’s•The response was the change nature

▫By using technology (Hence the Technological Fix)

▫Massive Dam Building Program▫Billions of Dollars Spent

•Assessment of Flood Losses 30 years later▫Rivers were modified BUT...▫Flood Losses INCREASED!

•Why?

Dams changed the behavior of the river and the attitudes and behavior of people as well

•Rivers were “sort of” controlled▫Fewer “Floods”

•People thought they were safe▫Moved into Flood Plain

•The Technological Fix, seems to avoid people but it doesn’t.

The Cognitive Fix•Let’s Change Human Behavior

▫Get the people rather than the rivers out of the flood plain

•Chicago Geographers: “Educate the Public”▫(aka “Knowledge Deficiency Model”)▫Created Flood Plain Maps

•Tried them out in Kansas City▫They didn’t work

The Structural Fix•Who really owns houses? Asked the

Chicago geographers.▫Bankers

Smaller Group Easy to Target

▫More “Rational”•No Loans in the Flood Plain

▫Flood Insurance▫Flood Plain Zoning

The Three Fixes in StockholmHow do you reduce traffic in the Center of the City

Solving Auto Crowding in Stockholm•Technological Fix

▫Tear down buildings, build new roads and bridges (change the environment)

•Cognitive Fix▫Massive advertising campaign trying to

convince people to not drive down town•Structural Fix

▫Trängselskatt

Crowding Tax was implemented•And tested in an adaptive management

framework•Reduced travel in the

center of the city over 20 %•Passed the “inter-ocular

traumatic test” •Continues today to reduce crowding in the center

How the Three Fixes Works

Technological Cognitive Structural

What Changes Environment Human Behavior Human Behavior

How Change is Achieved

Technological change influences the

environment directly

Information changes human behavior

Organizational and/or technological change

influences human behavior

What Happens Environmental variation is modified

Attitudes change and behavior change

follows

Behaviors are changed. Attitude change may follow

Role of Attitudes Developments must be consistent with dominant public

attitudes and values

Effective change in attitude is necessary and attitudes must influence behavior

Structural changes must be consistent

with dominant public attitudes and values

Target Must change only key groups or key

individuals

Must change general public as individuals

Must change key decision makers and other gate keepers

Benefit Usually effective at modifying the

environment in predictable ways

Consistent with freedom and

responsibility values. Particularly

important in the USA

Likely to be effective with lower cost and with fewer negative

effects than the Technological Fix

Public Acceptability

High High Low

Problems High cost. Can fail to solve problem and can create other

problems

It is difficult to change public attitudes, and often these attitudes have little to do with what people actually

do

Low public acceptability in the US. Seen as social

engineering. Design problems because of political compromises

Other Examples of FixesThe Department Coffee RoomThe Merrimac River CrossingLead Free GasolineHeberlein’s 1974 Porsche

The Departmental Coffee RoomProblem--Using Styrofoam Cups

How to change behavior and save the “environment?”

Cognitive Fix

Put up a signStructural Fix

Provide only paper/ or China cups

Technological FixCoffee “fountains”

Lesson: Environmental Fixes must be consistent withattitudes and culture

The Merrimac River CrossingProblem--River Crossing

Solutions: Ferry, Bridge or None

Ferry doesn’t allow crossing in the winter

Other Technological Fixes

Use railroad bridge in the winter

Ice Road

Lesson: Technological Fixes must be consistent with attitudes and culture

Lead Free GasolineProblem: Reduce lead in the environment by providing Lead Free Gasoline--How do you get people to use it

Cognitive Fix--Educate the Public

Structural Fix

Converters RequiredSmaller nozzle requiredPassed Law Requiring

Technological Fix??

Build lead processor into cars--shell shot out put!

Heberlein’s 1974 PorscheProblem: How to get people to wear seat belts?

Cognitive Fix: Educate the Public

Structural Fix: Interlock Device

Car won’t start unless seat belts locked

Technological Fix?

Automatic Seat Belts

Air BagsLesson: Structural Fixes must be consistent with attitudes and culture

Attitudes and the Three Fixes•Technological

▫Developments must be consistent with broad Public Attitudes

•Cognitive▫Effective Attitude Change is Central and

Behaviors Must Follow Attitudes•Structural

▫Structural Changes must be consistent with broad Public Attitudes

Conclusion•No matter which Fix you try you must have scientific information on attitudes or ...

Reducing Algae in Lake Mendota

The Technological Fix—Change Nature

Food Web Management Project

• Goal was to reduce algae by increasing the number of planktivores

• By decreasing the number of little fish that ate planktivores

How?• By dumping in a lot of big fish (walleyes and

northerns) to eat the little fish• ONE PROBLEM

They Forgot the Top Predator!

Angler numbers increased by almost 600%

“At the ecosystem scale for lakes, this role of humans is insufficiently appreciated and poorly anticipated. This predator learns rapidly. It communicates quickly. A modest number of those most experienced and skilled can quickly undo a carefully planned food web manipulation.” James F. Kitchell and Stephen R. Carpenter,

Ice Fishermen

• Came to the limnology lab• To ask to use the phone– In the days before cell phones

• To order pizzas• And the scientists helped them out, which I guess is only reasonable in a

food chain experiment

We need as much knowledge

• of the humans outside the lake as we do of biology of the lake

• of the 33 authors of the summary book, not one was a social science

• IT WASN’T THE LIMNOLOGISTS’S FAULT– At all of UW and the WDNR there was nowhere

near the capacity to understand angler population dynamics

– Or farmer behavior (the current problem for the water quality)

Sociologists (namely me) don’t do any better

The sad story of cleaning up Delavan Lake

1986 Heberlein Directs WRM Masters

• 16 Students • Designed Lake Delavan Management Plan• Technological Fix—Changed NatureThe WRM curriculum integrates the biological and

physical sciences (which identify and measure problems) with engineering (which provides technological alternatives) and law and the social sciences (which assess needs and potential for institutional response).

By 1989, a comprehensive rehabilitation project began. The $7 million project was completed within three years and included:• Drawing down the lake's water level by 10 feet to facilitate the eradication of the entire fish population.• Building three ponds before the water entered the inlet and dredging a sediment control channel in the inlet.• Reconstructing the dam at the end of the outlet.• Treating the bottom of the lake to trap phosphorus sediments and prevent them from re-entering the lake.• Constructing a peninsula near Community Park to divert sediment-laden water by redirecting it toward the outlet.• Restocking game fish as the lake refilled to its normal level.

Does this sound like social science

to you??

The project was a success! 1991 water clarity was at 26 feet deep.

• Property values went up– Some sold theirs and walked with the profits

• People could swim and fish– Our CV surveys showed owners would pay $80-

100 annually for this improvement• But this money was never collected

• Anglers from around the state were attracted by the fisheries– They didn’t pay any clean water fees either

2005—lake is dirty again

• AND NO MONEY TO CLEAN UP!• We FORGOT social sustainability• We failed to build in institutional mechanisms to

promote sustainability• WHY?– Not enough social sciences

• 1 social psychologist (me)• 1 economist (visiting faculty)

• Of the 16 students only 3 had any real social science training

Use Enough Social

Science!

Failure at the Grand Canyon

The Direct Experience Principle

• One of four principles helpful for understanding attitudes– The Consistency Principle– The Identify Principle– The Specificity Principle

• Attitudes based on direct experience are stronger, less likely to change, and more likely to influence our actions. Many attitudes are not based on direct experience

Attitudes of Visitors (oar/motor)

• Satisfaction of visitors who take oar and motor powered trips is high and about the same.

• BUT . . . visitors take only one trip.– Few have Direct Experience with BOTH kinds of

trips.– So without this, how do they know?

• Anyone who has been on both types of trips knows there are vast differences.

Best of Both Experiment

• Worked with an outfitter who ran both motorized and oar powered trips– floated half of the canyon on oar or motor

powered trips– then switched to the opposite kind.

• Attitudes measured after both experiences• Experimental Design giving Direct Experience

Shelby, B. “Contrasting Recreational Experiences: Motors and Oars in the Grand Canyon.” Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 35 (1980): 129–31.

After taking BOTH trips

• Choose oars for next trip 87%• Recommend oars to friend 79%• Oars better 90%• Oars described as– quiet, relaxing, natural, friendly

• Motors described as– loud, big, noisy, crowded

Data pass the inter oculartraumatic test

So with such compelling data why are motors still on the river?

Blame Managers?

• Solution– National Park Service Managers on another Best Both

Trip• Bill Whalen—Director National Park Service• Howard Chapman—Western Region Director• Merle Stitt—Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park• Staff of the Secretary of Interior’s office

• Based on their experience they strongly supported phasing out motors as part of the Inner Canyon Management Plan

Blame Politics?

• A first term senator Orrin Hatch from the State of Utah added an amendment to the NPS appropriations bill– “If the river management plan with the motorized

rafting phase-out was implemented funding for river management at GRCA would be stripped from the budget.”

• AND MOTORS STAYED ON THE RIVER.

Blame Science???

• And the scientist?

• Were the right studies done?• Enough social science? and in the right place?

All the science I recommended was done in the canyon

• Attitude surveys of visitors, careful measurement of contacts on the river at varying density levels

• No studies done of– the rafting industry– the community impacts of a ban on oars– demonstration projects to understand how

transition from motors to oars

Think Beyond the Rim

William Freudenburg

“Forty years ago, when a new trend called ‘environmentalism’ swept the county and much of the planet, respected professors were pretty sure they knew what needed to be done. In a nutshell, their ideas involved careful research on every single species on the planet except one—the one that was actually at the root of almost everything they called an ‘environmental’ problem. For that one species, they said that, instead, what we needed to do was ‘educate the public.”

Use Enough Social Science

Our current efforts are like shooting an elephant with a 22One Survey is Not Enough!We need teams of social scientists to join the natural scientists—to balance biocentrismSociologists (understanding communities)Political Scientists (governance)Social Psychologists (attitudes)Economists (consumer surplus, expenditures)Even Anthropologists