Advanced Lake Leaders Conference

1. Advanced Lake Leaders Conference Thomas A. Heberlein

2. 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.

3. Attitudes and solving environmental problems: The Three Fixes • Technological Fix • Cognitive Fix • Structural 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

4. 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?

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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

8. The Three Fixes in Stockholm How do you reduce traffic in the Center of the City

10. 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

12. 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

13. How the Three Fixes Works

16. Other Examples of Fixes The Department Coffee Room The Merrimac River Crossing Lead Free Gasoline Heberlein’s 1974 Porsche

17. The Departmental Coffee Room Problem--Using Styrofoam Cups How to change behavior and save the “environment?” Cognitive Fix Put up a sign Structural Fix Provide only paper/ or China cups Technological Fix Coffee “fountains” Lesson: Environmental Fixes must be consistent with attitudes and culture

18. The Merrimac River Crossing Problem--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

19. Lead Free Gasoline Problem: 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 Required Smaller nozzle required Passed Law Requiring Technological Fix?? Build lead processor into cars--shell shot out put!

20. Heberlein’s 1974 Porsche Problem: 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 Bags Lesson: Structural Fixes must be consistent with attitudes and culture

21. 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

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

23. Reducing Algae in Lake Mendota The Technological Fix—Change Nature

24. 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

25. They Forgot the Top Predator! “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, Angler numbers increased by almost 600%

26. 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

27. 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)

28. Sociologists (namely me) don’t do any better The sad story of cleaning up Delavan Lake

29. 1986 Heberlein Directs WRM Masters • 16 Students • Designed Lake Delavan Management Plan • Technological Fix—Changed Nature The 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).

30. 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??

31. 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

32. 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!

33. Failure at the Grand Canyon

34. 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

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. 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 ocular traumatic test

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

39. 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

40. 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.

41. Blame Science??? • And the scientist? • Were the right studies done? • Enough social science? and in the right place?

42. 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

43. Think Beyond the Rim

44. 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.”

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