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Thanks Andrew,

For acknowledging my comments and for your story which is something I can align with, having smoked on and off for as many if not more years. My life is now more sedentary than yours however I am healthy due to walking, various yoga forms, gardening and swimming when I can. Plus, I sing with our village choir under a professional music director and we are achieving notable quality and skill so my breathing and focus are being tuned well along the way. We performed Mozart's Misa Brevis and other pieces recently and did a pretty good job according to some creditable critics. I guess I am now wondering if this forum is the place to talk about philosophical matters, feelings and thoughts that pertain to and foster sustainable behaviours so maybe Doug can indicate one way or another. Anyway, for what it is worth, I had no intention of being condescending in my message, which I see now as slightly impetuous, yet I did wish to act as an interrupt to some extent, in case we, as I do at times, get stuck and not venture to evaluate our perspective from time to time. A good friend of mine, who lectures in sustainability at a local university, often states with conviction that we really do need to think about radical changes to our modus operandi and thought patterns if we are serious about making the necessary shift to become truly sustainable. In these terms, I see my role is partly seeking to be 'radical' and partly linking the normal with the more dramatic approach. As my wife just commented to me, people smoke often due to stress and I agreed, from my own experience as well as that of many others that I know of. So, if we approach the reasons for the stress, perhaps we would/could approach the behaviour and eliminate the acting out of the smoking. May not be all that easy to do, as you mention, and not for every individual in their role, yet I strongly feel that it is one of the hard transitions we educators for sustainability are well placed to attempt at least. Therefore, on the above basis, I guess I offer up the idea of being more radical in our approach or how can we really imagine creating a sustainable world by doing the same things, just with variations or in a 'different colour' as it were? Nothing new in that observation I realise, so, personally I can not ignore the root and maybe this is all I am saying. I was triggered by a question about symptoms which lead me to express my thoughts and feelings, so at least until it is declared a place for technical, academic or formal educative content alone, I trust we can hold such discussions.

Each to his and her own and may the Universe be with us for positive change.

Kind regards,
Paul

Thanks Andrew for providing a more reasoned and less condescending opinion. It seems to me that this forum is the last place that people should be berated for sharing or asking for help.

Wow, what a philosophical minefield we are walking on here.

Firstly to declare my background - I consider myself a non-smoker now, but I did smoke cigarettes for a long period (some 25 years). I actually applied to myself some of the principles and tools from CBSM to successfully make that change - and it now clashes strongly to what has become replacement behaviour - Masters Rowing and regular visits to the gym. So I have been in and out of this smoking behaviour. In Tasmania we have made it illegal to smoke in offices, restaurants, pubs and clubs, and are presently discussing banning it in some outdoor public areas such as the City Mall - to eliminate the harm to non-smokers. It remains legal to smoke. You are entitled to make a decision to accept the personal health impacts and be a smoker. The law just says you shouldn't impose that decision on others through passive-smoking. The legal activity is therefore focussed in particular places (outside, out of the wind, with a bit of sun), and another undesirable behaviour occurs - that of littering. Just as with other litter, we need to change the littering behaviour AND tackle the source of the littering, be it unnecessary packaging on fast food take-aways or smoking. While these source activities remain legal then we need to use techniques that encourage and support behaviour change, and this needs to be done at a number of levels. Littering is however a problem to deal with, and just as we have provided litter bins we can provide butt bins/containers to keep butt litter off our streets, out of stormwater drains and out of waterways. The need to change smoking behaviour to non-smoking behaviour of course has a connection with laws that indicate that smoking is socially undesirable - one effect of protecting non-smokers by placing bans. But is doesn't have a big effect on an individual smoker - for instance going outside the office for a smoke break can be a very sociable activity with other smokers (I used to say that I learnt more about what was going on with staff during a 10 minute smoke break than at any other time of the day). So, the process to encourage smokers to stop for personal health reasons needs to continue - and hopefully people driving that change will take time to listen to smokers about what would help them make those changes. There is also a job to be done to help people to be non-litterers, for aesthetic and environmental reasons and this deserves some good CBSM thought and process. Coles Supermarkets and Landcare Australia (I think) joined forces recently to provide pocket containers for butts as part of the Clean-Up Australia program. A Google on this might reveal some successful efforts.

Andrew Smith

Manager
Community Partnerships
Resource Management & Conservation Division
Department of Primary Industries and Water
GPO Box 44 Hobart 7001
Phone (03) 6233 2836
Fax (03) 6223 8603
Mobile 0419361876
Email: [email protected]
www.dpiw.tas.gov.au

Thank goodness for your comment Steve,

Since when does fostering sustainable behaviour endorse further consumption of high impacting resources? Since when does being community based and conscientious support self destructive behaviour like smoking and seek to mitigate its effects? Surely, like your solid waste's management corporation, we need to seek to foster behaviour that eliminates the original unsustainable and high impacting action? Call me simplistic if you will though for my money and future I work, imagine and support ways and behaviours that reduce, reuse and recycle rather than what almost might be called green wash an unsustainable process. Is it not the purpose of this group to ask the hard questions and aim to make a difference? So let's ask ourselves what can we do to change the source and cause of the unsustainable behaviour and have a greater impact by reducing or altering the action that results. Please accept that I understand that good intentions are at the heart of our group, yet I wonder at what we are doing if we only work on the symptom not the cause and this is often what I hear over and above the cigarette butt discussion. Hence my query about working behaviours at a more causal root. Perhaps this area is the most challenging and therefore avoided or overlooked and I do not say I have achieved perfection and have no negative personal actions. I simply wish to remind us. It is about being the change I guess.

Good luck fellow travellers.

Kind regards,
Paul Payten

EcoSTEPS - Sustainability Partner

Kelley,

I think an incentive to recycle is great. But it seems a little counter intuitive for the incentive to be a free 6-pack of soda that, once consumed, will produce 6 empty aluminum cans (or 6 plastic bottles) that adds to the stream of items that need to recycled. A reduction in the number of items in our recycle stream should be part of our recycling goals because we still use a lot of energy and produce a lot of emissions from collecting, transporting and processing the recyclables. I've had the same message for my state's solid waste management corporation about the plastic grocery bag recycling program they began several months ago. They need to get people to stop using the bags in the first place rather than solely trying to do something about the used bags. There was a discussion on this group a few months ago about alternatives to plastic bag use.

Regards,

Steve Mecca
Ecotech Water