Our Sustainable Future - CSU, Chico

Jim Pushnik, Rawlins Professor of Environmental Literacy at California State University, Chico, is the first to admit that “sustainability” has become something of a buzzword. Sustainability has come to mean so many different things that the word sometimes creates considerable confusion. Clarity, then, comes first.
 
“Sustainability is about painting the big picture, then stepping back to look at it,” he says. “It’s about understanding the long- and short-term consequences of what we do to satisfy our needs—maintaining the engines of economic vitality and guaranteeing healthy living conditions for ourselves and others— and reconciling those with very real environmental limitations.”

The concept of sustainability springs from the 1974 Congress of the World Council of Churches, an interfaith group committed to creating a more stable world by working to satisfy the basic needs of all people for decent food and shelter as well as clean water and air. In 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, looking at the divide between developed and underdeveloped nations, extended this idea into what is now the most widely accepted understanding of sustainability: To meet the needs of the present without depleting or degrading natural resources, thereby assuring future generations of humans and other organisms the ability to meet their basic needs.

Sustainability, then, is a way of viewing the world, “an outward expression of our value judgments about Earth’s natural capital and the wise use of these resources,” according to Pushnik.” It requires carefully thinking about the earth’s ability to supply the basic needs of an ever-increasing human population and also the needs of plants, animals, and the countless complex ecosystems that also share this planet.

“Thinking about how we wish to be remembered by future generations is a key point,” he says. “Now is the time for our society to decide to assure that our children’s children will inhabit a world better than our own.”

Promoting Environmental Literacy
Endorsing and encouraging the overall environmental literacy of students at CSU, Chico is Jim Pushnik’s primary responsibility as the University’s Rawlins Professor.

Students as well as citizens and policy makers tend to compartmentalize views on health, economics, politics, social issues, national security, population, and the environment “when in reality they are all interdependent,” Pushnik says. “The sustainability movement is about ‘reconnecting’ these seemingly disparate facets of our lives, emphasizing that each of these influences the others in systematic ways.”

Pushnik’s class Environmental Literacy, which “creates an interface between academic disciplines,” is now a general education course at CSU, Chico. Systems thinking is central, an approach that draws upon the expertise of many disciplines to demonstrate how systems respond to different inputs and other changes. “We live in an event-oriented world. But systems thinking allows you to see patterns—a much more meaningful way of seeing the world.”

“Becoming environmentally literate means being able to recognize the signs, symbols, and patterns of environmental knowledge and to interpret them in a meaningful way, as in any language or system of meaning.”

Then the class explores how ecological systems work, “how everything is connected,” including the different earth systems that drive climate change. “Like other species, our choice is to adapt, migrate, or die” in the face of survival challenges, so class discussion ultimately arrives at the search for solutions. The point is to leave students with hope, Pushnik says, and with the understanding that they each have an opportunity to make a difference.

The overall effort to increase environmental literacy at CSU, Chico also stresses ways to improve communication—especially communication among various academic disciplines—and to make surprising new connections. “As David Orr has said: If you really want to make things change, start by changing who has lunch with whom.”

Change Starts with Each of Us
Essential connections and “reconnections” are already taking place in the broader U.S. society, Jim Pushnik points out. Many business leaders, economists, politicians, sociologists, scientists, and environmentalists share the view that human populations can live fulfilling lives within the natural limits of the Earth’s ecosystems if we “reconnect the dots” and build sustainable societies.

Creating an environmentally literate, sustainable society starts with each of us choosing to reduce our personal and collective impacts on the planet—and teaching our children to do the same. We can make huge strides just by “picking the low hanging fruit.”

“We really can’t look to someone else to do what’s required,” he says. “We all have to make important life choices.”

“Reducing your thermostat setting by only two or three degrees in the winter and raising it a similar amount in the summer will reduce your household’s contribution to greenhouse warming [carbon dioxide emissions] by 1,000 pounds annually, along with reducing your energy bill. Imagine the overall reduction in energy use and greenhouse gas pollution if everyone just did this one thing.”

Similarly, by substituting an energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb for an incandescent bulb you’ll cut your electricity bill by $100 during the life of the bulb and also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide created by electricity generation by nearly 500 pounds. Opting for car pools and public transportation creates still greater economic and environmental savings. Shopping at businesses that act in socially responsible ways also makes a difference—especially businesses that produce long-lasting products made without toxic materials, utilizing technologies that reduce pollution and energy consumption.

Creating effective change has larger implications in a democratic society, according to Pushnik. Citizens need to engage their communities in conversation about critical choices, and also let policy makers know what they think is important. “It’s easy to preach to the choir. It’s more difficult to go out and talk to people who don’t want to hear what you have to say.” And yet having those challenging conversations is crucial, not just for environmental reasons but also economic ones.

Pushnik also supports appropriate governmental incentives and investment strategies to encourage both the development and consumption of new energy-efficient products and technologies.

“If we’re proactive, we’ll be more competitive and prosperous,” he says, pointing out that environmental problems are also economic opportunities. Sustainable practices will soon be standard expectations in the developing global economy, so finding novel solutions to old problems and developing innovative technologies will create economic growth.

Thanking Jack Rawlins
Jack Rawlins, a lifelong resident of Butte County, endowed CSU, Chico’s environmental literacy chair out of deep personal concern about environmental deterioration. An interest in hunting led him to Africa on safari, where he observed first-hand that continent’s ecological decline. Rawlins soon became active in conservation efforts in Rwanda, to stop and reverse environmental destruction.

“Jack Rawlins realized that the same environmental decline is happening here, and wanted to make a difference,” Jim Pushnik says of the man who has funded his ongoing work to promote environmental literacy. “His idea was to integrate environmental concepts into the educations of all students at CSU, Chico, so they leave school understanding just how their activities and actions will affect the environment.”

Pushnik is grateful for the opportunity to carry forward, at the University, Jack Rawlins’s work. Chosen in 2003 to serve as CSU, Chico’s Rawlins Professor in Environmental Literacy, in 2006 he also was selected as Fulbright Senior Specialist in Far East Russia, the same year he started teaching as adjunct professor at the Institute of Sustainable Development in Vladivostok, Russia.

Pushnik holds degrees in biology (BS) and genetics (MS) from Humboldt State University in Arcata, and received his PhD in plant biochemistry from Utah State University. A professor of Plant Ecological Physiology in CSU, Chico’s Department of Biological Sciences since 1989, Pushnik is particularly focused on carbon allocation and growth patterns in photosynthesis. His ongoing research involves the biochemistry and ecological physiology of plants.

Pushnik served on the governing board of the California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology from 1992 to 2000. He received the Outstanding Professor Award at CSU, Chico for 1997-1998, and the CSU, Chico Research Foundation’s Professional Achievement Award in 1996.

In March 1995 Pushnik chaired the Climate Change Section of the 27th International Workshop on Air Pollution in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In addition to publishing dozens of research papers he has helped develop educational materials, including “Global Warming: A problem-based approach to teaching science,” published by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education’s 1999 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA 99), and “Global Warming–Should We Worry? A Problem-based, Simulation, and Teamwork Approach To Teaching Integrated Science,” accepted as part of the electronic proceedings for the 2000 International Conference on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology (M/SET 2000).

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