Karen Hamann
PhD, University Koblenz-Landau - Landau, GermanyLandau, Germany
In my scientific work and workshops on environmental psychology, I meet many environmental activists. From my first workshop on, I noticed the effect of being authentically pro-environmental and having authentic contact with participants. This made me realize how much other people inspire me who act according to their values (especially in my close surroundings).
Flying less may be one of the hardest steps to take for an environmentally just world because it partially opposes our global worldview and the urge to explore the world and meet people from all around. However, as it is one of the big points of pro-environmental behavior, I cannot authentically advocate environmental protection and at the same time disregard it in such a dramatic manner. My last flight was in 2014. Alternative environmentally-friendly concepts of conferences and cooperation across the world will only arise if we have to become creative.
I’m currently doing my PhD on psychological empowerment of environmental volunteers and others. Specifically, I take a look at predictors and effects of collective, participatory and self-efficacy and their role in spillover effects between various behavior types. Alongside, I try to highlight the importance of psychological findings for environmental practice in workshops on environmental psychology.
Update, May 2019:
The University has created a new initiative, of which it says: “We have decided to build a ClimateCV that transparently shows how much we travelled to go to conferences, meetings and such, and how we travelled there. We hope that this may stimulate discussion in our community about the necessity and unquestioned academic tourism that many of us pursue.”