Coming from a land with uninterrupted water supply imported from mainland China, I probably don’t know enough about the public concern on water shortage in the desert hinterland of Arizona. The cultural contrast cannot be over-emphasized. After all, it is not too difficult to imagine the severity of water shortage in the sizzling summer under 110F! But the state-wide concern over water supply seems to sprawl beyond the immediate quenching for water. Sustaining Arizona’s water supply has been identified as the key to sustaining the state’s economy, the health and well-being of its residents, and its natural environment. An independent institute–Arizona Water Institute (AWI)– was once dedicated to exploring the management of the state’s hydrologic features and resources (AWI is closed now due to budget cuts). To a non-resident alien, the state-wide concern and commitment to the water management is both alien and gripping.
“Water is more important to us than global warming,” says a native Arizonian in the World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews), which is held before the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009. WWViews is a global citizen consultancy on climate change in which I volunteered as a moderator for the round of discussion in Arizona. Arizona is one of the five states that represent the US’s participation in WWViews, among the other thirty-seven countries participating in the project. To solicit structured views from ordinary citizens on climate change and policy recommendation, 4000 citizens from thirty eight countries were selected to answer twelve pre-designed multiple-choice questions and voted on recommendations for their national leaders.
Curiously enough, the recruited citizens in my table seem to be more interested in a wider range of issues that are not covered in the agenda of the day. “I’m more concerned about water shortage than CO2 emission.” says Donna, a middle-aged resident from Goodyear. “Roger that! When I think of the dire consequences of global warming, I think of heat stroke and dehydration. And all these questions are about cutting emission of greenhouse gases....” says Bill, a manager in a Phoenix-based advertising company. These exchanges took place during the lunch break and were not recorded in the official report. Although respondents were given the opportunity to express any additional comments aside from the structured questions, few of them brought up the water issue in the formal discussion period. It was only during the time-off period where they felt more comfortable to opine casually with food and drinks.
Now it would be unfair to generalize my experience based on one discussion table to the other 70 tables in the theatre, let alone to the WWViews project. What happened in my table is not meant to be reflective of the participants’ feedback on the design of WWViews in any sense. Nonetheless, their articulations struck me as an example of local inflection of the global environmental concerns. Global warming is impending to every concerned citizen but the impacts and issues that are of significance pertaining to global warming are usually locally and culturally mediated. What does global warming mean to a local community? How do people view and relate themselves to a globally highlighted issue? My moderating experience in this case draws my attention to the specific context in which the issue of global warming was digested and understood by citizens in Arizona.
Water is a critical issue in Arizona. In the context of the perennial dry heat weather, several community outreach programs were delivered by AWI such as "Focusing Arizona's Water Research: A One Day Workshop“, "Climate Change Adaptation for Water Managers Workshop”, and "Making the Connection: A Translational Environmental Research Symposium". These programs are intended to connect the public with the decision-making policy-advisors and scientists, supporting a stronger community to advise and reflect on effective hydrological management in the state of Arizona.
Of course, to me it's always interesting to learn about stuff that I don't know: in this case the heritage of water management in Arizona seems a fascinating topic. But why should anyone outside Arizona care about this issue? I suspect this case study could be potentially enlightening to the thorny issue of the international dissent over climate change and regulation. Too often, policy makers in the UN make decisions based on a thin body of scientific evidence from a narrow range of conflicting interests and then expect the affected communities to just take it or leave it. It's time to take the voices of the community seriously if we want their inputs and support. My hunch is that people are ready to voice their opinions only when their immediate contexts and local conditions (such as material and geographical constraints) are attended to. We don't need another well-filed cross-cultural comparison on either the lack of public understanding of global warming or the lack of political will to initiate reform. The critical problem is that we don't understand what a globally articulated agenda means to a local community.
Can we make a manifesto on "There is plenty of room at the bottom", borrowing from Richard Feynman's paradigm-setting speech, in a humanistic light?