Earth Optimism
Earth Optimism provides an alternative narrative to mainstream environmental news by highlighting the potential for humans to positively impact the environment by making small changes at individual and community levels.
[1] Due to occurrences such as habitat loss, the increasing number of endangered species and the rapid escalation of climate change, there tends to be a negative outlook towards the impacts of human on the Earth.
The goal of Earth Optimism is to promote people to be supportive and enthusiastic towards environmental restoration and climate change relief programs.
[3] The mechanism of the Smithsonian CC's success is this organization's ability to create and engage an interdisciplinary network of experts that are mobilized to take action and affect change in everyday environmental problems.
CCI is located in a Conservation Campus in the David Attenborough Building – where leaders in academia, business, government and non-governmental organisations can interact and work together.
[7] In Citizens of the Sea, Knowlton discusses the Census of Marine Life, which was a global effort to explain the biodiversity present in the world's oceans.
[8] In 2014 she took part in launching #OceanOptimism, a facet of Earth Optimism on social media in order to encourage positive efforts towards marine conservation.
She serves on the Board of Directors of the Forest History Society and the Endangered Species Coalition and is a member of the African People and Wildlife (APW) International Advisory Council.
In partnership with EO co-founder Nancy Knowlton, Stolk also formed an Earth Optimism Alliance with dozens of global Institutions, including Cambridge Conservation Initiative, National Museums of Kenya, Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, and more.
After Nancy Knowlton's 2016 presentation at the Student Conference on Conservation Science, he and Rosie Trevelyan co-convened the 2017 Cambridge Earth Optimism Summit.
He has helped to pioneer non-invasive endocrine monitoring techniques currently being used to assess and evaluate the reproductive status and well-being of wildlife in zoos.
[11] His successful tenure in biology and conservation began in the early 1960s when he developed the idea to conduct long-term studies on the effects of forest fragmentation in the Amazon Rainforest.
His leadership in the research department at the Smithsonian has significantly influenced Earth Optimism by helping people in the non-science world easily understand the complexity of what is happening in our ecosystems.
[14] A variety of interests are represented at the summits, ranging from branches of the government such as the United States Forest Service, to non-governmental organizations, including the World Wildlife Foundation.
The 2020 Summit looks to promote and focus on youth involvement in recent climate action along with a gallery of exhibits showcasing impactfull projects at small and large scales.
[15] World leading conservationists, including Sir David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Steven Pinker, gathered in Cambridge to celebrate #EarthOptimism on April 22, 2017.
The event hosted talks from a wide range of world-renowned conservationists and thought leaders, it also included a Solutions Fair – open to the public – where visitors could find out how their behaviour and choices as consumers can have the biggest positive effect for the natural world and for a sustainable future.
[18] Therefore, simple things such as ad campaigns or more access to accurate information regarding climate change can make a big difference in gaining support for the environmental movement.
[20] According to Suzanne Segerstrom and Lise Solberg Nes, the probability of working towards and achieving a goal can be increased through the application of optimism as a mental tool for influencing behavior.
The Earth Optimism movement aims to decrease the perceived threat of failure through success stories, therefore reducing a psychological barrier to goal attainment (environmental conservation) created by avoidance motivation.
[31] • Steven Martin, Director of the McNair Program at the University of Idaho and a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, works with undergraduate students, teaching them about the importance of incorporating Indigenous Knowledge and TEK into research and decolonizing the western education system.
[35] The lessons learned and best-practices developed from reintegrating traditional burning practices in northern Australia could be exported and scaled appropriately to help meet fire and natural resource management goals in other similarly fire-prone areas.
[37] Federal agency oversight of oil and gas development in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of Alaska provides another example of successful integration of TEK into modern ecosystem management.
[39] This commitment to TEK integration has been a success in helping to mitigate potential conflicts between resource development activities and traditional subsistence activities like fishing, hunting, and whaling on Alaska's North Slope and could serve as a broad model for government agencies at the local, state, federal, and international level to incorporate TEK-based methodologies into resource development decision making processes.
[41] Another argument suggests that the balance between "combating conservation despair"[42] and "avoiding the perverse outcome of breeding self-deceit and naive optimism"[40][43] needs to be considered.
This is also emphasized in a review on Steven Pinker's optimism; his argument is summarized simply by stating, "We need to face up to these and other daunting challenges while nurturing the positivity required to tackle them".
Nancy Knowlton, Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, has incorporated Earth Optimism into her work on coral reefs and has presented many lectures on the subject.
[45] One of the lobby groups, the Heritage Foundation, published a memo that read "Growing scientific evidence casts doubt on whether global warming constitutes a threat".
It has been found that these groups' strategies have ranged from writing editorials and commentaries in conservative media and blogs, editing reports, appearing on television, and even sometimes publishing in peer-reviewed articles.
[46] The fossil fuel industry and conservative groups and lobbyists are constantly on social media and the news openly denying climate change in order to sway the public's opinions.
