Personal Environmentalism | Susan Bodnar PhD

Limits Sustain People and the Environment

July 15, 2011 by Susan Bodnar Leave a Comment

Part Five of the series on convergence of environmental and mental health (see part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 4 here ). image from www.20somethingfinance.com President Obama is correctly observing that budgetary health depends on incisive and strategic limit setting.The same is true for ecological and psychological health. Most people tend to over correct for problems assuming that […]

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Going Outside as a Mental Health Strategy

June 27, 2011 by Susan Bodnar 3 Comments

Part three of the series on convergence of environmental and mental health (see part 1 here and part 2 here). Mental health experts (and parents) argue that people of all ages need to spend time outside. Richard Louv has gathered some of the latest research in his two books: Last Child in the Woods and The […]

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Eat Food, With Others

June 24, 2011 by Susan Bodnar 5 Comments

(The second in a series about the convergence of psychological and environmental health) One strategy that any person or family can adopt to promote psychological and environmental health is to pay a good deal of attention to what is happening at the kitchen table. Almost five years ago Michael Pollan advised “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” While […]

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What Are We Doing?

June 22, 2011 by Susan Bodnar 3 Comments

(The first in a series about the convergence of psychological and environmental health) News from the natural world continues to haunt and this report from ISPO (international program on the state of the ocean) warns of a mass extinction in our lifetime. And Al Gore is assailing the Obama administration for its failure to take […]

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The Changing Climate Changes Me

May 26, 2011 by Susan Bodnar Leave a Comment

Do human beings continue to adapt to their environments? Are some of those changes psychological? Are humans experiencing subtle alterations in their emotional and cognitive organization in response to climate change? While we ponder these questions with regard to humans, we are noticing suh chnages in other mammals. Antarctic Penguins are being driven […]

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What’s Happening in Your Environment?

January 29, 2011 by Susan Bodnar 1 Comment

photo by Rolf Hicker at hickerphoto.com Last June I ran an international webseminar on psychology and the environment. During the first week, people sent in their observations of what was taking place in their localities. While many individual observations seemed small, their number and intensity impacted me. It seemed like people everywhere were noticing […]

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Family Life and Sustainability

June 29, 2010 by Susan Bodnar Leave a Comment

Social change takes place through individual and familial transformations. See this article in The Jewish Week for a personal reflection on what sustainability can look like at home.

Filed Under: human interaction, parenting, personal environmentalism, relationships Tagged With: eco-kashrut, ecological families, family life and sustainability, green families, Judaism and environmentalism, judaism and sustainability, personal environmentalism, sustainability

Gulf Coast Oil Spill #3

May 20, 2010 by Susan Bodnar 1 Comment

The news coming out of the Gulf coast suggests that there is a great deal of denial, at best, or according to some scientists quoted in the NYTimes, an actual suppression of information. Brit Hume actually asked, “Where is the oil?” (See it at climateprogress.org). I suppose he hasn’t had the opportunity to check in […]

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People Don’t Always Act in their Best Interest

March 9, 2010 by Susan Bodnar Leave a Comment

Some people have been debating whether or not scientists should become climate change activists or if they should stick to the data. The concern is that the general population seems less worried about environmental issues. Given our culture’s typical reliance on external solutions to problems, it doesn’t surprise me that journalists and pundits are looking […]

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We the People: A Response to Evan Thomas and Al Gore

March 2, 2010 by Susan Bodnar Leave a Comment

An adolescent with whom I work discussed the complexity of privilege. “My parents paid just over $12,000.00 for our family to go on a 5-day wilderness backpacking trip, with a service that provides the gear, the food, a plane to transport you there and a guide. I loved it and it changed me, like any […]

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