Though the Carnegie Museum of Natural History is operating at limited capacity, its community programs continue. The dinosaurs, hall of taxidermied birds, and mirrored room displaying gems that you might miss visiting is only a small part of the work the museum accomplishes. The Climate and Rural Systems Partnership is a three year program bringing together the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Mercer County Conservation District, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments to create learning networks. These learning networks exist in order to educate, communicate, and organize work surrounding climate issues in rural communities. This is done through a 2 million dollar collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation, awarded to the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. (In the interest of transparency surrounding public funds, the award numbers are as follows: NSF 1906774 and 1906368.)
The program may sound familiar to those who followed along with the Climate Urban Systems Partnership (award number 1239782), a similar program in the city of Pittsburgh. Working from this existing model, the researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and administrators at the museum and hub organizations involved have been able to expand into Mercer County.
The museum leaders of this work include Taiji Nelson, an outdoor educator and the Senior Program Manager of this project from the Carnegie Museum, Dr. Bonnie McGill, a scientist representing CMNH’s Center for Anthropocene Studies and Dr. Mary Ann Steiner, a passionate learning researcher representing UPCLOSE. These three work in close collaboration with Jacqueline McCollough at Mercer County Conservation District and Lauren Horner at Powdermill Nature Reserve in Westmoreland County.
The Laurel Highlands Kickoff Meeting took place in March. The energy of people gathering, albeit online, to make change was electric. There were 26 attendees, all with their own perspectives and understandings of what is necessary to make change occur. Conversations surrounded how to talk about climate change in everyday life, and what it means for these conversations to feel productive. We reviewed personal and public opinions, and ways to “hook” people into the topics at hand. These hubs are being created with its members in mind, and that means everyone from the Hoesch Touchstone Center for Crafts to Trout Unlimited to the Mountain Watershed Association. This dynamic gathering allowed for a sense of hope and connectivity, as well as movement forward.
I also met with Jay Russel, the District Manager for the Mercer County Conservation District, and Jacqueline L. McCullough, the Enviro. Education Coordinator of the same organization. They were full of hope and excitement for this project, and expressed particular excitement for the kits accompanying this outreach. Illustrating landslides, floods, and other natural disasters in tactile ways, the kits were a starting tool to help the network members think about communicating about climate change in public gathering spaces. Now the network is exploring additional strategies in the times of COVID, to meet people online!
The history of climate activism in rural areas is fraught. At first glance, it would seem that an extractive relationship dominates the narrative. Coal mining, fracking, and even farming can wreak havoc on the natural environment, not to mention the shipment of these resources to benefit bankrolls outside the community. However, the ethos of Appalachian activism is the dire response to a need. From the Battle of Blair Mountain Maria Gunnoe and Judy Bonds, we can witness a tradition of community care and protection. You’d be hard pressed to find a self-respecting Appalachian who doesn’t care about the land on which they live.
In conversations with the many moving parts of this project, a striking theme emerged: pacing. While the issues of climate in rural communities are urgent, real change must start small. Beginning with demonstrative kits at places like farmer’s markets, PTA meetings, and other gathering spaces, folks from these organizations began with small conversations. The conversations were based on shared experiences, like a recent landslide or the state of the local park’s muddy soccer field. Mary Ann Steiner emphasizes that “the importance of the local network, the voice of people who live in the region, experience the impacts of climate change and the trusted organizational leaders who know their audiences and neighbors can't be underestimated. We know from climate surveys that over 60% of the people in the region believe climate change is happening but only about 30% talk about it even occasionally.” Building on the network's local knowledge, project partners from the museum and university work with network members to define the actual barriers to having these conversations, and then, together we develop new tools and resources to create a safe context to ask questions, share experiences and figure out what is right for this unique place, at this specific time. It is about building an ongoing shared process for addressing a root problem and then moving on to the next. The organizations also convened local networks and put out questionnaires in order to identify the most prescient of issues. These were surveys in Mercer County to, according to Dr. Steiner, find out more “about people's outdoor interests, climate beliefs, and awareness of local solutions to better understand starting points and assumptions we might be holding heading into this project.” This kind of education as activism works slowly, trickling like a stream working its way through a forest.
Taiji Nelson, in an interview with Rolling Pepperoni’s Porch Talk series, brought up the necessity of emotional understanding in this work. Climate change is a tragedy, but it cannot be an unspeakable one. The meaningful acknowledgement of a shared reality allows us to look at it more clearly, and together. It’s one close to home, especially for the generations of people whose families dedicated themselves to mining or farming as a means of survival. The aftermath of this is all the more personal when it has come at such a high cost. Making space for the process of confronting the emotional toll of climate change in rural places has been a key element in creating meaningful relationships, from which meaningful work can emerge.
All this integral educational and social awareness is rooted firmly in a scientific understanding of rural climate change. According to Dr Bonnie McGill, Ecosystem Ecologist & Science Communication Fellow at the Center for Anthropocene Studies,
“We recognize that simply giving people more information does not change their minds or behaviors. That actually, too much global-scale information that paints a doom and gloom kind of picture makes people less likely to engage with climate change. So we are focusing our discussions on locally relevant climate changes and impacts, and will be working with climatologists at Columbia University to get down-scaled (localized) climate projections for the hubs. Most climate projections are for nations, multi-state regions, or maybe cities and can be difficult to connect with people's lives in rural communities. We are also making sure to pair climate information with actions people can take, so that they see the problem and what they can do about it. Individual level actions like changing to LED lightbulbs are good but will only address a small part of the problem, that's why CRSP's network approach allows us to talk about actions at the community and systems level. Climate change is the result of society's systems as a whole, not individuals acting alone, and the same is true for solutions to climate change.”
This project, like anything else, has taken on a major shift in the last few months, as we connect in new ways. They have taken on a holistic approach, working within preexisting community spaces (both virtual and physical) in order to connect on a personal level with the folks these issues are directly affecting. This acknowledgement of shared reality on so many levels allows for this work to be more systematic than reactive. It allows for shifts to begin slowly, for us to learn how to change.
Stay tuned- this is part 1 in a 3 part series to understand the scope of this amazing project!
Check out our interview with Taiji here: