STORY BY J. BROOKE DIAMOND

PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

We are in awe of the magnificent nature in our Wood River Valley. We hike and bike our wildflower and sage-covered hills. We fish our rushing Big Wood River and trout streams. We ski our favorite trails. We sit on the Sun Valley Pavilion lawn and gaze at the magnificent scenic beauty.

Yet, we also experienced the fear of the Beaver Creek and Castle Rock fires. Our neighbors are still battling the flooding effects of the Big Wood entering their properties. And we hear that the warming climate will be shortening our ski seasons and dampening our tourist economy.

We feel like we’re the unwilling squatters on a children’s teeter-totter. One moment we’re reaching toward the sky, reveling in the infinite wonders of our natural world. In the next moment we crash to the ground and are hit by the shock waves of dire warnings of the coming natural apocalypse.

Who should we believe? Can we dismiss these warnings as “alternative facts?” Or, can anybody save us with ingenious technology?

How does each of us choose to feel and think about the big, bad environmental issues. Is it even a conscious decision? How do we communicate our concerns to family and friends who feel differently?

This teeter-totter of emotions surrounding current environmental and resiliency issues was addressed in opposite ways by three speakers at last week’s Third Annual Sun Valley Forum at the Limelight Hotel.

Each year the Sun Valley Institute gathers innovators from government, business, nonprofits, investment and academia, as well as local leaders, visitors, and Wood River Valley residents, to share strategies, broaden thinking, and ignite new partnerships with a goal of building greater resilience.

“Environmental shifts and economic interdependence, as well as social and political upheavals, call for proactive leadership to build resilient communities, companies, nations, and economics,” says a statement from the Institute.

One of the speakers at this year’s forum was Louie Schwartzberg, who has thrilled children and adults alike at the slowed-down cinematography of the beating wings of hummingbirds, the journeys of bees from flower to flower to gather pollen and the opening and closing and opening again of flowers.

We take for granted now our ability to view the mysteries of unseen nature. This breathtaking imagery of nature, using time-lapse, high-speed and macro cinematography techniques, was largely invented by Schwartzberg.

Speaking while showing his cinematography, Schwartzberg explained that seeing life from the point of view of a bee or flower opens your heart.

“It is truly transformational. We are all born with a sense of wonder,” he said. “Wonder and awe allow us to transcend the ordinary… Wonder inspires us to open our hearts and minds to engender gratitude (for the natural world.)

“Wonder and awe…influences our decision-making. It builds resiliency,” he added. “You become what you behold. We lose our ego and commune with the Divine. Now (we are in a time period) of breakdown and breakthrough. The battle is for your consciousness. It is fear (versus) beauty and sustainability. We need to feed our souls… Natural beauty heals.”

Beauty and seduction are nature’s tools for survival because we protect what we love, continued Swartzberg, whose recent theatrical releases include the 3D IMAX film “Mysteries of the Unseen World” with National Geographic, and “Wings of Life” for Disneynature, narrated by Meryl Streep.

“(Yet) life depends on the little things we take for granted. One-third of the food we eat comes from flowers. If we save the bees we save our food supply… Pollination is the foundation of life.

Resiliency is perseverance. This is our one and only home. Let’s protect it.”

On the other end of the environmental and resiliency conversation at the Sun Valley Forum was the eye-opening and unsettling tour of our vanishing world through climate impacts causing rising seas and higher tides.

Jeff Goodell, award-winning author and contributing editor at “Rolling Stone,” traveled the world to report on vivid scenes, fact, science and conversations with the world’s leading scientists, business leaders and government officials.

His book, “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Modern World,” will be released in October 2017.

Goodell’s reporting reveals that no one doubts that the water will come. The real question is: How high and how fast? Furthermore, he said, “the sea level rise will happen for the next couple centuries, no matter what we do.”

Using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s conservative estimate of sea level rise and working with an engineer, Jeff showed a shocking visual of the expected Miami topography mostly under water by the year 2100. Miami will be gone and south Florida will end at Orlando!

Goodell’s findings indicate that “for most cities impacted by rising water, it’s going to be a big problem before it becomes Atlantis.”  As the cities begin to flood, the water will become dirty, which will lead to disease.

“Enormous infrastructure changes will have to happen. Billions will be spent on adaption: sea walls and moving roads,” he said. “There will be social problems: Who gets to live behind the sea walls? In coastal cities people will have to think how to live differently.”

There will be a new vision of living, Goodell continued. There will be destruction and displacement in the United States as big in scale as the Dust Bowl er

“What will have to happen is: Retreat, giving up land. Nature will win this,” he said.

Environmental information and futurist visions like Jeff Goodell’s naturally create doubt, ambivalence, fear and despair in us. We ask ourselves: Should I believe him? Even if I might believe him, do I care right now while I’m busy making a daily living and I reside in a landlocked state?

Perhaps we think: Even if I am concerned, I’d rather not dwell on it and get myself down. Or, I feel that I’m reasonably informed and I deeply care about the environmental changes I’m noticing and our lack of resiliency, but I inevitably get caught up in arguments with family and friends who just don’t share my point of view.

Psychologist and communications researcher Dr. Renee Lertzman shared her insights at the Sun Valley Forum about how we understand ourselves and engage each other about our environmental crisis and what it means for our families, communities and the planet, without shutting down, but instead driving engagement.

“We start by recognizing that everything we talk about… relates to our capacity to make sense of the world,” she said.

She quoted meteorologist Eric Holthaus: “Our emotional/psychological response is THE story on climate change. It defines how (and if) we will solve the problem.”

Lertzman’s criticism is that environmental activists have employed a wildly swinging psychological pendulum. The environmental message is either the hard and scary Bad News, Folks! or the sexy, juicy Good News/Solutions from hopeful innovations.

But, as Lertzman points out, we are more nuanced as human beings. We are more in the middle, and we should refuse to get stuck in one narrative or the other.

The key is how we connect those narratives.

Lertzman used the example of her successful work with the World Wildlife Federation campaign to reduce the desire for ivory. First the WWF acknowledged the desirability of ivory. Then it redirected attention away from ivory to explore other ways to satisfy that desire and behavior. The WWF affirmed that such needs can be met through embracing alternative values, such as caring for wildlife, future generations and our children.

Why take this approach?

“Neuroscience and behavioral science demonstrates that affect/emotion is often driving the bus,” said Lertzman. “What happens when we process difficult information is that the emotional brain, or limbic system, is over-stimulated and it obstructs the thinking brain, or the neocortex.”

Typically when confronted with new information that doesn’t fit our current model, our mind relies on defense mechanisms, she added. For people to take in challenging information and think creatively, the environmental communications need to engage in ways that soothe their nervous system.

Lertzman suggested we begin the environmental conversation by having people focus on what natural beauty they like best about where they live. Then, admit that we don’t always act responsibly concerning our beloved natural environment.

Next, acknowledge that many of us are angry about the impositions on our lives of the proposed environmental solutions and we doubt they will work, anyway. The key, she said, is for the messenger to authentically listen so that the person who is feeling resistant feels like he is heard.

Only when that type of engagement happens can the messenger move on to suggest that together we can address these environmental issues on our own terms honestly, and that we have the ingenuity to choose our solutions.

This engagement process is relevant for large political segments in our society, as well as addressing our own internal conflicts. Every one of us has some care and concern for our environment, but it is mixed in with ambivalence and competing needs. So as Lertzman revealed, our internal resolution and external message need to be not stuck in hope or despair.

Instead our approach should be one of, “Yes, and…”