World Environment Day last week made me reflect on my green credentials. We should all be minimizing our carbon footprint - that’s a given. But somehow COVID and the house renovations gave me an excuse to become cavalier. We are guilty of buying over packaged meat and veg from the supermarket. We recycle what we can, but cling film and those moisture absorbing thingies end up in land fill. Teabags can no longer go in the green waste as they apparently contain micro plastics so into the red bin (landfill) they go too. I save lids from juice and milk but I don’t know where to send them now. I’ve previously given them to the Council for craft activities and to the Lids For Kids charity which seems to have folded. Sometimes I take an extra bag on dog walks and pick up the rubbish I find. Mostly I forget. Is green fatigue a thing, like compassion fatigue? Both seem to be a reaction to the enormity of the issues the planet faces.
Recently a
smooth/fast talking Pommy guy came to our door representing the Cancer Council
of NSW. He ingratiated himself by admiring our dog and shaking hands (with us
not the dog) before launching into more bonding gestures and patter. He made much of the fact that he has the same
name, Reuben, as one of our cats. We got chatting about the fact that he was
born in Bristol, where my sister was also born, actually in the Forest of Dean where the TV series Pennies from Heaven is partially set.
Inevitably we talked about people I’d lost to cancer – my mother and my dear friend
Mon .before I knew it he was taking my details and signing me up for what I
believed was a one off $50 donation. It quickly became apparent that it was in
fact a monthly donation which we can ill afford. He suggested that, if after
three months, I found (now what was the phrase he used?) I had a change of
heart, or my heart was no longer in it, I could revoke the commitment. I know
he used the word ‘heart’ about five times…
After he’d
gone, I got a confirmation call from the Cancer Council. I was able to
instantly cancel my pledge. The caller asked for feedback. I was too flustered and upset to go into
detail. I just stated that we were not in a position to make monthly donations
and I had felt manipulated by the encounter. She struck the commitment
immediately and suggested I visit their website if I still wanted to donate. Now
e while I had previously been persuaded that contributing to the cost of cancer
care was something that mattered to me, I now felt resistant. In the next 24
hours I gave $50 to WIRES and pledged $25 to the vet costs for a stray cat.
WIRES
protect native animals. Cats are introduced predators whose population is
growing because people either don’t care to or can’t afford to get their pets
desexed. What strikes me is that (a) I’ve chosen to support services to animals
over those for humans and (b) that I’m funding both ‘deserving’ and
‘undeserving’ species. Where is the
consistency? What are my priorities?
Reuben from
the Forest of Dean triggered some reactive behaviour and existential
questioning… His door knock came amidst
the general deluge of demands I, and I’m sure most people, get on social media,
via email and regular mail. In the past fortnight these have included Labor against One Nation, Amnesty
International, Avaaz, Assange,
Change.org, The Guardian, The Conversation and Ovarian Cancer research, to say nothing of
the plethora of direct Go Fund Me and sponsorship approaches I’ve had. It is dizzying and however worthy each cause
is I can’t support them all. So Wires and cat rescue won out, oh, and the
Salvation Army when a neighbour came to our door collecting for them yesterday.
Reading
about the psychology of donating*, mainly in articles used to train people like
Reuben from the Cancer Council, a few factors stand out:
· Reduce the scale of the issue by using specific individual examples of who will be helped
· Set goals /targets e.g. we aim to raise $70K by end July
· Reward the donor, foster the ‘warm glow’ of giving by telling them what their $s will achieve
· Leverage their sense of wanting to be as generous as their peer group – what do you think is an average commitment across this neighbourhood?
These are basically sales ploys. Significantly WIRES doesn’t really use them – they tempted me with a ‘we’ll double your donation’ campaign. The animal shelter excels at individuation, using photographs and bios for the adoption candidates. It’s shamelessly anthropomorphic and only works because I am soppy about animals, and, as the above apparent contradiction suggests, that emotional connection with animals transcends their context. That doesn’t mean I don’t support reduction of feral animal populations. I do.
Donating
blood/plasma is a whole other topic area that I won’t expand on here… It uses some
of the above techniques to sustain commitment but has no cost apart from an investment
of time which for me is amply rewarded by being able to read uninterrupted and getting
a Byron Bay cookie at the end of the donation. It is a low effort way of doing something
beneficial and, unlike supporting Palestinian and First Nations causes, which
from time to time I do, isn’t likely to get me into heated debate with ‘cookers’
on Facebook.
So marsupials, moggies and the Salvos’ clients are the recipients of my meagre donations this week. My motivation may be muddy but does anyone’s bear scrutiny? Should it have to?
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