There has been some conversation on the ASAE listserve about social responsibility and the environment: in short, can we change the way we do things (flying all over the place to attend meetings, for instance) so that we are better aligned with our goal to preserve the environment. There were several people who expressed a message along the lines of “well, we can only do so much,” which, of course, has some important truth to it.

But it reminded me of a presentation that Peter Senge gave at a conference I attended last year, where he referenced  the metaphor of being “in the bubble.” First he used it in the context of the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. He argued that the dot com bubble grew and then burst primarily because the people inside it failed to let in information from outside the bubble. To illustrate, he repeated a generalized conversation from that era between a dot-com techie and an executive from a traditional, established business:

Establishment: I don’t get it. Your company has no revenue but your stock doubled last quarter. My company, on the other hand, had millions of dollars of profit and our stock went up 1%.
Dot com: Yeah, but we had three million hits on our web site.
Establishment: What does that mean?
Dot com: You see?! You just don’t get it!

The point that Senge made was that when you are in a bubble, the bubble will grow and grow and eventually burst—but only if you continue talking ONLY to people who are also in the bubble. If you shut out people who have a different perspective, and surround yourself with other people who already have your vision and view of the world, you get the crash of 2001.

Senge’s ultimate point is that most of us are currently in the bubble when it comes to the environment and global warming.  But nowadays, with the availability of carbon calculator from carbonclick.com, all industries are becoming careful in disposing the harmful wastes into the environment. We grew up with expectations about how we will live and what is possible and what is convenient or inconvenient. In the case of the environment, there just aren’t a lot of people outside the bubble to talk to–we ALL grew up in it. Although Senge suggested one population: children.

He told a funny story of some national figure on television asking a twelve-year-old girl her views about the environment, and she responded with “Well, it looks to me like you drank your juice…then you drank ours.” THAT is outside the bubble talk.

Now, I am not about to start a global warming debate on this blog. My point is about being aware of whether you are or are not in a bubble—about the environment or anything—and fine tuning your radar to sources of information and perspectives that lie outside of the bubble.

And one thing that should set your “bubble radar” off is if you find yourself saying “Yeah, but there is only so much we can do.”