In February, Professor Andre Kessler talked about how his experiences in the Andes changed his perspective on climate change. He told stories of how religious leaders in South American tribes have predicted a downfall in the health of our planet. He then talked about how switching to other sustainable ways of feeding people, such as eating crickets, can help save the planet.

His efforts to influence our environmental behaviors reminds me of something I learned recently in Persuasion and Social Influence. Researchers have found that a few reasons why many people are not influenced by environmental communication is that the message 1) lacks intentionality or real goals, 2) there is no moral violation that produces intense emotion, and 3) the consequences seem distant, and 4) climate change is slow and gradual.  Due to the nature of the issue and the way that media covers it (or fails to), it’s difficult to get people to be active in combating it. There has to be a better way of communicating the severity of the issue. Perhaps using more stories about how climate change impacts people like monks in the Andes would help.

What is going on in the world that we cannot see?

Can plants talk? Do they communicate? Can they protect themselves from predators? These were the essential questions asked during the Rose Café led by Ande Kessler. I had never before thought about if plants could communicate, and certainly not about how they can send signals to each other for protection. As Professor Kessler explained, plants release chemicals when they are eaten by predators, and this chemical can be sensed by other nearby plants, allowing them to protect themselves so they do not get eaten as well. It is a smart survival strategy, and plants have evolved to find ways to communicate no matter the circumstance.

Similarly, Professor Kessler told us about his travels to Columbia and the communities he discovered there. They have unique ways of communicating as well, and designate members of their community to live in darkness for 7 years at a time in order to be able to pass down oral history. Although unseen by sunlight and other humans, these people keep the history of the community and are often consulted for advice on problems. The communication strategy keeps the history pure and undistrupted from outside influences.

Plants and other cultures have unique ways of communicating…it is inspiring to think of the various ways organisms communicate throughout the world.

I had the pleasure of attending the Rose Cafe event on plant communication. I truly enjoyed talking about the experiences Professor Kessler had in Colombia with its indigenous populations. I loved learning about the Shaman traditions held and the knowledge that they have which I find fascinating given their correlation with the outside world despite how distant they are from it . As we moved into the topic of plant communication and the pull-push agricultural method for pest management I was so intrigued by how it worked so well in Africa. I was also angered by how pharmaceutical companies are working against this method given it will interfere with their gains. I have already told my parents about this method and we are researching it further to see if we can implement it in our land in Ecuador. I find an immense respect for this development given the world we are living in right now and look forward to seeing the benefits first-hand.

During this Rose Cafe, we met with Professor Ande Kessler to learn about plant communication. After a long and unrelated tangent about indigenous tribes in Colombia, we began to learn about the methods by which plants release chemicals, and how this can alter the behavior of other organisms in the area. For example, we learned that some plants will release chemicals when they are being eaten by insects, which can attract more predatory insects to eat the herbivores. Mechanisms such as this are fascinating because they illustrate the interconnectedness of nature. Even seemingly unrelated phenomena can play off of one another to create magnificent reactions. If humanity wishes to get the fullest benefit from nature, to work with it rather than destroy it, then we must have a greater understanding of the ways in which this communication works.

At Professor Andre Kessler’s talk today, I discovered an extremely interesting perspective of the politics of conservation. Thou off-topic, Professor Kessler explained that while he grew up in Eastern Germany, he witnessed a concept of East German politics that warranted the critique of Capitalist society. The conservation efforts of forestry and non-consumer agriculture in the Communist east was significantly more prevalent than that of the Capitalist West. He noted this as a major flaw in the free market nature that the United States’ is based in that the government’s unused landholdings in a Communist state allow for conservation. Professor Kessler also noted that the government was able to preserve a percentage of this untouched land in the east when Germany reunited by the transitional provincial government’s motion to establish a national park system.

While it was an extremely fascinating viewpoint, I gathered a slight notion of sympathy for the Communist system from this explanation. While extremely effective in deterring self-interest in deforesting land, Communism has a bevy of unintended consequences that left many of those living under it without basic human rights and ability to provide for their families. However, the way Professor Kessler talked about the future of sustainable agriculture in terms that did not attack the sentiment of a governing system but talked about the redefinition of the way they thought about unhealthy and unnatural practices such as using pesticides. Instead, he talked about the idea of using a “push and pull” system which elated me for the future of our agricultural system, as a means of “pushing” the herbivores off plants with natural resistant plants next to the crops and “pulling” the herbivores to natural attractor crops.