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As a child, Sunita Sah says she learned to be good. Growing up in the U.K. in the 1980s as the daughter of Indian immigrants, she was praised for being obedient and studious at home and at school. But she also experienced racial slurs and hostile stares. Sah lived in a place that didnt always welcome differencesand her family was different. Sah had long considered her mother to be a compliant person. Quiet and deferential, her mom was the model of goodness. But one day that changed. When Sah was 7 years old, she and her mother were accosted in an alley by teenage boys, who shouted at them to Go back home. They were alone, vulnerable, and outnumbered. Thats when Sahs mother did something surprising. Rather than shrink under their threats, she stood up straight and confronted them. You think youre clever? she said to the boys. You think youre so strong. Big, tough boys, right? Then it was the boys turn to shrink. They took off, and Sah and her mother continued on. Sah would come to realize that defiance isnt a personality trait, she says. We can choose. Sah, a physician, psychologist, and professor at Cornell Universitys SC Johnson School of Business, has spent much of her career studying decision-making, including how and when we choose to defy. Defiance is not reducible to strength or weakness, courage or cowardice. It is not solely for the brave, the strong, or the extraordinary, she writes in her new book, Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. We all have the capacity to be defiant. WHY DEFIANCE IS SO DIFFICULT Defiancethe decision to act according to your own values when youre pressured to do otherwisemay be a matter of choice, but its certainly not an easy one. Many people find themselves wanting to stand up for what they believe is right, but unable to access that defiance. Nearly all of us have been rewarded for compliant behavior, over and over again. We get good grades in school if we study; we get positive performance reviews at work if we support the companys goals. Compliance is so conditioned, that for many its an automatic response. So when its time to defy and act according to our own principles, it feels unnatural. Compliance can be a good thing, but there is a dangerous side, too, Sah says. We learn quickly that we can keep earning promotions if we go along with shady business practices, or avoid retribution if we look the other way when we see a colleague being harassed. 1. WE DONT KNOW HOW TO DEFY Even if we want to side with our own values over external pressure, we dont always know how. If you see a colleague misleading a client, whom do you tell, and what do you say? Will it be enough to gently nudge someone to investigate the problem, or should you confront the person yourself? If were accustomed to complying, its hard to picture what defiance looks like. 2. WE WORRY ABOUT INSULTING OTHERS Another barrier is what Sah calls “insinuation anxiety, or the fear that we may appear to insult or undermine someone if we question their decisions or behavior. Rather than speaking up, we say nothing to avoid looking insulting or insubordinate. 3. THE COST OF DEFIANCE IS SOMETIMES TOO GREAT For some, the cost of defiance is too risky. Speaking up at work can cost you your paycheck and your healthcare. Weve seen corporate whistleblowers fired, dragged through court, and blacklisted in their industries. When the risk of defying is too great, we sometimes have to defer our defiance to another day when the costs are manageable. LEARNING HOW TO DEFY Defiance is a choice, Sah writes in her new book. Defiance is also a process. Two decades of research have shown Sah that defiance and compliance are not binary, but rather exist on a spectrum . . . encompassing a gradation of understanding, questioning, and action. She believes her mother had likely encountered those boys several times, perhaps defying them in small ways before putting her foot down. The difference between someone who does defy and someone who doesnt is preparation, she explains. Surprise can force us into compliance. Defiance can be practiced in small ways. You can envision yourself in the situation and practice saying aloud what you hope you will be able to say in the moment. The first time we speak up, we might stumble, but with repetition our voice grows more confident, she says. Practice is good because the best time to decide whether to defy or comply is not in the heat of the moment, Sah writes. Pausing can give you time to calculate the risks of defiance and form a plan to respond. Remember: You dont have to defy every time. If youre caught off guard and are unable to respond as youd like to, prepare yourself for the next opportunity. Most acts of defiance are not historic moments, nor are they necessarily memorable ones. But those small moments of defiance can help us build the muscle we need when it matters most. The forces that lead to compliance are more complex than they might appear, but they are not insurmountable, Sah writes. We may not always know how to defy. But we can learn.
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E-Commerce
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump initiated a trade war with Canada and Mexico, Americas two largest trading partners. Following through on weeks of threats, he imposed 25% tariffs on imported goods from Mexico and Canada and a lower 10% tariff on imports of Canadian energy resources. Leaders in Canada and Mexico quickly struck back. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled an immediate 25% tariff on $20.5 billion worth of goods from the United States and promised to extend the tax to another $85 billion in products in late March. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced she also planned to unveil retaliatory tariffs this coming Sunday. Trumps tariffs, which are widely expected to raise prices for U.S. consumers, are also poised to upend the American electricity market. All U.S. power grids except for Texass have some level of interconnection with grids in Canada, the largest energy supplier to the U.S. Historically, the U.S. has imported roughly twice as much power from Canada as it exports there, though that ratio has started to shift in recent years as climate change-driven drought has slowed the output of hydroelectricity in provinces like Quebec and Ontario. Some 98% of Americas natural gas imports, and 93% of its electricity importsmuch of that from hydroelectric damscome from Canada. Americas reliance on Canadian power is not evenly distributed. Northern energy grids are generally more reliant on Canadas energy resources than southern grids due to their geographic proximity to Canada. States like New York and Minnesota have also entered into energy market agreements with Canadian provinces to receive their hydroelectricity in order to meet ambitious and rapidly approaching climate change goals. From Canadas perspective, withholding or taxing energy exports to the U.S. is an effective bargaining chipperhaps one of the countrys most powerful. I see energy as Canadas queen in this game of chess, Andrew Furey, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, said in January, when Trump had not yet followed through on his threat of Canadian tariffs. Fureys province is one of five that supplies the U.S. with hydropower. On the evening before the tariffs took effect, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, threatened to cut off energy exports to the United States full stop with a smile if Trump continues to target Canada with tariffs. On Tuesday, Ford announced a 25% export tax on power Ontario ships via transmission lines to 1.5 million homes in three statesMichigan, Minnesota, and New Yorkand said a full export ban was still on the table. All three states affected by Ontarios export tax have climate targets on the books that rely in some measure on hydroelectric power. Minnesota, Michigan, and New York all aim to achieve clean electricity grids by 2040. Michigan is relying in large part on its own hydroelectric facilities, but Minnesota and New York are, to varying degrees, dependent on Canada to reach their targets. Experts told Grist its too soon to say what Trumps tariffs, and Fords retaliatory measures, mean for these states climate goalsand their residents. When youre adding unnecessary friction into the market, of course youre going to see price increases, said Daniel A. Zarrilli, who served as chief climate policy adviser to former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Tariffs are going to flow to the consumer, either directly or indirectly. Zarrilli noted that its unclear what those price hikes might look like, and whoratepayers, utilities, or some combination of actorswill shoulder them. The trade war may be felt especially acutely in New York, where developers are extending a transmission line from Quebec all the way to Queens in order to pump much-needed hydroelectric power into New York City. Once the Champlain Hudson Power Express is operational in 2026, New York City is guaranteed hydroelectric power during the summer months. It is not, however, guaranteed that reliable power during the winter. As the state has electrified its power grid, energy demand has been increasing during the cold weather months. New York power grid operators are preparing for demand during the winter to double over the next 30 years. But whether the state gets the hydropower it needs to provide reliable, renewable power during that peak demand now depends on how the trade war plays out. The fallout could be actually catastrophic, said Adrienne Esposito, executive director at the nonprofit Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which has helped push New York City to adopt a climate plan that mirrors the states. It defies logic. This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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E-Commerce
Before Donald Trump took office, Memphis-based staff for the environmental advocacy group the Southern Environmental Law Center used a tool called EJScreen to measure air quality in South Memphis. The resource tracked air quality over time, allowing SELC staffers to quantify the cumulative impacts of air pollution in the neighborhood. But when the Trump administration began shutting down federal environmental websites and scrubbing the words climate change from government websites, EJScreen went dark. The disappearance of this resource is just one example of how the SELCs work has been stymied in recent months, according to geospatial analyst Libbie Weimer. In just the first two weeks of his presidency, Trumps administration removed dozens of web pages and datasets from the official sites of the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Council on Environmental Quality, NASA, and others. At the SELCwhich specializes in legal environmental advocacy in the Southmany of those pages were part of the organizations daily efforts to track regional concerns. To address this loss, Weimer and her team have created a guide that preserves archived environmental sites. The guide, published last Friday, includes three main sections: data archives, including suggested places to search for archived raw data, metadata, and scientific papers; a web clone section, which includes links to cloned tools like EJScreen and the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Environmental Justice Index; and a web archive, which guides users through the Wayback Machine to find old pages. The whole guide is underpinned by a searchable list that allows users to quickly find specific lost sites. [Screenshot: FC] Where I work, I serve a staff of over 100 people, plus our dozens of community-based partner organizations across six states, Weimer says. Overnight, those people stopped having access to the information they use on a daily basis to protect the air, water, land, wildlife, and people where they live. The guide is my attempt to reconnect folks to the information and data they need. The guide runs off a website that Weimer maintains by cross-referencing other grassroots lost-site trackers with a list of the sites that are important to her staff. Critically, Weimar notes, shes not the only person tracking the Trump administrations culling of federal environmental web pages: The Data Rescue Tracker, Public Environmental Data Partners, and Climate Change Transparency Project have already embarked on a similar mission. The purpose is simple: We believe that everyone should continue to have access to public information and data, Weimer says. These resources belong to us and were created for the public good.
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E-Commerce
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