Page - 295 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

295© The Author(s) 2019 M. R. Marselle et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02318-8_13 Chapter 13 Supporting Behavioural Entrepreneurs: Using the  Biodiversity-Health Relationship to  Help Citizens Self-Initiate Sustainability Behaviour Raymond  De  Young Abstract Techno-industrial societies face biophysical limits and the consequences of disrupting Earth’s ecosystems. This creates a new behavioural context with an unmistakable demand: Citizens of such societies must turn from seeking new resources to crafting new living patterns that function well within finite ecosystems. This coming transition is inevitable, but our response is not preordained. Indeed, given the complex, multi-decade-long context, the required pro-environmental behaviours cannot be fully known in advance. Furthermore, the urgency to respond will necessitate that whole clusters of behaviour be adopted; incremental and serial change will not suffice. Thus, a culture of small experiments must be nurtured. The process of change will seriously tax social, emotional and attentional capacities. Thus, priority is placed on emotional stability and clear-headedness, maintaining social relationships while stressed, pro-actively managing behaviour and a willing- ness to reskill. These aspects of coping share a common foundation: the mainte- nance of attentional vitality and psychological well-being. Changes also must occur in how pro-environmental behaviours are promoted. We must move beyond inter- ventions that are expert-driven, modest in request, serial in implementation and short-term in horizon. New interventions must create the conditions under which citizens become behavioural entrepreneurs, themselves creating, managing and sharing successful approaches to behaviour change. Keywords Behavioural entrepreneurs · Behavioural aesthetics · Biophysical limits · Behaviour change · Energy descent · Mental vitality Highlights • Biophysical limits and climate disruption have created a new behavioural context. R. De  Young (*) School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA e-mail: rdeyoung@umich.edu