What Makes Helping the Planet Irresistible?
What Makes Helping the Planet Irresistible?
When: Friday, April 17, 2026
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Where: APCC’s Koppel Center
482 Main St (Rte 6A), Dennis 02638
Certain acts of environmental service break through into public awareness for a variety of reasons—the unusualness of the service itself, the unusualness of those performing it, or the unanticipated flood of emotions the action releases.
For the Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage, a group of women aged 66 to 86 who free dive for trash in ponds all over Cape Cod, it’s all three, but especially the emotions. We have opened a door and a whole crowd of people want to pile through and help us help the ponds. None of them knows exactly why. But one thing is clear. When it comes to helping the environment, it’s a lot easier to scale up the kind of joy that OLAUG engenders than the guilt, fear, obligation, or tepid hope that motivate some other services.
Photo Credit: D. Hammer
Author and founder of OLAUG will share with us what she knows about what makes diving for beer cans, golf balls, fishing lures, spent fireworks, and the occasional toilet or motorcycle—irresistible!
Speaker: Susan Baur is a retired psychologist and author of seven trade nonfiction books, and, at the moment, best known as the founder of the Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage that was started in 2018.
In April 2024, Susan received the American Red Cross (Massachusetts chapter) first Hero’s Award for Climate Resilience. In 2025, she was elected to the Explorers Club. With OLAUG, Susan has appeared on all major TV networks and have participated in roughly 40 podcasts in the U.S. and abroad.
In addition to a series of books for children on pond turtles, Susan has written Swimming with Turtles: How Wonder Reconnects Us to the Natural World, which will be published in September by the University of Massachusetts Press.
Susan is a graduate of Vassar College, with an M.A. from Harvard University, a non-degree certificate from Duke University, and a Ph.D. from Boston College.
Register
This is a hybrid event. In person seating is limited. The event is free.
The presentation will be recorded and made available on APCC’s website.