Today’s Rose Cafe featured our very own House Professor Garrick Blalock and a discussion about the problems that prevent people from adopting a new and useful technology. Although Professor Blalock’s research focused on Africa and stoves, it is interesting that very similar situations take place in both third and first world countries. Here in the United States, for example, we all know that Prius’s will save their drivers money in the long term and help to reduce their carbon footprint, and we all want to save the planet, yet a very small percentage of people own the hybrid automobile. This problem persists even though many barriers to buying a car have been answered with smart solutions, such as offering warranty, financing, insurance, and test drives. Similarly, in Uganda, the majority of the population is preparing food with inefficient stoves that release a large amount of toxic smoke into the air. However, even though more efficient, cleaner-air stoves have been invented, they have not been adopted by the people of Uganda.

Although there are some differences in the two situations that we focused on, the big picture is the same: the action of one person will not make a significant difference (i.e. one person buys a Prius), but if the majority were to change their behavior (i.e. everyone drives a Prius), there would indeed be a big impact. However, based on Professor Blalock’s experience and research in Uganda, economic incentives and solutions, such as a trial period and financing, are not enough to effect a change in the long term. Returning to homes in Uganda with the cleaner, more efficient stoves 4 years later, Prof. Blalock found that 0% still used them. This unfortunate results leads to the thought that perhaps purely economic incentives are not enough to inspire collective action.