At this Wednesday’s Rose Café, our very own House Professor, Garrick Blalock, spoke about his time in Uganda. He brought up several of points that I had never connected before, and he essentially summarized the entirety of human behavior in one hour: getting people to change is very hard. He grew a comparison between the popularity of carbon-emitting monsters of vehicles the developed world endorses to the harmful smoking-heavy cook stoves women use in the underdeveloped.

He also brought up the point of collective action and the idea that just one person’s doings won’t change the world. When he talked about this, I couldn’t help but think about the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately, I know a fair amount of people who choose not take practice their civic duty, because “it won’t change anything”. If there are, for example, 10,000 people who feel the same way, then that unrealized impact is magnified.

It’s the same mentality with global warming. We all know it is real, and we all know we could reduce our carbon footprints, but on an individual basis, “it won’t change anything”. How do we change this mentality?