This Wednesday at Rose Cafe, Professor Blalock lead a discussion on why adopting new technologies, especially in rural Africa, is harder than it may seem to be. He posed an interesting question at the beginning of the discussion: almost everyone agrees that global warming is a problem, emissions by automobiles are contributing to the problem, and that Prius and Teslas can help reduce this impact. But only 3 people in the room drove a Prius or Tesla, so why aren’t we all driving one? (I actually do drive a Prius). Although Prius or Teslas would be ideal, a multitude of factors impede the adoption of efficient technology: financing, fit, opportunity, etc, and change is difficult. The problem of collective action is also a problem: why should any one person adopt a piece of technology that does not fit their needs when others are able to freely choose? And, unless everybody drove a Prius, there would be little change in the state of the environment.

Almost 50% of the world cook over three stone stoves. These stoves color the ceiling above tar black, and use of the stoves is estimated to be equivalent to smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day! Use of this stove also requires a large amount of wood, contributing to deforestation. I was shocked to learn that 4x as many people die from using this stove (due to subsequent health problems) than from malaria, yet we do not treat cookstoves as a global crisis in the same manner we treat malaria. Despite this, when faced with 2 stoves, one that burned cleanly and the traditional three stone stove, most people from Rwanda’s villages did not choose the healthier, cleanly burning stove- and due to the same reasons why everybody in the US doesn’t own a Prius or Tesla. The unhealthier stove is more convienient, cheaper, and better suited to the needs of the people.

How then, can we encourage the adoption of efficient technology? To encourage the adoption of clean burning stoves, only when focus groups and free trials were offered (applying the same methods US dealers use to sell cars), were they able to convince 40% to adopt the clean burning stove. However, when Professor Blalock went back to Rwanda 5 years later, most had gone back to using the traditional stove. However, we can learn a lot about people and the adoption of new technology from this study. In summary, getting people to change their behavior and adopt new technology is tough, but aligning incentives is the key to behavior change.