It really would be best if everyone who drives bought a Prius (or a Tesla or some other model of fuel-efficient car). Professor Blalock pointed out at the beginning of last week’s Rose Cafe that for every barrier to people switching to a more green car, there exists a viable solution. Yet there exist psychological blocks that discourage people from taking action. Most people recognize that an individual making the car switch would have virtually no environmental impact, but if all drivers switched, there would be a rather sharp reduction of carbon emissions over time.

Professor Blalock then described how such principles function in developing nations such as Uganda. There, the great majority of people cook their food on open fires, with the most common set-up being a set of 3 arranged rocks. Not only are these apparatuses not particularly efficient, meaning women have to spend more time gathering more firewood, but they produce large amounts of smoke. So much smoke, in fact, that it has serious negative affects on the health of people who work and play around the fires.

You would probably think that people would happily switch to any other kind of stove that is less likely to kill them, but in reality the opposite is true. Professor Blalock mentioned a special program that involved engineers designing an oven just for people in developing countries, but Ugandans largely rejected it. The model that was created was to expensive for its intended customers was not as easy to use or repair as the 3-rock stove. Professor Blalock went on to describe other efforts to get Ugandans to adopt new, healthier stoves, such as trial runs, information sessions, adding a warranty, and helping pay for the cost of the new stove. But even when people do purchase the new stove (about 50% of the time), all will evtually return to the old 3-rock model. I think the case outlined by Professor Blalock demonstrated how important psychological factors are to development programs and economics, perfectly illustrating how even if a choice seems rational and obvious, committing to it is actually quite hard.