Getting Inspired

Hi everyone! I have been wondering what to do with this blog...do I delete it, since I have been so bad about writing here? Or do I keep it around and promise to myself to write a lot more?

I have been doing my Master's research about how UK municipalities can get their town employees to reduce their carbon footprint. A lot of my work is about awareness campaigns, and how to get people to actually do something! It can be a bit frustrating since sometimes it feels like people know what we should be doing, but we don't actually do it. This is called the value-action gap, or knowledge-behaviour gap. What will it take to get across the gap to get societies to actually make enough changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Or to be be more pro-environmental in general?

There are basically two ways to go about encouraging people to do more pro-environmental actions, like conserving energy or reducing how much they use their car. One is to change their values, since people who care about the environment are more likely to do actions that match up with saving the environment. Teaching and inspiring people about nature is one way to reinforce their positive values about the natural world.

The other way to do it is to just get people to change their behaviour, without changing their attitudes. This can be in the form of giving people incentives to get more efficient appliances, or a hybrid car. They might do the action that saves energy, but in general they're doing it to save money or because they think it will make them look good.

Both approaches have their pros and cons, and people respond differently to what motivates them. In my opinion, we need a combination of both to get things done. What do you think motivates people to change? Would you change your actions just because its the right thing to do, or because it would save you money? Or maybe you would like to make those changes but can't afford it, and a financial incentive is the only way to make it feasible for you?