Fear and Footprints

Zax,David. "The Last Experiment." Seed Magazine. Seed Media Group LLC, 22 April. 2009. Web. 4 Feb. 2010.

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The article I choose this week to write about addresses the topic of global climate change and how we can get people to change their habits regarding climate change. In this article author David Zax chooses to look at one topic that is not usually connected with climate change this being the social sciences. He states that the real scientist who are going to get people to change their habits are social scientists. The reasoning behind this is that in order to get a large mass of people to change their habits we have to understand these people as a whole which is where social scientist come into play. Zax uses a book called Nudge and its experiment that was used to show the correlation between social science and change. In this experiment it shows that if on a community level we show the whole community that they are leaving too big a carbon footprint that the next month it will decrease. On the other hand if they are under they create a bigger carbon footprint. He also brings up anther social scientist view who say that if a person views climate change as a non important matter then our goal must be to scare that person into believing so in turn enacting change. While most would agree that these are two ways to cause this change. Zax's brings up one final point made by Anthony Leiserowitz who feels that we have to focus on individual people rather than as the earth or the United States. If we can get people on an individual level to understand the importance its more likely to change rather then on such a large scale.

David Zax's brings up an interesting response to how to fix the global climate issue. While most articles I have read involve how we can change as a whole this address how we can advance that change. In other words how we can cause the change to occur quicker. He points toward social scientist because these are the people who study human interaction and in order for us to change we have to focus on individual action. He brings up relevant sources including those of people who have worked in the Bush administration, as well as a psychologist, and a Yale university professor. The author's view is that, while we care about the climate change and would agree it is going to happen, we view change on a whole level rather than an individual and as such make little progress towards easing our own carbon footprint. Zax's is trying to get the audience of this particular article to understand that we have to view global change on an individual level and that we need social scientists to help us effectively change our habits.