Small steps to create positive change

THE EARTH IS SHRIVELLING LIKE A RAISIN! WE’RE DOOMED. AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAUL… hang on, sorry, the caps-lock key is stuck. Let’s start again.

“We’re doomed and it’s your fault” – that was the essence of the message I was sent the other day. It came from a friend and newly dedicated environmentalist who knows a lot about how capitalism affects our planet, and nothing about getting his message across.

Because honestly – who gets inspired by panic and disaster? My reaction is always to turn off and think about something nicer. Kittens are good. Flowers too. Though given the scary tone of my friend’s email, a daydream about drilling teeth would have been a pleasant distraction.

A woman I met recently has been working out how to talk about sustainability in ways that switch people on, rather than turning them off. Niki Harré is associate professor of psychology at Auckland University and has written an excellent book called Psychology For A Better World. It’s about inspiring sustainability in the people around you, and the research she bases it on turns up some interesting points.

For example, one study found that when people feel good, they're better at solving problems – while other research saw that staff in successful workplaces tended to make five positive statements for every negative one, compared with unsuccessful teams where the ratio was more like two downer comments for every upper.

What this seems to show is that if you want to inspire change (and we do, OR THE EARTH WILL SHRIVEL LIKE… ahem, sorry) then being positive makes a difference. So does setting a positive example. And reinforcing the little achievable changes we can all make might be more important than highlighting big-picture woes that seem too hard to deal with. Wow. I was so excited by Niki's ideas I called to ask if she’d help us put some of them in motion. She jumped at the proposal and together we cooked up what we’ve called the Green Ideas small steps team.

You can read about it here, but the basic idea is anyone can join the team by taking on a simple task that makes a small but real difference to the planet. We’ll suggest a task for each issue – we’re starting with reusing coffee cups and plastic water bottles for a fortnight – and so we don’t feel like our efforts are a drop in the ocean, we’ll add up the total waste saved and work out what this would be if we’d inspired the whole country – or the whole world – to take part.

And okay, saving the odd paper coffee cup might feel trivial in the face of the world’s problems, but then you never know – maybe two weeks of doing something new could start a lifetime’s habit. Maybe your positive example will ripple out to inspire greater changes in society. Or maybe the EARTH WILL SHRIVEL LIKE A RAISIN … sorry! Sorry. It’s that bloody caps-lock key again.

Greg Roughan
Editor, Green Ideas magazine

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