{"id":9,"date":"2026-05-15T15:37:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=9"},"modified":"2026-05-15T15:37:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:37:53","slug":"how-you-yes-you-can-make-a-difference-when-it-comes-to-climate-change-and-just-about-anything-else-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"How You, Yes, You, Can Make a Difference When It Comes to Climate Change\u2014and Just About Anything Else"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest years on record. The next 11 will be even warmer. It may feel like nothing we can do as individuals will make a difference to stem the climate crisis. But this is a mistake. Individual actions do matter, just not the way we usually think.<\/p>\n

Read more How You, Yes, You, Can Make a Difference When It Comes to Climate Change\u2014and Just About Anything Else<\/a><\/p>\n

Mostly we think about making a difference in straightforward, material terms. If the issue is climate change, and we know that climate change is caused by greenhouse gases, then we ask, \u201cWhat can I do to reduce my share of greenhouse gases\u2014my personal carbon footprint?\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem with this way of thinking is that each of us contributes an infinitesimally small drop in the bucket of global greenhouse gases. Suppose the question is whether to ride a bike to work instead of drive. Burning a gallon of gas in a car generates about 20 pounds of carbon pollution. In 2024, humans put about 41.6 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere. That\u2019s a ratio of about 1 to 4.5 trillion, or one teeny tiny drop in a damn big bucket.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Many in the climate community have switched from emphasizing your personal carbon footprint\u2014a concept popularized by the oil giant BP, after all\u2014to emphasizing your political footprint. \u201cIf you want to do one thing about climate change,\u201d science educator Bill Nye says, it\u2019s \u201cvote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, definitely, please do vote. But this doesn\u2019t solve the \u201cbig bucket\u201d problem. Have you ever cast the deciding vote in an election? Maybe in your five-person book club, but almost certainly not in a consequential statewide or national election. Social scientists call this the \u201cparadox of voting.\u201d Given the incredibly small odds any one ballot will make the difference, why does anybody bother? The effort isn\u2019t worth it.<\/p>\n

So how can individuals make a difference?<\/p>\n

We can make a difference by influencing each other\u2014by not only contributing drops into the bucket, but by showing others that we\u2019re doing so, and, in the process, influencing them to do the same. You probably haven\u2019t cast the deciding vote in a significant election, but we bet you\u2019ve worn an \u201cI voted\u201d sticker. Maybe you\u2019ve even snapped a selfie and posted it.<\/p>\n

Wearing the sticker turns voting into more than a tick in the tally. The sticker signals something like your pride in civic life. It tells people you\u2019re the kind of person who votes. It might make others want to be voters, too.<\/p>\n

Our actions have social consequences<\/em>, not just material ones. The actions you take today shape the choices your neighbors make tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Consider how we pick up and drop other habits. Smoking, economist Robert Frank argues, is a meme. The strongest predictor of whether someone will start smoking is whether their friends and family do. But research from Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler finds that the same is true for quitting smoking. When a sibling quits, the odds that you\u2019ll keep smoking go down 25 percent. When a close friend quits, they go down 36 percent. And if your spouse quits, you\u2019re 67 percent less likely to stay a smoker. Smoking rates plummeted from their mid-20th<\/sup>-century peaks because \u201cwhole groups of people were quitting in concert.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBehavioral contagion\u201d is why secondhand smoke is truly dangerous, as Frank points out. The material consequences of someone else\u2019s smoke getting into your lungs are dwarfed by the social consequences of public smoking looking cool and inspiring more smokers. This is the power of public prohibitions of unhealthy behavior. Keeping smoke out of one individual\u2019s lungs is a small benefit compared to keeping smoking out of the public eye.<\/p>\n

The same lessons apply to voting, climate action, and much else. What predicts who votes? Finding out if their college dorm-mate votes. What predicts who puts solar panels on their roof? Whether their neighbors put up solar panels first. And what most drives people to get off the doomscroll and into the streets? When their friends are going to the protest and ask them to come along.<\/p>\n

These examples remind us of the impacts of our actions beyond our individual footprints. If we\u2019re all so susceptible to social influence\u2014to quitting smoking when our friends do, getting into solar when our neighbors do, voting and protesting when our roommates do\u2014then we\u2019re all also purveyors of social influence.<\/p>\n

Are we saying the best way to make a difference is to go around putting peer pressure on each other? Isn\u2019t that a tad manipulative? Since we\u2014the authors of this essay\u2014are philosophers, maybe you\u2019d expect us to say it\u2019s important to do all these virtuous things for the right reasons. To get solar panels because you\u2019ve grasped the moral tragedy of climate change, not because your neighbor Larry\u2019s roof looks kind of fab with them.<\/p>\n

Actually, our view is that people\u2014philosophers especially included\u2014need to get over themselves a bit. We should welcome more voters and e-bikers and protesters for whatever their reasons are.<\/p>\n

A related worry is that all this minding the social consequences of our choices can lead to virtue signaling. Won\u2019t it be teeth-grindingly annoying, at best, if more people start parading their green virtues? Or worse, could it be counterproductive, sending would-be e-bikers zooming to the hills in their SUVs?<\/p>\n

Here, too, we\u2019ll bite the bullet: Virtue signaling is\u2014or can often be\u2014virtuous. If you\u2019re letting your friends and family know what you care about in hopes that they\u2019ll feel comfortable sharing that they care, too, you\u2019re doing something far from cringe. You\u2019re building a community.<\/p>\n

There are more and less effective ways to do it, too. Sharing your choices is especially powerful when it runs counter to people\u2019s expectations about you (e.g., when a Republican puts solar panels on the roof). It\u2019s less powerful when people see you as in it just for the likes and shares. Many of us were raised to sneer at social influence\u2014instructed to resist peer pressure at all costs\u2014but there\u2019s another term for thinking about all this that\u2019s less off-putting: role modeling. As we explain in our new book, Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change<\/em>, study after study shows how powerful the models we set can be.<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t just role models for our friends, roommates, or neighbors, either. All of us have lots of unexpected places to spread social influence; to our parents, co-workers, run-club buddies, and on and on. We can practice doing it deftly, focusing on our genuine beliefs, fears, and hopes. And there\u2019s one more person we can influence a whole lot, too: our future selves. The choices we make today shape the person we become tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, it’s good to do good things. It may be even more effective to tell people you’re doing them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5,6,7],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-books","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-psychology","tag-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\nHow You, Yes, You, Can Make a Difference When It Comes to Climate Change\u2014and Just About Anything Else - Home Move Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How You, Yes, You, Can Make a Difference When It Comes to Climate Change\u2014and Just About Anything Else - Home Move Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, it's good to do good things. 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