about education and individual action for social change
Educating people at all ages can help us make better choices. There's one interesting example I know about of how behavior changed and continues to change globally by building awareness through public education, working with kids, creating curriculum, and creating a new public conversation.
In Australia, a man named Ian Kiernan started raising awareness about the disgusting quality of our world's oceans after making an around-the-world sail. He was appalled by the garbage floating everywhere, propelled hundreds and thousands of miles from its sources via currents, as well as garbage dumped by municipalities, states, countries and sailors. So he got together with a bunch of folks in Sydney to do something in their own backyard - operating on the principle that we first need to take care of what's right in front of us. The "Clean Up the Harbour" day in 1989 unexpectedly became this huge effort involving hundreds of people, who it seemed had been hungry for someone to tell them what to do and give them permission to do what they really wanted to do anyway - which was to take care of their environment.
From the first Clean Up day was born Clean Up Australia in 1992 and eventually Clean Up the World in 1993. While CUTW is an international organization operating in many countries, the clean up efforts are local and involve partnerships with smaller local organizations. The international scope allows CUTW to create classroom tools for teachers to use to educate kids about the environment and the consequences of what they and their parents and communities do. www.cleanuptheworld.org and www.cleanup.org.au have more information.
One of the major efforts for Clean Up Australia was to reduce the amount of waste produced - instead of simply cleaning it up. So a huge campaign began to eliminate the use of plastic bags. I believe Australia was the first country to legislate against plastic bags. And that campaign was so successful that its organizers spread its lessons throughout the world. Now we see in the US that, for example, Whole Foods is charging customers for plastic bags in an effort to get us to regularly use sturdy, reusable bags. And I know that similar changes are happening in England and other parts of Europe - probably in Latin America and Asia and Africa, for all I know. Information is at www.cleanup.org.au/au/campaigns and www.noplasticbags.org as well as at www.reusablebags.com, www.planetark.org , www.squidoo.com, and the New York Times , an article on Ireland's tax on plastic bags.
Do I think that Ian Kiernan and his band of "Clean Up Australia" activists were the only people to think that plastic bags were no good? Of course not! After all, the French have used string bags for many years and the Japanese furoshiki (a large decorative cloth folded and tied as a carryall) has historically been used to tote produce and other things, and the Irish imposed their "plas-tax" in 2002. Perhaps it's just that I learned about the plastic bag campaign from my connection with Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World when I worked for New York Restoration Project, an organization that Bette Midler started to clean up North Manhattan (www.nyrp.org ).
At any rate, I think the great feat for Clean Up Australia was to demonstrate that citizen activism could produce tons of change: political, economic and especially behavioral choices on the part of consumers - each one of us who goes into a store and leaves with goods in our own reusable tote is making a choice, that also is a statement about our values.
People's behavior can be incentivized by making it more expensive or impossible to exercise a specific choice. And some incentives are more effective than others. What if it costs me 5 cents to buy a plastic bag because I forgot to bring my own? That's not such a high price so why bother remembering. What if there are no plastic bags and I have to carry my groceries in my arms because I forgot my bag? I will probably remember my bag the very next time. Or what if a bag costs a dollar? I will probably remember my bag.
Good intentions can be fostered by education about the consequences of the choices I make, and then there needs to be some structure put in place to assist me in changing my behavior in accord with my values and desired impact. Good public policy does that. In a way, the Clean Up Australia example shows that when ordinary folks do something that surprises the politicos, the politicos want to get on board fast and good public policy can follow despite the resistance by narrow economic/industrial interests. And it all started with one (very well-connected) person saying "hey, this is unacceptable and let's get together to do something about it right in our own backyard/harbour."
In Australia, a man named Ian Kiernan started raising awareness about the disgusting quality of our world's oceans after making an around-the-world sail. He was appalled by the garbage floating everywhere, propelled hundreds and thousands of miles from its sources via currents, as well as garbage dumped by municipalities, states, countries and sailors. So he got together with a bunch of folks in Sydney to do something in their own backyard - operating on the principle that we first need to take care of what's right in front of us. The "Clean Up the Harbour" day in 1989 unexpectedly became this huge effort involving hundreds of people, who it seemed had been hungry for someone to tell them what to do and give them permission to do what they really wanted to do anyway - which was to take care of their environment.
From the first Clean Up day was born Clean Up Australia in 1992 and eventually Clean Up the World in 1993. While CUTW is an international organization operating in many countries, the clean up efforts are local and involve partnerships with smaller local organizations. The international scope allows CUTW to create classroom tools for teachers to use to educate kids about the environment and the consequences of what they and their parents and communities do. www.cleanuptheworld.org and www.cleanup.org.au have more information.
One of the major efforts for Clean Up Australia was to reduce the amount of waste produced - instead of simply cleaning it up. So a huge campaign began to eliminate the use of plastic bags. I believe Australia was the first country to legislate against plastic bags. And that campaign was so successful that its organizers spread its lessons throughout the world. Now we see in the US that, for example, Whole Foods is charging customers for plastic bags in an effort to get us to regularly use sturdy, reusable bags. And I know that similar changes are happening in England and other parts of Europe - probably in Latin America and Asia and Africa, for all I know. Information is at www.cleanup.org.au/au/campaigns and www.noplasticbags.org as well as at www.reusablebags.com, www.planetark.org , www.squidoo.com, and the New York Times , an article on Ireland's tax on plastic bags.
Do I think that Ian Kiernan and his band of "Clean Up Australia" activists were the only people to think that plastic bags were no good? Of course not! After all, the French have used string bags for many years and the Japanese furoshiki (a large decorative cloth folded and tied as a carryall) has historically been used to tote produce and other things, and the Irish imposed their "plas-tax" in 2002. Perhaps it's just that I learned about the plastic bag campaign from my connection with Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World when I worked for New York Restoration Project, an organization that Bette Midler started to clean up North Manhattan (www.nyrp.org ).
At any rate, I think the great feat for Clean Up Australia was to demonstrate that citizen activism could produce tons of change: political, economic and especially behavioral choices on the part of consumers - each one of us who goes into a store and leaves with goods in our own reusable tote is making a choice, that also is a statement about our values.
People's behavior can be incentivized by making it more expensive or impossible to exercise a specific choice. And some incentives are more effective than others. What if it costs me 5 cents to buy a plastic bag because I forgot to bring my own? That's not such a high price so why bother remembering. What if there are no plastic bags and I have to carry my groceries in my arms because I forgot my bag? I will probably remember my bag the very next time. Or what if a bag costs a dollar? I will probably remember my bag.
Good intentions can be fostered by education about the consequences of the choices I make, and then there needs to be some structure put in place to assist me in changing my behavior in accord with my values and desired impact. Good public policy does that. In a way, the Clean Up Australia example shows that when ordinary folks do something that surprises the politicos, the politicos want to get on board fast and good public policy can follow despite the resistance by narrow economic/industrial interests. And it all started with one (very well-connected) person saying "hey, this is unacceptable and let's get together to do something about it right in our own backyard/harbour."
posted by julieannerickson at 12:15 PM
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