by Cathryn Clarke Murray
Step it up! Small is the new big.The environmental movement is
divided over the importance of small steps—are they a critical starting point
or a distraction from needed policy and institutional changes? A journey of a
thousand miles begins with a single step, but will small changes add up to the
kind of massive shift needed to bring us toward sustainability?
We say sweat the small stuff—but
not because small decisions add independently to big change. Rather, because
societal change isn’t just additive like stair-climbing, it’s transformative like metamorphosis, and
small actions play a crucial role. Practiced consistently, small steps
facilitate both gradual evolution and rapid revolution for positive lasting
change.
Of course institutional and policy
change is crucial, but it doesn’t happen on its own; it happens when people
fight for it, motivated by their values. And if structural change happens without support from people’s values,
then people resent it and resist or revolt. So it’s not a choice between small
stuff or large, it’s a question of how we can integrate the two to get value
change that also motivates broad action.
The abolitionist movement in England in the
1800s was bolstered by personal actions, such as hosts refusing to serve sugar.
Not only did this small step give participants, primarily women, a feeling of
virtue or self worth, but it became a way to demonstrate their values and
instigate dialogue about slavery with those in their inner circles. These
“small” actions empowered women and transformed them into activists who played
a pivotal momentum-building role in the fight against slavery.
We propose a theory of change
focused on small steps and rooted in the powers of virtue, rationalization, and
participation.
We all have a deep-seated need to
feel virtuous in our circle of
friends and family. Not virtue à la chastity and sobriety, but deep confidence that we are worthy of respect from
those who matter. What counts as virtuous varies hugely across groups, but all
groups—even gangs—have their own notions of appropriate behavior and character.
Rationalization is a powerful force that helps people justify their
past actions according to their values. People hate to feel that they’ve wasted
effort, time, and money. Because of this, consistent repeated actions can
reinforce values (as long as they’re voluntary and not coerced): people seek to
rationalize their sunk costs as necessary for an important value. Once the two
of us started recycling consistently, we both found ourselves unconsciously
searching for additional reasons to continue, subsequently identifying
ourselves as people who go to lengths to reduce waste and even compost—that is,
committed environmentalists.
The circle closes with participation: daily conscientious
actions can cement a gradual shift in our deepest values. Kai’s grandparents
scrimped and saved as young parents during World War II. Every little bit
helped, so their frugality was reinforced and became an entrenched value.
“Waste not, want not,” was their mantra of daily action. Over the years they
became outspoken against society’s excesses and imbued these values in their
children. That’s the kind of tenacity and longevity the environmental movement
needs!
Rooted in this theory, three
approaches might inspire others to take small steps toward transformative
change.
First, let’s address people in a
way that makes them feel recognized as virtuous, with new opportunities to
practice their sustainable values. Environmental activists have long been
criticized for characterizing people as villains, which often engenders recoil.
A subset of anti-smoking advocates, in contrast, employed virtue brilliantly in
the early ‘80s with campaigns that featured cartoon heroes stamping out
smoking. Not only did these characters entrench in kids the virtue of fighting
smoking, it also armed them to pressure their parents. And what parent doesn’t
want to be thought of as virtuous by their children?
Second, let’s focus not only on
engaging the “public,” but also our closest friends and family on these issues
of value. We both squirmed under scrutiny from friends about factory-farmed
meat before we eliminated it from our diets. Our brave friends wielded their
compelling arguments in a way that left us feeling not like bad people, but
rather very good ones—too thoughtful to hold steadfastly to flawed arguments. After
fidgeting for a while, we finally recognized that we had not been living by our
core values and changed our diets.
Third, let’s embrace the notion of “cool” so that a person’s very sense of style can reinforce a commitment to
sustainability. Gas-electric hybrid cars can appeal to technology fans and
trend followers, but they can also inspire value change, giving drivers an
opportunity to feel virtuous and think of themselves as conscious consumers.
Revolution-promoting design can extend to T-shirts and shopping bags and
furniture, with stylish items serving as Trojan Horses for sustainability. Of course, sustainability will also require
that we model desirable lifestyles that don’t include driving and that limit consumption of new goods. The key is to
make these items and lifestyle choices attractive, not to preach about them.
The challenge before us as
environmentalists is immense. To succeed, we must realize that while small
stuff can seem trivial, it’s actually critical. People need to feel invested in a movement on a personal level before
they can embrace and advocate change on a societal level. Strung together with purpose, small steps can carry us great distance.
Related Links:
On talking to our kids about the future
Cities vs. suburbs: The next big green battle?
Climate groups grapple for a path forward from Copenhagen
