Only Collective Actions Make a Difference

individual sacrifice may make us feel good but does little by itself, states the author, Gernot Wagner, an economist at the Environmental Defense Fund:

"So why bother recycling or riding your bike to the store? Because we all want to do something, anything. Call it "action bias." But, sadly, individual action does not work. It distracts us from the need for collective action, and it doesn't add up to enough. Self-interest, not self-sacrifice, is what induces noticeable change. Only the right economic policies will enable us as individuals to be guided by self-interest and still do the right thing for the planet."

Wagner writes that to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need "a regulatory system compels us to pay our fair share to limit pollution accordingly. Limit, of course, is code for 'cap and trade,' the system that helped phase out lead in gasoline in the 1980s, slashed acid rain pollution in the 1990s and is now bringing entire fisheries back from the brink."

Thanks to Loren Spiekerman