Sunday, February 22, 2009

Virtue Beats Hope When It Comes To Sustainable Living



Advocating a sustainable lifestyle as a way to avert a global climate disaster, or to give our kids hope for a decent future on this planet, turns out to be counter productive.

New Research suggests if you want people to live more sustainably, you have to give them reasons more immediate than "hope."

John Vucetich, assistant professor of animal ecology at Michigan Technological University, and Michael Nelson, associate professor of environmental ethics at Michigan State University say that trying to get people to live sustainably by giving them hope for a better future doesn't really work. We're told to stay hopeful, that what we do each day will make our future bright...but what people need to be told is that living sustainably is just plain old the right thing to do.

Hope may actually be counter-productive, Vucetich and Nelson suggest. "I have little reason to live sustainably if the only reason to do so is to hope for a sustainable future, because every other message I receive suggests that disaster is guaranteed," they explain.

These researchers suggest getting people to focus on positive human qualities that living sustainably represnts, like love, sharing, caring for others, will get more people interested in living sustainably. That's because even climate change nay-sayers are interested in doing the right thing. Essentially, make the most of the time we've got here on Earth.

"Instead of hope, we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective," they say. "We need to lift up examples of sustainable living motivated by virtue more than by a dubious belief that such actions will avert environmental disaster."

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This is very interesting. I can see the logic in it. I've thought a lot about this because the issue of global warming is highly debated with many people saying it is inevitable. So, if one believes it is inevitable, why change what they are doing. If, on the other hand, their actions are associated with right or wrong ... well, perhaps they choose the virtuous path. Underneath it all, I think most people want to do the right thing.

Thank you for sharing this!

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Barry said...

I see the merit in it as well, although I don't see why both arguments can't be used.

Different people will respond differently to different messages and its not as if either argument contradicts the other.

Nancy said...

If you want the young ppl to feel like this is something that needs to be done...sit them down and have them watch "Wall-E". As for the rest of us, I would think this whole economic problem would get us all to start living in a more self-sustaining less wasteful manner.

Barry said...

I think the young people are way ahead of us, Nancy (in part thanks to movies like Wall-e, which I enjoyed).