So this chart is a bit hard to read, but it’s worth puzzling over until you get it. It’s from the recent study “Global Warming’s Six Americas,” which probes the distribution of various attitudes and behaviors across the population.
Source: Global Warming’s Six Americas, 2008
The key finding is that people who are relatively negative about getting involved in fighting global warming ALSO tend to believe that their individual efforts won’t make a difference. The people who are willing to get involved ALSO tend to believe that their individual efforts will make a difference. And this isn’t just the case with global warming — it’s true for any environmental issue. In fact, it’s pretty much true for any good cause: People who believe their efforts matter are much more likely to make the effort than people who doubt their efforts matter.
Bottom line here: If you want people to get involved, you have to encourage them, not just inform them. And some of the words that work which do that are “make a difference,” “what you can do,” “working together,” and “doing your part.”
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