What Can I Do?

Climate change is such a massive problem that the average person might doubt his or her ability to do anything about it. A recent study reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied suggests that a feeling of helplessness can discourage people from thinking of climate change-related acts as "good" or "wrong"—which could, in turn, work against efforts to counter the threat.

Study participants each read an article about the dangers of climate change, but for some, the reading portrayed eco-friendly deeds (like using the washing machine less frequently) as easy and worthwhile, while others read that such actions were challenging and ultimately fruitless. Later, the participants who were told that green behaviors didn't make a difference were less likely to think of conservation in moral terms. The lack of a moral link to their actions, researchers found, contributed to increased energy use by members of the group a week later.

Communicating the danger posed by global warming isn't enough to motivate everyone to go green, says University of Warwick psychologist Jesse Preston, a co-author of the study: "We have to make people feel they can do something about it." She cites feedback offered by Northern California's Bay Area Rapid Transit system, which reports the amount of carbon saved each trip by taking the train rather than driving, as just one way to signal that individual measures have a concrete impact—and that it's better to take them than not.