‘Changing minds’- the real cure.

“Protecting our environment” has been a big topic of people all over the world since decades ago. Since the early to mid-1970s, concern for the environment quality of our planet has generated a tremendous body of research in the environmental and social sciences, and the active involvement of social and behavioral scientists in efforts to develop techniques for measuring responsible environmental behavior ( Scott & Willits,1990). If we can bring people’s attention to the environment, we might figure out methods that lead people to protect the environment.

Recently, many researches on environmental behavioral has focused on the assumption that knowledge is linked to attitudes, and attitudes to behavior, in a linear model. This thinking suggests that if people become more “knowledgeable about the environment and it associated issues…they will, in turn, become more aware of the environment and its problems and, thus, be more motivated to act toward the environment in more responsible ways”(Hungerford & Volk, 1990,p.9). This thinking reveals why only some people are involved when the environment is concerned. The fact is that not everybody is concerned with the environmental issues because of the lack of awareness of environment.

Nowadays, “green” is often used for people who deeply care about the environment. However, “non-green” people seem to be a larger pool than that of the green. The green people have an opposite attitude toward consumption with that of non-green. For example, the greens try not to drive to places but take buses instead. To them such behavior can help to reduce the gas emissions, whereas non greens do not think this way. They just enjoy driving their private cars. Another example is that the greens like to use their pre-prepared ‘shopping’ bags when they go to shop in order to minimize the usage of the non-biodegradable plastic bags. Again, non-green people will not do so. They enjoy the convenience of being given free plastic bags so that they just need to bring cash or credit cards while shopping.

The question is why they behave so differently? Obviously, the greens know that our environment is fragile and it is right thing to do to protect our environment because both our generation and the future generations will benefit from good environment definitely.
One certain thing we can say about the non-greens is that they do things in the other way which is opposite what the greens is not because they are evil but they lack concern with the environment or they do not know how bad the condition of the real current environment is. If they know that “about 33% of U.S. carbon dioxide emission comes from the burning of gasoline in internal-combustion engines of cars and light trucks(minivans, sport utility vehicles, pick-up trucks, and jeeps)”(US Emissions Inventory,2006), or that “only one percent of plastic bags are recycled worldwide and the rest, when discarded, can persist for centuries”(K. Mieszkowski, n.d.), I believe, lots of them would have become the greens.

In fact, we cannot depend on only the few apparent means to solve the environment problems. The best way to change the non-greens to the greens is to change their minds and concepts towards the environment. Simply laws that restrict their behaviors will only solve the problems apparently. Thus, education and propaganda must be in line with laws to control people’s behavior. Only when more and more people become green, the environmental situation can turn good.


References

Hungerford, H. R. & Volk, T. (1990). Changing learner behavior

Through Environmental Education. Journal of Environmental

Education, p, 9.


Mieszkowksi, K. (n.d.). Plastic bags are killing us.

Retrieved March 24, 2008, from

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/08/10/plastic_bags/

index.html


Scott, D. & Willits, F. K. (1990). University Environmental attitudes

and Behavior. A Pennsylvania Survey (n.d.)


U.S. Emissions inventory 2006. (2006, April). Inventory of U.S.

Greenhouse gas emissions and sinks: 1990-2004.

Retrieved March 24, 2008, from

http://yosemite.epa.gov//OAP/globalwarming.nsf/content/

ResourceCenterPublicationsGHGEmissionUSEmissions

Inventory2006.html

How about 'zero waste'?

Waste disposal has always been a serious problem of almost every government. Different countries adopt their own different methods to deal with waste disposal. Singapore, for example, is using a combination of methods of land-filling and incineration in dealing with waste disposal. However, there is another new way of waste disposal to us-“zero waste” currently. In my opinion, zero waste is the most suitable way to Singapore to solve disposing problem.
The premise of zero waste is that everything we buy is, or eventually will be, made from materials that can be repaired, reused or recycled. This is essential to Singapore because Singapore has too little resources and lands to use for land-filling. The large population density also implies that we cannot find a suitable place on this tiny island to burn the waste without affecting people’s normal life. If we could build up factories which are pollution-free to resolve the waste and reuse the materials to make new products, that will be ideal to Singapore. On the other hand, this method is somehow a capital intensive work. Fortunately, Singapore is capable to do this as it is a rich and small nation.
Furthermore, Singapore’s economy relies much on tourism industry. The country cannot do things like big ones where government can transfer the waste to rural areas to burn or bury without affecting the city and thus remain its travel destinations clear. However, zero waste is, actually, trying to help the government to achieve this-we can dispose of our waste clearly through zero waste scheme.
Lastly, zero waste is an environment-friendly scheme. In term of environment protection, this scheme has been seen as a possible, sustainable one in future. It is worth us to put money on it and to run it for a long time.
In all, zero waste is much more meaningful to Singapore to adopt in dealing with waste disposal instead of current methods.