Changing habits in the cause of climate

Grist’s David Roberts published a fascinating interview last week with behavorial psychologist and marketing guru Robert Cialdini. It basically deals with the problem of how to motivate people to change their behavior.

In addition to being an expert on persuasion, Cialdini’s spent considerable effort on studying the “social psychology” of consumers’ energy choices. The following exchange is particularly interesting:

Q: It seems like [social psychology is] fine-grained understanding of how people interact. How do you scale it up as policy, to get substantial effects?

A: As I argued in Influence, I’ve tried to identify the universals of human experience—those things that produce assent across the widest range of situations and settings and practitioners. You follow an authority; you pay back those who have given to you; you seize scarce or dwindling opportunities; you follow the lead of others like you and what they’re doing; and so on.

Take an example. The fastest growing development within marketing right now is called “social cause marketing”—it’s even outstripped sports sponsorship. It involves some entity, usually a corporate group, saying to its customers or its market, “if you purchase our product or employ our services, we will donate so much money to a good cause.” They’re banking on an understanding of the rule of reciprocity: people want to give back to those who have given to them in a meaningful exchange.

Well, we put signs in hotel room bathrooms—this isn’t published yet—that said, “[Re-use your bath towels] for the environment.” That was the control group. The other sign said, “If you [re-use your towels], we’ll donate a percentage of the savings that we get at the end of the year to an environmental cause.” That didn’t produce any increase in towel reuse.

But if we said, “We’ve already donated to an environmental cause in the name of our guests,” now we get reciprocity. That produced, I think, a 28 percent increase over either of the other strategies. You can apply this to social cause marketing: if you’re going to give a donation anyway, you should give it first.

So it is possible to employ these principles in broad-gauged ways to produce large-scale change. And it’s costless— that’s the thing.

See the entire interview on Grist.

I’m a net-activism fiend. Check out my “action” for renewable energy at Change.org, as well as this week’s Media Mayhem column on the Mother Nature Network:

One afternoon last week, I joined seven different environmental communities, signed four petitions, sent letters to both my senators, let hundreds of friends in on a new way to fight climate change, agreed to reduce my family’s carbon output by .94 tons a year, and founded a campaign calling for all electric utilities to get at least 20 percent of their power from renewable sources.

Oh, yeah. I learned a little later that I’d raised a whole penny on behalf of the cause “Stop Global Warming.”

John Muir, eat your heart out.

Muir spent most of his life (which lasted from 1838 to 1914) crusading for wilderness conservation. He climbed peaks above the Yosemite Valley, camped out with Teddy Roosevelt and founded the Sierra Club.

Nowadays, anybody can go to sierraclub.org and, in about minute, fire off a personalized letter on one of about 30 environmental issues to his or her congressperson.

My own orgy of activism was prompted by a decision to figure out how to effectively use 50 or so interactive communities and social media websites that focus either exclusively or to a great extent on the environment. I found that the sites can be fun and feel empowering — in the same way, say, that blazing through an easy crossword puzzle might be exhilarating.

Read on at Mother Nature Network …

The Yes Men Fix the World is a great movie

This week’s Media Mayhem column from my gig at the Mother Nature Network:

Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. And, sometimes, fiction can be truer than truth.

Read the rest at the Mother Nature Network.

On hiatus

Cult of Green’s on a hiatus right now as I work on some new projects.

7 green stories that ought to cheer you up

Last week’s Media Mayhem column from the Mother Nature Network:

Climate change looks as if it’s coming quicker than previously imagined. The strongest response that our politicians can manage may actually be worse than taking no action. And a huge chunk of one state is expected simply to disappear — even if we do manage to take effective action against global warming.

Here are seven developments that may play a role in solving climate change and other burning problems of the future — and that may never get the headlines they deserve.

For the rest of Media Mayhem, go to the  Mother Nature Network.

Coal’s silver lining

My apologies for disappearing. Went on vacation, faced an onslaught of other projects and then the computer done broke. Starting to catch up with my June 13 “Media Mayhem” column from the Mother Nature Network.

The coal industry’s re-branding campaign reminds me of an old Mad Magazine illustration.

Fox and foreign press find fault but climate bill is progress

This week’s Media Mayhem column from the Mother Nature network.

I was so proud of the House of Representatives for its recent passage of legislation to tackle climate change. Finally.

Don’t cry for me, Sierra Club

Gov. Mark Sanford’s sex scandal has become a Sierra Club marketing pitch.

“Dear Friend,” an e-mail letter to members of the organization begins.”We heard the governor of South Carolina had some trouble finding the Appalachian Trail last week.”

As you no doubt know Sanford — not known, by the way, as a big defender of the environment — told his wife and staff he was hiking on the trail, when he actually was in Argentina with his mistress.

The letter continues: Read more

Right-wing media’s overheated response to warming bill

You knew it would happen. But Fox News and talk radio have become a big unhinged over House’s vote Friday in favor of the Waxman-Markey climate bill.

It’s a Wall Street conspiracy. It’s a commie plot. It’s treason. Every year, it’ll cost each family 500, 750, 1,500, 3,000 dollars.

Sometimes, the talking points are a bit inconsistent. But that’s what makes them entertaining … in a slow-motion train wreck kind of way.

Media Matters, the left-wing watchdog site, has steadily pushed out clips of the talking heads, which I’ve annotated for your viewing convenience.

Fox’s Glenn Beck (June 29) issues a “Wanted for being a cap and traitor” poster for eight Republicans who voted for the bill:

More clips after the jump. Read more

27 GOP’ers run risks with ‘no’ vote on climate bill

Since Friday’s House vote, there’s been a lot of political reporting about how risky a “yeah” on the climate change bill would be for Democrats in conservative districts, or in districts that depend heavily on coal for their electricity.

If you take the climate vote in isolation, however, it seems more likely that more Republicans who voted against the bill will be vulnerable in 2010.

As the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein points out, 20 of 49 House Democrats from districts that Republican John McCain carried last November voted for the climate change bill. The vote could be used against Democrats in districts that lean Republican already, especially in states that are dependent on coal.

The reverse, Brownstein notes, is true for more Republicans:

In contrast with the Democrats from split districts, 27 of the 34 Republicans from Obama-districts held with their party and voted against the legislation. California crystallized that trend: Of the eight Republicans there in districts that Obama carried last year, only Mary Bono Mack from Palm Springs supported the bill.

When it came to the Republicans, however, Brownstein didn’t take that observation to the next level: Read more

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