On Wednesday April 24th
the class watched the 2006 documentary An
Inconvenient Truth presented by Al Gore. This was a groundbreaking
documentary that brought national attention to the problems associated with
global warming, and the class seemed to respond positively to the messages of
the film. However, the question of how they changed their thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors outside of the classroom are still debatable. Did the students
actually change something in their daily routine that was environmentally
friendly? Did they perhaps recycle some of their trash or decide not to drive
somewhere because they were concerned about the environment? Also, if they took
this first step did they then spread these ideas and ask others to be more
environmentally conscious, and did they themselves continue this behavior
beyond the first day?
One of the focuses of my personal
project is to understand why people act or decide not to act and determine how
we can change people’s thoughts feelings, and behaviors about the environment.
I want to understand how people think so that I can reach out to them and
encourage them to make small changes throughout their lives that will
collectively create great change for the better. Al Gore brought up one of the
problems with making this change when he demonstrated the power of time in
affecting our reaction.
Tbc….
“It is difficult to
get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding
it.”
