Work in progress

On Wednesday April 24^th 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.”