The Green Gap: Exploring the Divide Between Ecological Thinking and Acting

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Recommended: Global warming a topic of concern

Most Americas with any media exposure know the ecological damage our society is doing to Earth, yet we have accomplished almost nothing to mediate it. This gap between knowing and acting seems counterintuitive. Commonsense tells us that once we know something is bad, steps are taken to prevent it. Prevention is all the more relevant because Earth is a dynamic system where impacts on one side of the planet are felt on the other. As my mother always quoted to me, “Commonsense ain't all that common.” This paper looks at the potential rationals of why we often believe in the ecological damage we are doing, but fail to act to fix it; the “Green Gap” as it were.

A recent study was conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication on the views of American's on a variety of “green” issues and the actions they took on these issues: it is scary. So, let us examine what causes us, citizens of the most wealthy country the world has ever known, to not take action.

Change requires, well, change. People aren't good a...

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