Peer Pressure

The point of the anecdote is that when she was a child—my wife, I mean—seeing babies on peoples’ laps in moving vehicles was an everyday occurrence.  There were no such things as car seats: everybody drove with their kids that way.

My wife did not appreciate the observation, but it’s germane to the argument I’d like to make here. Point being that behaviour which strikes us as appalling today was—not long ago—routinely acceptable. 

It’s a testimony to the enormous power of socialization. For members of The Good Life, this is a fact to take heart in: sooner or later, things that cause climate change will become socially unacceptable. People will stop doing them—just as we’ve stopped transporting children without car seats, or driving around with our seatbelts unbuckled. 

Big changes in attitude like these have in the past been driven by governments that were serious about legislating them into being. We’re seeing that happening with climate change, too. The laissez-faire attitude characteristic of the Bush administration in the United States is now officially over. President Obama has already begun moving ahead with ambitious plans—government plans—to throttle back on greenhouse gasses. 

That hasn’t happened in Canada yet, but it will. 

Meantime, we can do our part to hasten the process by applying pressure of our own.  When it comes to climate change and its causes, there are human behaviours we now know to be unacceptable. If we are appalled, we shouldn’t hesitate to show that we’re appalled. 

Postings on this page generally end with a call to action. Today’s is a nod to the power of old fashioned peer pressure.