Trinity of Despair

After looking at Professor Maniates "trinity of despair", I've been able to gain a totally new perspective on environmental change. So far we've been talking about major actions taken - Montreal Protocol, Kyoto Protocol, etc. and now we've began to look at individual action. Each "point" of the triangle is easily applicable to our society - and it makes sense; people are selfish, people go with crowds (usually), and people like easy things. Despite these assumptions and their truth factor, I has never though to look at them in a way as if they were holding us back. The most profound being that we don't need everyone on board to do something. Although it may seem as though mass numbers are needed to effectively change something, it's true that if a few people are passionate and determined enough, change can happen.

Another factor I had not considered was that giving people the easy option is not the best option. I had always though that if you give people a few simple steps to follow, that they would be able to be easily incorporated in their everyday life, resulting in a large scale change at the end. But as we discussed in class, people work their best when presented with harder tasks.

I'm still trying to fully analyze and understand the trinity of despair and how it really works. I was always convinced that the factors of the triangle were the ways to create change - mass social change, and easy options. I never stopped to think that these assumptions were the very ones holding us back.