Freedom to be Wrong

by Matt DeNoto

How do we change people’s behaviors?

In Seattle, a ballot measure was recently defeated to impose a 20-cent fee on paper and plastic bags from grocery stores. People from Seattle are generally considered to be fairly progressive, environmentally-minded folk. More people already use reusable shopping bags in Seattle than most other places in the country (though it’s still only 20-30%). It’s easy to imagine that they know exactly why this fee is being proposed, and the good that it could accomplish.

Originally, the City Council simply voted to impose the fee. But the American Chemistry Council decided to put up a fight (and more than $1 million) to get the measure first put on the ballot for a public vote, and then to make sure that vote was “No.”

Given the choice between doing the right thing and the easy thing, the people of Seattle chose the easy thing. They chose to make it easier for themselves to forget their reusable bags in the car or at home, because who cares? The bags at the grocery store are free. Maybe next time.

If the people are unwilling to give themselves the incentives to change, how will anything get done? It’s clear that people aren’t simply making the right choices on their own. If that were the case, Seattle wouldn’t have needed a fee in the first place.

But perhaps that’s a bit too hopeless (and drastic) of a viewpoint. Despite the outcome, perhaps some good was done simply by getting the information out there and making people at least consider the consequences of their actions. Perhaps this vote won’t mandate change, but a few more citizens will voluntarily take up the reusable bags now than would have otherwise.

Even if the fee had been enacted, it’s not as though that would make the kind of change we need. Plastic bags are, on the whole, a tiny piece of the pollution problem.

On the other hand, it’s a tiny piece that is easily accessible. Everybody knows about grocery store bags, and it’s easy to see that they are wasteful. If we could get everybody to make just one change, then the next would be easier.

But that’s not how this country works. We were founded on principles of freedom, including the freedom to be wrong.

So how do we change people’s behaviors?

Not one behavior at a time, but one person at a time.