Fostering collective effort toward ecosystem conservation

¹ University of St. Thomas, Psychology Department, St. Paul, MN 55105 USA
² Macalester College, Department of Environmental Studies, St. Paul, MN 55105 USA

^* Corresponding author: elamel@stthomas.edu

Abstract

For human society to thrive amidst our changing environmental realities, we must alter our behavior. Individual change, while important, is unreliable due to cognitive and social barriers. An important nexus for the required transformation is at the collective level. Rather than encouraging individuals to engage in personal climate-friendly behavior, our efforts must focus on individuals changing their social networks, engaging in political change, and transforming the organizations in their community, such as corporations, NGOs, boards, and governments. Formal and informal leaders make daily decisions which influence the organizational structures that propel large-scale human behavior change. This scale of change is more in line with the scope needed to successfully persist into the future on this planet.