From Shawn Charland, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
I was interested to read Ben Craven’s letter concerning Paul Whitely’s essay about the value of small changes in averting the climate crisis. Craven states that if every person and business in the world reduced their energy consumption by 1 per cent, the global decrease would be only 1 per cent, and we must therefore not become complacent about the need to do difficult things. I think Craven misses an important factor: human enterprise is highly nonlinear, and so its behaviour often comprises sensitive feedback loops. If each person and business in the world had no knowledge of the climate-mitigation efforts of anyone else, his conclusion might be correct, but 100 people aware of small efforts made by 100 others might well incentivise them to redouble their own efforts. Small efforts aren’t just a nice-to-have; they are essential (Letters, 31 January).
