Citizens In Action - Cool Project

This is a really cool project I read about in Western City. The Greater Seattle Climate Dialogues is a network of study groups throughout the city where residents learn about and discuss solutions to greenhouse gas emissions that balance the risks of climate change against the costs of addressing it.

Seems the best way to get people to care about something that has historically been somewhat of an abstract idea for people in most parts of the world is to engage them in finding solutions. Obviously, most solution ideas that come out of these dialogues will have likely been considered by professionals, but not all--and that's not the point anyway.

The point is to engage citizens in addressing something that can be otherworldly and too overwhelming to think about. The point is to make people understand that they are important agents of change, individually and as a group, and that they have the (direct) power to actually effect change.

If you put people in a position of control, their sense of fear about it diminishes and they start to take responsibility for a problem that requires them to.