Global warming. A topic heard almost everyday and found everywhere. It is the gradual but quick heat up of Earth because of the greenhouse gases that we produce. This is a problem that has been going on for years but was just brought to public awareness in the late 90s. The problem snowballed in the last 10 years and scientists have been warning the world that immediate actions must be taken to tackle it. However, we don’t see much progress. More innovative ways are needed to influence individuals to be more active to reduce their carbon emissions as the call to slow down climate change is so far ineffective in Indonesia.
Environmental activists and scientists have stepped up their efforts to bring awareness to the public about the peril of climate change. However, sadly, their efforts are futile. One of the reasons for that is because it’s very difficult to change people’s habits and lifestyles. Modern lifestyles are full of convenience and comfort, mostly due to the advancement of science and technology. Electronic appliances have made our lives so much easier. We use washing machines to wash our dirty clothes, refrigerators to keep our food fresh, and AC to keep ourselves cool during hot summer. These are essentials that we can’t live without, but they are also one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases. Knowing this, we should attempt to do something about it. It may be daunting to change lifestyles, but everyone can start small. We can start by reducing the amount of electricity we use. Only using electricity when necessary, such as turning on ACs after a certain temperature and humidity and purchasing energy-saving electronics are a few ways to save energy.
A change of lifestyle is a difficult one to make, especially when it’s about the usage of electronics and vehicles. To help encourage the change into a greener lifestyle, I think the government and scientists can work together with influencers and social scientists, like psychologists and sociologists, to influence the public. They can create a movement or trend that subconsciously influences people’s lifestyles into a greener one. Social scientists will then analyze the results of their experiment to create better methods in influencing people. An example would be an experiment that was conducted in an apartment complex. Three different stickers are prepared and each symbolises the amount of energy used by the residents. These stickers are put on each resident’s door to represent the amount of energy used by each housing. A red sticker for residents with the most energy usage, a green one for those improving, and a golden star for those who used the least amount of energy. This type of social competition evokes every person’s competitive side and each tries their best to reduce the amount of energy used. Perhaps through this experiment, social scientists could analyze how our competitive nature increases our efforts to create better results. This experiment might be more popular if influencers take part in these competitions and broadcast how each and every of them are trying to live an eco-friendly lifestyle.
To encourage this eco-friendly lifestyle movement, governments could also pay influencers to create the image that the eco-friendly life is the new elite. Eco-friendly products are usually more expensive than others, so this fits the image of a high-class person. Governments could buy and distribute to the influencers the eco-friendly products from the many eco-friendly entrepreneurs in Jakarta. Or perhaps they could give an eco-friendly house to the influencers to live in. An example of an eco-friendly lifestyle is the VSCO girls/boys. VSCO defines the lifestyle of a middle class teenager. They are well known to promote the use of metal straws and bring their own hydro flasks, with “Save the sea turtles” as one of their slogans. In a kind of way, this brought the public’s attention on how plastic garbage is harming turtles. If VSCO teens are a thing in Jakarta, then perhaps the government could fund the influencers’ VSCO life with all their eco-friendly products and lifestyle. As the public, especially the young generation, tends to follow and idolize influencers, they might follow whatever the influencers do. Sociologists can then be brought in to analyze the public’s response to this new trend and give new ideas for the influencers and governments to try out.
However, as much as influencers and social scientists can affect people to change their lifestyle, many might not be able to follow them due to the lack of infrastructure in Jakarta. Infrastructures are one of the main pillars of a person’s lifestyle. There is a lack of eco-friendly infrastructure to support an eco-friendly lifestyle. One thing that almost everyone in Jakarta owns, from the poor to the elite, is a type of private vehicle. Almost everyone uses private vehicles to the point that it has become Jakarta’s lifestyle. Affordable vehicles and lack of access to comfortable and safe public transportation results in a lot of people owning private vehicles. In addition to that, many of Jakarta’s roads are not improved or built, with many roads already outstripping the space capacity for all of Jakarta’s vehicles. This causes traffic jams to be frequently found in Jakarta’s roads. Large amounts of diesel is wasted and carbon dioxide produced more than necessary due to these traffic jams. As roads could take a long time to build, some people might think of switching to electric vehicles. However, they might have second thoughts due to the lack of electric stations to recharge their vehicles. Even if there are electric stations, most of Jakarta’s electricity is powered by fossil fuels. While the list of problems goes on, these are just some of the problems Jakarta experiences with their infrastructure.
Even though Jakarta’s progress in infrastructure is slowly improving, Jakarta needs drastic changes if it wants to speed up their reduction of greenhouse gases. I think that the government should first and foremost replace diesel powered plants to nature-powered ones. We are a tropical country with lots of water and sunlight, so surely we are able to maximize our usage of them. In this way, the use of household appliances won’t contribute any greenhouse gases. Secondly, governments should replace gas stations with electric charging ones. Before the replacement, the government could ask all private transportation owners to switch to electric ones before a certain date. They could offer incentives and affordable prices to encourage the public with this change. Influencers may also play a big role in this by promoting their electric vehicles. Perhaps with this collaboration, we can create massive transformations in our use of private vehicles.
Teamwork makes the dream works, and if governments, influencers, and social scientists work together, they can create a huge movement in the rapidly changing Jakarta. Every person in Jakarta is aware of global warming, but we need an extra push from governments and the media to create massive change. People are encouraged to change their lifestyles, but as changing habits isn't easy, influencers can influence the public to change while social experiments can be held to analyze factors that cause people to improve themselves. Infrastructures also need a massive and quick upgrade by the government to support the change of lifestyle. To create change amongst a large number of people, not only do we need scientists now, we will need the help of sociologists and others that specialize in human behavior.
