The WAM Pact: Your Green Commitment!
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The greatest barrier to environmental change is the sentiment that "I'm only one person."
To overcome individual feelings of powerlessness, We Are Many will attract a significant portion of Saskatoon’s citizens who will become the first major group to sign a Pact to promote environmental sustainability and lead greener lives.
The Pact will proposes 10 attainable personal commitments, such as "I agree to replace all of the light bulbs in my house with compact fluorescent bulbs" and "I agree to donate what I save in energy costs to regions that lack basic resources," with the aim of linking our consumption to the dearth of resources in other countries of the world. Notably, none of these items is mandatory. The signatories are encouraged to choose to do the most they can in accordance with their personal constraints, be they financial, physical, or otherwise.
The very last item, however, is strongly encouraged. "I agree to sign up ____ people to this WAM Pact." If 50,000 promote the Pact to five people each, 250,000 people will be on board. That’s more than the population of Saskatoon!
Why here? What makes this Pact different?
Saskatchewan's strength is in its people. Throughout our history, we have proven that we are capable of innovations previously dismissed as impossible. Canada can thank us for the national incarnations of Saskatchewan initiatives such as Medicare, the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, and the Saskatchewan Arts Board. It is time for us to do it again. We Are Many Festival will address not one issue, but the umbrella issue of collective action for environmental sustainability. The centerpiece of the festival, the Pact, is designed to combat the three main reasons we feel people fail to take action.
Those reasons are:
1) Individuals lack reliable, locally relevant information, and thus lack the confidence to change their habits. Each of the Pact's action items are designed to produce the greatest benefits for our local environment. The list of actions has been carefully selected by our research team, and a preliminary version was first posted on our website on April 22nd, 2008, on Earth Day. Until the Festival itself, everyone is invited to discuss, debate, and amend the Pact online, making this a truly collaborative effort.
2) Individuals lack a supportive, cooperative, and coordinated peer network, making it difficult to implement lifestyle changes without the support of those around us, our family members, and our friends. It’s hard to compost household garbage or carpool alone, making this a significant problem. We propose to help people resolve this barrier with the last Pact item, which asks each signatory to sign up more individuals to the Pact. We are most likely to engage those closest to us, creating the opportunity to involve entire households, social groups, and communities.
3) Individuals feel that the actions of one person can’t possibly make a difference. . . . but a significant portion of the population all acting at once can! That’s why the Pact is part of a large-scale, community-wide festival, and why it is designed to attract as many people as possible. By joining in a collective effort, each signatory is guaranteed to see real results for any effort invested. We will be publishing a report shortly after the Festival that will document the WAM impact on rates of landfill use, water consumption per household, bus ridership, changes in traffic patterns, and much more.