Change behaviour first, attitudes will come later

After our discussion this week on what guides our tea buying, I was invited to answer this very question from someone at teacraft on linkedin. Check out this link to see the results and vote yourself: 

http://polls.linkedin.com/poll-results/58701/enpfv

How do we get people to consume more sustainably? Was interested to see Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams this week saying that people have "allowed themselves to become addicted to fantasies about prosperity and growth, dreams of wealth without risk and profit without cost". Although he recognises the importance of government leadership and action, he sees the problem from a spiritual perspective and one of personal transformation at the local level. He advocates the setting up of local carbon reduction action groups for example. The question is, if we are "locked in" to unsustainable consumption, will transformation from within ourselves and our communities actually deliver the scale of change we need to see? Or, should we really just give up on the personal transformation and focus purely on changing the macro structural forces that prevent us from being more "carbon capable"? I'm one for believing that you change people's behaviour's first if you have to (by making the right choice the obvious choice) and then maybe they'll see that they are being green and feel good about that. So lets change the behaviour now - and leave the attitude change till later.