The Answer: Policy Change

In Maniates' article entitled "Going Green? Easy Doesn't Do It," he discusses the issues with new popular thought that making small changes in our daily lives can benefit the environment. While this mindset can certainly help, the answer, I believe, lies in policy change. The reason why all these "small easy things" don't actually have a grand impact is because they're as easy to not do as they are to do.
Everyone knows about recycling. Everyone knows that it's better to take a 10 minute shower than a 20 minute one. You don't need to read a book to understand the importance of shutting the lights off when you leave a room. So if we all know these things, why doesn't everyone do them? Because, sadly, not everyone cares. If you don't have to worry about suddenly getting your electricity or water shut off, there's little incentive to conserve them. People who don't care about the environment won't go out of their way to bring their recyclables down to the basement of their apartment building when it's 10x more convenient to just throw them down the trash chute. That's why the only thing that will make a serious impact is through policy change. If I knew what policies specifically would make a change, I'd be working on the Hill right now. But it's undoubtable that more people bring their recyclables to supermarkets to stick in those machines in order to get 5 cents back for each can. What if we had more monetary incentives like that? At this college campus, we could give some sort of reward to students who lived sustainably in the dorms, or recycled everything instead of trashing it.
Look at the One Child Policy in China. I'm not saying we should go communist and pass some incredible law like that, but it just goes to show that policy it the only way to really make a large-scale, lasting impact.