Chrisoula closes her paper with,
"The moral with respect to environmental preservation is that, even given genuine collective concern with preservation, without required implementation intentions and binding deadlines, both first-order and second-order procrastination threaten to trap serious efforts at preservation on our agenda, close but not close enough to the world of action" (p. 248).
My closing comment on this insightful and thought-provoking paper is that implementation intentions and binding deadlines serve to take us out of the world of habit or automatic processes to more conscious action (e.g., Bargh, 2004). Forming an implementation intention is a conscious acknowledgement of the desire to act differently. The strategy of the implementation intention or a binding deadline or any precommitment device is a conscious choice.
To be most effective, conscious choice requires consciousness to be fully present, lacking deception. Where implementation strategies, or the "way," may fall short, the "will" or our unflinching conscious awareness of the real costs of not acting now must close the gap between intention and action. Ultimately, with an issue as life-threatening as global climate change, the existential reality of our choice, freedom and responsibility must be brought into this dialogue. Policy, implementation intentions and any other "techniques" will only work to the extent that it truly serves our collective choice and courage. "The Courage to Be" as described by Paul Tillich is an essential, if not the essential, element missing in this story of second-order procrastination. Without this conscious, courageous choice, laws and policies will always fall short. We're just too good at deceiving ourselves.
References
Andreou, C. (2007). Environmental preservation and second-order procrastination. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 35, 233-248.
Bargh, J.A. (2004). Being here now: Is consciousness necessary for human freedom. In J. Greenberg, S.L. Koole, & T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology (pp. 385-397). New York: The Guilford Press.
