Can we make a difference alone?

After Professor Kleppel's lecture the other day we have been talking a lot about if we could make a change alone.  There were many different arguments for and against this but in the end its hard to really know.  Personally I think that alone its almost impossible to make a change that will impact the ENTIRE world.  Alone it might be easy to start a petition or get a group for change, but the effects of this are small.  Just the other day in one of my classes, a girl made an announcement about how there will be a rally outside the campus center on Friday against the tuition increases.  This is an issue that effects all of us here at SUNY Albany, but how many people will actually attend this rally?  Most people simply figure they won't go because others will go instead when really if everyone thinks this no one will end up attending.  Its so easy to say we should make a change but hard for people to actually go though with this.  

Just the other day Professor Kleppel informed the class about how the majority of chickens and cows we eat are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics that could actually harm us as consumers.  Everyone reacted in discussion by saying how this is so horrible and we should really take into consideration what we are eating, but did anyone actually go home and say wow I'm not going to eat meat anymore, not really.  The truth is most people thought wow thats awful but went home just to probably get wendys, a big mac or whopper that night or the next day.  

The majority of us just think that if others make an effort for change that will make up for their lack of doing so.  However, if this is the way most people think nothing will ever get done on a large scale and thats what we need.  We need the entire WORLD, not just one state or not even just the United States to make a change but everyone, everywhere.  Personally, I think for this to happen a massive action will have to be taken and the only people who can really do this are the government.  If a small group from a state school like Albany says we want better food, sure that could help the food they eat but what about the thousands of other schools in the country?  The government is really the only group that has enough control to change things on a large scale and even that is hard.  Even if the government in the United States manages to pull something so extreme off, getting the cooperation of all the other countries in the world will be the next large challenge.  However, if they could do this, maybe others would see the impact our change had on the U.S. and use this as an example.

All people really need to do is start to listen and stop trying to compete with each other.  If we want something done, its not going to be tomorrow, or even in a year, it will be a long term achievement and not enough people are willing to wait for this.  We live in a society where if you don't know something, google it.  There it is, the best answer you could have asked for.  We have come to a time where we want everything right away, we don't want to wait and this mind state is a large factor that will need to change if anything is to get done.  So in the end,  I think making a small, local change on your own is very possible.  Yet this change will also require the cooperation of a group of people so you really are not doing it on your own after all.  There are very few things today that can be accomplished by yourself but if someone with a large amount of power, like the government, REALLY worked at making a change, it could be possible to do this on a large scale.