Or does every European recycle because Europe has strong environmental policies?
It’s the chicken-and-egg question that determines much of what we do, and the answer is a bit of both.
Danes bike not because Copenhagen is such a pleasant place to bike in winter. They bike because biking is cheap: lots of flat bike paths and designated bike lanes; convenient places to safely lock your bike; everyone else does it (the chance of ridicule is low).
Why is biking so cheap? In part, surely, because Danes want it that way. A handful of bikers demanded more bike paths, which in turn cleared the way for more bikers. Enlightened leadership also played an important role. Those leaders nudged Danes along to achieve more rapid change. (Mayor Bloomberg is doing just that now by multiplying the number of bike paths in New York City.)
The link between bikers and bike paths, of course, is an easy one because there is a direct link.
The link between national climate policy and individual behavioral change is not as clearly defined. Few Europeans even know that there is such a thing as a cap-and-trade system guiding their daily behavior and starting to decrease emissions along the way.
