Psychology of Sustainability

As promised here is the run down of the article. Basically the part that concerns us, I think, is summarized nicely in the last paragraph (obv.):
Planners may be able to help reduce global, national, and regional environmental problems to the "scale of our competence" by first acknowledging the inescapable perceptual and psychological processes that separate our abilities to think and reason on broad geographical, conceptual, and temporal scales from our abilities to actually draw upon these broad conceptualizations and incorporate them into our day-to-day behaviors. The challenge to planners is to turn these fundamentally human psychological traits into assets rather than liabilities in the planning process.

What is also important is our potential to empower the individual by creating opportunities through our designed interventions that bridge the conceptual gap discussed above. The person interacting with the design should feel like they are making a large impact by acting simply. But ultimately their level of involvement should always remain simple to ensure continued engagement.