I value protecting the environment. How can I motivate myself to take more pro-environmental action?

This question is personal for me.  I hear all the news about global warming and it seems important.  Sure I recycle.  And I recently helped to vote out a government that seemed positively anti-environment and vote in a government I hope will do more.  But I still drive my car to work.  I think I should do more but the sense that the problem is big and I am small tends to stifle action.  Do I need a different kind of motivation?

To get people to adopt pro-environmental behaviour, it seems smart to show them how it is in their own interest.  For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency often mentions the financial savings associated with the actions it recommends http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/.  But does this work?  Laurel Evans and her colleagues (2012) did two experiments to find out what kinds of messages caused people to increase values-related behaviours.  Some people have values that make them to want to help others (self-transcendent) and others have values that are more self-interested (see the February xx post for more information).  The researchers gave people who were in the self-transcendent group environmental information about car-sharing, people who were in the self-interested group got financial information about car-sharing, and neutral information about transportation was given to a control group.  Then they measured their recycling behaviours. They found that only the self-transcendent group recycled more than the neutral or control group.  In a second experiment, participants in the self-transcendent and the self-interested groups were given both the environmental and the financial reasons to car-share. Again, that only those in the self-transcendent group recycled more than the neutral group, although the self-interested group did increase their recycling a little. Finally they put pooled all the data together and found that the effects of self-transcending reasons were consistently strong whereas the effects of the other reasons were minimal.  In other words, only self-transcending reasons for car-sharing spilled over into recycling actions.

So what is the practical implication of this research?  The results suggest that focusing on self-transcendent rationales for engaging in pro-environmental behaviours is the potent strategy.  If I am environmentally motivated, giving me financial reasons will not work.  If I want to help myself act more in line with my environmental values, I need to expose myself to things that will remind me of what I care about.  I need to start a car-pool with a like-minded person, join organizations or turn out for activities in support of the environment, read websites or books about environmental issues, or talk to people who support environmental causes.  Exposure to things that are in-line with my values will be what helps me to take more action