How small things can make a big difference

That's how Malcolm Gladwell subtitled his bestseller The Tipping Point. In fact it's a line which should be rembered as much as its main title. Sometimes the difference between success and failure, between do and don't, or yes and no are only the smallest things.

This striked me again when reading Freakanomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. They have investigated a wide array of situations, relationships and events and found all kinds of correlations that nobody probably ever thought of. Like the fact that it's healthier for you to be on a death row than to be a crack dealer. Or that the willingness to pay for bagels at the office is substationally lower close to holidays.

One of the cases I found most interesting was a kindergarden in Israel where they started to bill the parents $3 for coming late to pick up their kids. This actually led to an increase in late arrivals as it now was legitimized to do so, in fact there was a price and prices can be payed. Because of that the management once again changed it and skipped the fee. The result: people continued coming late - a new legitimized behavior was born.

I know it's not the same thing but is this what will happen with the emission rights resulted from the the Kyoto treaty? Finally there is a legitimate way to pollute - buy your rights here!