In his book Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger, tells the story of how Greenpeace claims to in the 1970s and 80s having caused a global ban of commercial whaling. He then zooms out and shows that commercial whaling had been in decline for decades already as the products harvested from whales, such as whale oil, had already been replaced with better products such as hydrogenated vegetable oils for food and petroleum based products for heating and light. So, even without the efforts by Greenpeace, commercial whaling would likely have ceased anyway due to the market for its products drying up at a rapid rate. We simply moved on to better products. As humans, we have a tendency to believe that it is our actions that have generated the impact that we like to see. When examined critically, though, often we simply identified a trend that was already in motion and jumped on the bandwagon. So, next time you feel you accomplished something major, spend a moment reflecting whether it was you or if it would have happened anyway?