We consider the linear cocycle (T, A) induced by a measure preserving dynamical system T : X → X and a map A: X → SL(2, ℝ). We address the dependence of the upper Lyapunov exponent of (T, A) on the dynamics T when the map A is kept fixed. We introduce explicit conditions on the cocycle that allow to perturb the dynamics, in the weak and uniform topologies, to make the exponent drop arbitrarily close to zero.