Environmental Attitudes Through Time

Unpacks humanness and how it shapes our interactions with the environment, helping readers to make responsible decisions about the future.

The environment, and how humans affect it, is more of a concern now than ever. We are constantly told that halting climate change requires raising awareness, changing attitudes, and finally altering behaviors among the general public-and fast. New information, attitudes, and actions, it is conventionally assumed, will necessarily follow one from the other. But this approach ignores much of what is known about attitudes in general and environmental attitudes specifically-there is a huge gap between what we say and what we do. Solving environmental problems requires a scientific understanding of public attitudes. Like rocks in a swollen river, attitudes often lie beneath the surface-hard to see, and even harder to move or change. In Navigating Environmental Attitudes, Thomas Heberlein helps us read the water and negotiate its hidden obstacles, explaining what attitudes are, how they change and influence behavior. Rather than necessarily trying to change public attitudes, we need to design solutions and policies with them in mind. He illustrates these points by tracing the attitudes of the well-known environmentalist Aldo Leopold, while tying social psychology to real-world behaviors throughout the book. Bringing together theory and practice, Navigating Environmental Attitudes provides a realistic understanding of why and how attitudes matter when it comes to environmental problems; and how, by balancing natural with social science, we can step back from false assumptions and unproductive, frustrating programs to work toward fostering successful, effective environmental action. "With lively prose, inviting stories, and solid science, Heberlein pilots us deftly through the previously uncharted waters of environmental attitudes. It's a voyage anyone interested in environmental issues needs to take." -- Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: Science and Practice "Navigating Environmental Attitudes is a terrific book. Heberlein's authentic voice and the book's organization around stories keeps readers hooked. Wildlife biologists, natural resource managers, conservation biologists - and anyone else trying to solve environmental problems - will learn a lot about attitudes, behaviors, and norms; and the fallacy of the Cognitive Fix." -- Stephen Russell Carpenter, Stephen Alfred Forbes Professor of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison "People who have spent their lives dealing with environmental issues from a broad range of perspectives consistently abide by erroneous assumption that all we need to do to solve environmental problems is to educate the public. I consider it to be the most dangerous of all assumptions in environmental management. In Navigating Environmental Attitudes, Tom Heberlein brings together expertise in social and biophysical sciences to do an important kind of 'science education'-educating eminent scientists about the realities of their interactions with the broader public." --the late Bill Freudenburg, Dehlsen Professor of Environment and Society, University of California, Santa Barbara

Environmental problems of pollution and degradation are a major source of concern globally. At all levels, efforts are being made to protect and preserve the environment from further deterioration. Measures are being taken at international, national and regional levels by governments and organisations to spread the awareness and concern for the environment and ecosystem, but these are not yet yielding the expected returns. Research has indicated that humans must be guided by values, beliefs, and individual motivating factors if attitudes are to be converted in actual behaviour. This book presents an empirical research study on the relationship between the measures of ecological concern and its demographic and psychosocial determinants. It discusses the various models of environmental concern and tracks the human-environment relationship as studied by environmental psychologists and sociologists. The book will be of great use to the students, academics, researchers and scholars in a variety of fields, including human ecology, eco-philosophy, sustainable development, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, environmental economics, environmental studies, and conservation psychology, and will further the reader’s understanding of the role of human factors in ecological protection. It will also be of value to policy makers and the general reader interested in understanding behavioural and psychosocial perspectives on environmental concern.

First handbook to integrate environmental psychology and conservation psychology.

This open access book discusses the contribution of sociology and survey research to climate research. The authors address the questions of which behaviors are of climate relevance, who is engaging in these behaviors, in which contexts do these behaviors occur, and which individual perceptions and values are related to them. Utilizing survey research, the book focuses on the measurement of climate-relevant behaviors with population surveys and develops an instrument that allows a valid estimate of an individual’s GHG emissions with a few core items. While the development of these instruments was based on surveys and qualitative interviews conducted in Austria, the instruments were subsequently tested in a set of 31 European countries, revealing the international relevance of such research. The book also concludes with a brief consideration of the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on environmental attitudes, situating the project globally.

The environment, and how humans affect it, is more of a concern now than ever. We are constantly told that halting climate change requires raising awareness, changing attitudes, and finally altering behaviors among the general public-and fast. New information, attitudes, and actions, it is conventionally assumed, will necessarily follow one from the other. But this approach ignores much of what is known about attitudes in general and environmental attitudes specifically-there is a huge gap between what we say and what we do. Solving environmental problems requires a scientific understanding of public attitudes. Like rocks in a swollen river, attitudes often lie beneath the surface-hard to see, and even harder to move or change. In Navigating Environmental Attitudes, Thomas Heberlein helps us read the water and negotiate its hidden obstacles, explaining what attitudes are, how they change and influence behavior. Rather than necessarily trying to change public attitudes, we need to design solutions and policies with them in mind. He illustrates these points by tracing the attitudes of the well-known environmentalist Aldo Leopold, while tying social psychology to real-world behaviors throughout the book. Bringing together theory and practice, Navigating Environmental Attitudes provides a realistic understanding of why and how attitudes matter when it comes to environmental problems; and how, by balancing natural with social science, we can step back from false assumptions and unproductive, frustrating programs to work toward fostering successful, effective environmental action. "With lively prose, inviting stories, and solid science, Heberlein pilots us deftly through the previously uncharted waters of environmental attitudes. It's a voyage anyone interested in environmental issues needs to take." -- Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: Science and Practice "Navigating Environmental Attitudes is a terrific book. Heberlein's authentic voice and the book's organization around stories keeps readers hooked. Wildlife biologists, natural resource managers, conservation biologists - and anyone else trying to solve environmental problems - will learn a lot about attitudes, behaviors, and norms; and the fallacy of the Cognitive Fix." -- Stephen Russell Carpenter, Stephen Alfred Forbes Professor of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison "People who have spent their lives dealing with environmental issues from a broad range of perspectives consistently abide by erroneous assumption that all we need to do to solve environmental problems is to educate the public. I consider it to be the most dangerous of all assumptions in environmental management. In Navigating Environmental Attitudes, Tom Heberlein brings together expertise in social and biophysical sciences to do an important kind of 'science education'-educating eminent scientists about the realities of their interactions with the broader public." --the late Bill Freudenburg, Dehlsen Professor of Environment and Society, University of California, Santa Barbara

The Middle Ages was a critical and formative time for Western approaches to our natural surroundings. An Environmental History of the Middle Ages is a unique and unprecedented cultural survey of attitudes towards the environment during this period. Exploring the entire medieval period from 500 to 1500, and ranging across the whole of Europe, from England and Spain to the Baltic and Eastern Europe, John Aberth focuses his study on three key areas: the natural elements of air, water, and earth; the forest; and wild and domestic animals. Through this multi-faceted lens, An Environmental History of the Middle Ages sheds fascinating new light on the medieval environmental mindset. It will be essential reading for students, scholars and all those interested in the Middle Ages

This book offers a fresh and innovative account of the history of environmentalism in the United States, challenging the dominant narrative in the field. In the widely-held version of events, the US environmental movement was born with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 and was driven by the increased leisure and wealth of an educated middle class. Chad Montrie's telling moves the origins of environmentalism much further back in time and attributes the growth of environmental awareness to working people and their families. From the antebellum era to the end of the twentieth century, ordinary Americans have been at the forefront of organizing to save themselves and their communities from environmental harm. This interpretation is nothing short of a substantial recasting of the past, giving a more accurate picture of what happened, when, and why at the beginnings of the environmental movement.