Lester W. Milbrath

Environmental Knowledge, Awareness and Concern Among 11th-Grade Students: New York State

Abstract This article reports on a 1990–1991 study of 11th-grade students in New York State. The authors surveyed approximately 3,200 students from a sample of 30 secondary schools to assess levels of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, and environmental concern. Independent variables included type of school, region of school, and the level and sex of students. Further, the authors controlled for reported sources of environmental information and interest in greater exposure to environmental issues at school. They found that, although students scored rather low on knowledge questions, they displayed higher scores on awareness and concern, and 56% of the students reported that they would like additional environmental education to be offered in school. This research is important from a policy perspective because New York, like many other states, has only minimal formal environmental education requirements in the secondary curriculum and instead suggests individual teacher infusion. As such, it ...

Policy Relevant Quality of Life Research

Objective indicators, particularly economic indicators, are inadequate for inferring quality of life (Q. of L.); they must be supplemented by subjective indicators. A strategy is proposed for developing policy relevant Q. of L. research that includes: developing a conceptual analytical map of human needs, utilizing both subjective and objective indicators, selecting diverse communities to study, ascertaining lifestyle preferences, emphasizing environmental factors, comparing Q. of L. across national cultures, using Q. of L. data to study social structures. The paper concludes with some specific suggestions for using Q. of L. research in policymaking to: identify predicaments, provide value weightings, infer prospective project impacts, assess project outcomes, test limits of inferences from objective to subjective indicators, suggest alternate lifestyles, alert leaders to growing disaffection.

Stumbling blocks to a sustainable society: Incoherences in key premises about the way the world works

Abstract A society that hopes to make wise policy, must communicate clearly. In most countries, that is currently impossible because of incoherences in the key premises disputants hold about how the world works. This article identifies a set of key premises held by leadership groups in most contemporary societies (called the dominant social paradigm—DSP) and contrasts them with different premises on these same matters held by followers of a new environmental paradigm (NEP). The premises underlying the NEP are based on the latest environmental science research; they deeply challenge the premises of the DSP. Societies organized according to these differing paradigms would be deeply different. The societies dominated by the DSP are unsustainable. Nature will be our most powerful teacher as we learn our way to a new, more sustainable paradigm.

A proposed value structure for a sustainable society

The proposed value structure for a sustainable society constitutes a forecast of values and value relationships that are necessary to make a society sustainable over the long run. Values are defined as having the following characteristics: (1) They are held only by individual humans — other species do not value; societies do not value. (2) They are strongly held positive valences. (3) They generalize to other persons and society. (4) They typically form into hierarchies. (5) They are the basic glue of society.

A conceptualization and research strategy for the study of ecological aspects of the quality of life

The centerpiece of this paper is a proposed model identifying the various factors that ought to be brought into a thorough study of ecological aspects of quality of life. The model suggests that in addition to studying the physical, economic and social situation of an individual it also is important to study his beliefs about how the world works, his personal lifestyle, and his values, goals, aspirations and needs if one is to make adequate inferences about what produces the level of quality of life that he experiences. The model also shows that it is important to look at similar variables for a community or a society in order to arrive at inferences about quality of life for that community or society. Personal and societal learning is a dynamic factor in the model. The paper concludes with a discussion of strategies for operationalizing these factors in empirical studies.

Culture and the environment in the United States

The beliefs of Americans about the proper relationship between humans and their environment were profoundly affected by waves of immigration from Europe. Immigrants valued ownership of land, individuality, freedom, domination of nature, and technological development. These themes remain strong today as centerpieces of the American dominant social paradigm (DSP).That DSP has been reexamined and found wanting by an increasing proportion of Americans. This departure from the old DSP has progressed further among the public than among the elite who have a greater stake in preserving the status quo. Environmentalists constitute a vanguard trying to lead the people to a new, more environmentally oriented social paradigm. The beliefs of the old DSP and the new environmental paradigm (NEP) are contrasted in Table 2. Briefly, the NEP advocates stress love of nature rather than domination of it; compassion for other peoples, future generations, and other species; planning to avoid risk; limits to growth; fundamental social change; and a new structuring of politics.These two worldviews are likely to be in vigorous conflict for several decades in the USA. Social learning, spurred by deterioration of the old ways, is likely to lead Americans to a new perspective on their relationship to nature.

The Nature of Political Beliefs and the Relationship of the Individual To the Government

political beliefs of ordinary persons.’ Such knowledge is very useful for understanding political behavior and for studying the dynamics of self government. Masses of citizens, no less than philosophers, hold beliefs about what they should do for the government and what the government should do for them, about appropriate instances for obedience to governmental authorities, and about the structure and functions of their governmental institutions.2 One might suggest that the study of the dynamics of belief formation and belief adherence is properly the domain of the psychologists since it deals with fundamental aspects of human behavior. Psychologists and psychiatrists have, in fact, contributed a good deal to our current understanding of these dynamics. But it is curious that here, too, relatively little emphasis has been given to the study of beliefs; most work has been devoted to attitudes, values, and opinions.3 It is necessary at this point to draw some distinctions between the

Redefining the Good Life in a Sustainable Society

The good life, as practised in modern society, not only is unsustainable but also is frequently not really good. Quality in living is necessarily subjective, it cannot be defined in physical terms, and can be found in many manifestations. The search for quality is conducted within ourselves and not in a shopping mall. Several suggestions for modes of living that provide quality but do not burden or injure ecosystems are presented. The condition of life systems on our planet demand that we cultivate simple lifestyles that are inwardly rich.

Sustainable living: Framework of an ecosystemically grounded political theory

Environmentalism is the first worldwide social movement to emerge in many decades. People are studying it as a socio‐political phenomenon and as a body of thought articulated by philosophers searching for the good life. We propose an ecopolitical theory rooted in fundamental realities of biogeochemical systems that no society can ignore and survive; it is not political philosophy in the normal sense of that term. The theoretical structure is elaborated to produce a set of societal maxims, public policies, and personal norms. This development brings many old ‘truths’ into question and sets quite a different path for societies to follow if they hope to become sustainable.

The Context of Public Opinion: How our Belief Systems can Affect Poll Results

Public opinion is embedded in underlying societal beliefs—a social paradigm—and these organize the way that people perceive and interpret the functioning of the world around them. Paradigms are so fundamental as to be taken for granted, but they do change. Evidence is presented that modern industrial societies now are undergoing a paradigm shift; substantial proportions of the public are now operating on the basis of one or more new paradigms. Public opinion analysts no longer can take for granted the belief paradigm that had been our context for opinion. Instead they must investigate paradigms and take them into account in the design and analysis of opinion studies.