Empty talk or real action? Exploring how local government's attention to the environment affects urban land use efficiency.

Improving urban land use efficiency (ULUE) has emerged as an important strategy in cities pursuing sustainable development. Since 2007, governments at different levels have enhanced the emphasis on environmental protection, as embodied in their annual work reports. Thus, we became interested in whether local government's attention to the environment translates into real action or remains an empty promise. Using Chinese prefecture-level panel data from 2007 to 2020, we found that local government's attention to the environment was positively associated with ULUE, indicating that there is not a complete decoupling effect between attention and action. In addition, the relationship between environmental attention and ULUE was negatively moderated by the land finance channel and positively moderated by the industrial optimization channel. This study also employs a threshold model to precisely determine the ideal scale for land market agreements to maximize the role of the government. Notably, the positive effect of local government's environmental attention on ULUE was negated when the proportion of negotiated land transfer surpassed 0.1874. The findings provide a benchmark for governments to improve sustainability through land resource management.

Thinking Like an Earthling: Children's Reasoning About Individual and Collective Action Related to Environmental Sustainability.

Learning to accept and understand our identity as inhabitants of planet Earth is an essential aspect of living sustainably in a global community with others. What is involved in learning, that despite what divides us, we are first and foremost Earthlings and that the well-being of our planetary home is in our collective hands? What are the cognitive features of concepts that are inherent to thinking like an Earthling? This article considers themes that arise from research that inform what is involved in developing a collective, planetary perspective as it relates to engaging in environmental sustainability. It samples research on how young people understand and reason about agency-their own and that of others-and about the relationship between individual and collective action. It considers the importance of recognizing and engaging with diverse perspectives on agency and collectivity as well as being able to adopt the perspectives of those in different roles and positions. While many of the concepts that are inherent to thinking as part of a collective community of Earthlings are challenging, many are also learnable and represent important instructional targets for helping the next generation to understand how to live together in sustainable ways on a small and finite planet.

Examining Plogging in South Korea as a New Social Movement: From the Perspective of Claus Offe's New Social Movement Theory.

This study examines plogging as an environmental movement, using Claus Offe's new social movement theory to critically analyze why its value as an environmental movement has not been recognized in Korean society. Four rounds of in-depth interviews and narrative analysis were conducted between 2 October and 28 December 2022, which involved eight individuals who participated in and organized the plogging movement. The results revealed three reasons for plogging's failure to be appreciated by Korean society as an environmental movement: (1) the plogging movement overlaps with existing social movements; (2) the generational gap related to plogging movement participants stemming from the "new middle class"; and (3) conglomerates using the plogging movement as a marketing tool. The plogging movement has value as a new proactive, social movement for environmental protection that centers on people's participation. However, long-standing ideological and structural issues embedded in Korean society hinder the recognition of plogging's value.

Optimal nitrogen rate strategy for sustainable rice production in China.

Avoiding excessive agricultural nitrogen (N) use without compromising yields has long been a priority for both research and government policy in China1,2. Although numerous rice-related strategies have been proposed3-5, few studies have assessed their impacts on national food self-sufficiency and environmental sustainability and fewer still have considered economic risks faced by millions of smallholders. Here we established an optimal N rate strategy based on maximizing either economic (ON) or ecological (EON) performance using new subregion-specific models. Using an extensive on-farm dataset, we then assessed the risk of yield losses among smallholder farmers and the challenges of implementing the optimal N rate strategy. We find that meeting national rice production targets in 2030 is possible while concurrently reducing nationwide N consumption by 10% (6-16%) and 27% (22-32%), mitigating reactive N (Nr) losses by 7% (3-13%) and 24% (19-28%) and increasing N-use efficiency by 30% (3-57%) and 36% (8-64%) for ON and EON, respectively. This study identifies and targets subregions with disproportionate environmental impacts and proposes N rate strategies to limit national Nr pollution below proposed environmental thresholds, without compromising soil N stocks or economic benefits for smallholders. Thereafter, the preferable N strategy is allocated to each region based on the trade-off between economic risk and environmental benefit. To facilitate the adoption of the annually revised subregional N rate strategy, several recommendations were provided, including a monitoring network, fertilization quotas and smallholder subsidies.

Understanding the Environmentally Sustainable Behavior of Chinese University Students as Tourists: An Integrative Framework.

The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework by integrating the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory with environmental awareness in measuring Chinese university students' environmentally sustainable behavior toward tourism destinations. University students tend to engage in sustainability efforts since their values and beliefs are still being formed. The participants were 301 university students from a university in eastern China. The empirical findings demonstrate that: (1) environmental awareness has positive influences on biospheric value, altruistic value and egoistic value; (2) biospheric value positively predicts the new ecological paradigm (NEP), whereas altruistic and egoistic values do not; (3) the NEP, awareness of consequence and personal norms play an important mediating role. Results indicate that extended VBN can explain students' environmentally sustainable behavior. This research supports the growth of sustainable tourism and has a number of practical implications for universities and the relevant environmental departments to promote university students' involvement in sustainable tourism.

Authoritarian Environmentalism-Captured Collaboration in Vietnamese Water Management.

This article examines collaborative environmental governance under authoritarian political structures. Building on the theoretical frame of authoritarian environmentalism, it peruses fieldwork material collected during 2009-2019 to determine the most prominent features of recent collaborative governance efforts in the field of water management in Vietnam, a historically seasonal flooding-dependent country. A key feature is technocratisation, where top-down management structures and practices prioritise technocratic solutions to environmental challenges over deliberation, awareness raising, and integration of local knowledge. Another equally important feature is authoritarian intensification, by which increasingly complex environmental management functions, coupled with the state's determination to retain political control, reinforce authoritarian governance. We jointly refer to these features as captured collaboration, signifying a strong authoritarian regime dominance in both vertical and horizontal relations of environmental governance. However, while captured collaboration still appears to be a defining collaborative characteristic, the article acknowledges rising calls for deliberative government in Vietnamese society. This is particularly outspoken in relation to the highly contested issues of hydropower construction and enhanced floods, debates that simultaneously have paved the way for a burgeoning, though much delayed, paradigm shift.

Race, religious identities, and environmental activism.

We employ three national representative samples to examine the moderating effect race has on the relationship between religious identities and environmental identities and behaviors. By and large, religious identities are more consistently associated with the environmental considerations of Whites than it does for African Americans and Hispanics. Among Whites, religious liberals are more likely than their religiously conservative counterparts to; identify with the environmental movement, make environmentally conscious consumer choices, and be active in the environmental movement. Such is not the case, however, for African Americans and Hispanics: religion very rarely associates with their environmental identities and behaviors. In explaining our findings, we discuss the role that the disparate racial experiences of these groups may play in accounting for the differential role religion plays in their environmental identities and behaviors.

Ideologia, confiança institucional e representações sociais de universitários sobre o cenário político brasileiro de 2016-2017 / Ideology, institutional trust, and social representation of university students about the brazilian political scenery from 2016-2017 / Ideología, confianza institucional y representaciones sociales de universitarios sobre el escenario político brasileño de 2016-2017

O objetivo deste estudo foi testar um modelo teórico-explicativo para as representações sociais sobre o cenário sociopolítico brasileiro de 2017, de acordo com as seguintes relações: as representações seriam influenciadas diretamente pela confiança nas instituições, e essa confiança, determinada pelas simpatias ideológicas. Participaram 164 estudantes universitários - cuja idade média era 24 anos - que responderam a escalas intervalares. Realizaram-se modelagens de equações estruturais para testar o modelo teórico proposto. Os resultados indicaram: adequabilidade do modelo; dois grupos de variáveis apresentando relações positivas entre as variáveis do mesmo grupo e negativas na comparação intergrupos. No primeiro grupo constaram as variáveis: ideias-força de esquerda, confiança nos movimentos sociais, avaliação do governo Dilma e avaliação das políticas de esquerda; no segundo: ideias-força de direita, confiança nas instituições de controle, confiança na mídia, avaliação do governo Temer e avaliação das políticas de esquerda. Concluiu-se que a confiança institucional e a simpatia ideológica ancoravam as representações sociais do cenário brasileiro na população universitária estudada.(AU)

The aim of this study was to test an explanatory theoretical model about the social representations about Brazilian social-political scenario in 2017, based on the following relations: representations were directly influenced by the trust in institutions, and this trust, determined by ideological sympathies. A sample of 164 college students - whose average age was 24 years - answered interval scales. We performed structural equation modeling to test the proposed model. The results indicated: the suitability of the model; two groups of variables presenting positive relations in the in-group comparison and negative relations in the comparisons between groups. The first group showed the variables: Leftist ideas-forces, trust in social movements, evaluation of Dilma's administration, and evaluation of Leftist policies; the second: Rightist ideas-forces, trust in control institutions, trust in the media, evaluation of Temer's administration, and evaluation of Leftist policies. In conclusion, the institutional trust and ideological sympathies anchored the social representations of the Brazilian scenery for the studied university population.(AU)

Este estudio tuvo como objetivo probar un modelo teórico explicativo de las representaciones sociales en el escenario sociopolítico brasileño de 2017 según las siguientes relaciones: las representaciones estarían directamente influenciadas por la confianza en las instituciones, y esta confianza, determinada por las simpatías ideológicas. Participaron en este estudio 164 estudiantes universitarios, con edad media de 24 años, quienes respondieron a escalas intervalares. Se llevaron a cabo modelos de ecuaciones estructurales para probar el modelo teórico propuesto. Los resultados indicaron: adecuación del modelo; dos grupos de variables que presentaban relaciones positivas entre las variables del mismo grupo y negativas en la comparación intergrupal. El primer grupo incluía las variables: ideas-fuerza de la izquierda, confianza en los movimientos sociales, evaluación del gobierno de Dilma y evaluación de las políticas de la izquierda; el segundo: ideas-fuerza de la derecha, confianza en las instituciones de control, confianza en los medios de comunicación, evaluación del gobierno Temer y evaluación de las políticas de la izquierda. Se concluyó que la confianza institucional y la simpatía ideológica funcionaron como fundamentos de las representaciones sociales del escenario político brasileño en la población universitaria estudiada.(AU)

Ambiente, saúde e covid-19: da crise global à existência sustentável / Environment, health, and the COVID-19: from global crisis to sustainable existence

Resumo Este ensaio busca analisar os impactos sociossanitários exercidos pelo meio ambiente, incorporando as dinâmicas trazidas pela covid-19 e evidenciando as repercussões da pandemia. O coronavírus atingiu sobretudo países que falharam na prevenção e não estabeleceram medidas de intervenção eficazes e colaborativas. A destruição da natureza se intensificou na pandemia, assim como as ameaças enfrentadas por seus defensores, o que agravou ainda mais a crise. Nesse contexto pode-se destacar os riscos apresentados aos indígenas brasileiros e aos ambientalistas latino-americanos; o surgimento de grupos perigosos; e a implementação de políticas governamentais de efeitos críticos que afetam a preservação ambiental e colocam em risco os modos de vida tradicionais. Assume-se, desse modo, que o planeta enfrenta uma crise sanitária, mas também socioeconômica e ambiental. Para que tal crise heterogênea seja superada, os esforços precisam ser multiformes, envolvendo: cuidados à saúde e aos ecossistemas; diminuição da pobreza global e da desigualdade sanitária; redução de riscos ambientais; proteção dos modos de vida tradicionais; defesa das democracias e dos direitos humanos; fomento de políticas de desenvolvimento sustentável; e cooperação internacional. Tais esforços também incidirão sobre os anos vindouros, minimizando os riscos de novas pandemias e atuando na preservação ambiental.

Abstract This essay analyzes the socio-sanitary impacts exerted by the environment, incorporating the dynamics brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and unveiling its repercussions. Countries that failed to prevent the virus spread and to established effective and collaborative intervention measures were hit the hardest. Environmental destruction reached new heights in the pandemic, as have the threats faced by its defenders, further aggravating the crisis. In this scenario one can highlight the risks posed to Brazilian Indigenous peoples and Latin American environmentalists; the emergence of dangerous groups; and the implementation of government policies with critical effects on environmental preservation that put traditional ways of life at risk. It is thus recognized that the planet faces not only a health crisis, but also a socioeconomic and environmental one. To overcome such heterogeneous crisis, efforts must be multifaceted, involving: caring for health and ecosystems; eliminating global poverty and sanitary inequality; reducing environmental risks; protecting traditional ways of life; defending democracies and human rights; and fostering sustainable development policies and international cooperation. These efforts will also affect the years to come, minimizing the risks of new pandemics and acting to preserve the environment.

Relationships between Spirituality, Religious Fundamentalism and Environmentalism: The Mediating Role of Right-Wing Authoritarianism.

According to past research, religious attitudes can strongly influence individuals' beliefs and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationships between spirituality (the Scale of Spirituality; dimensions include religious spirituality, expanding consciousness, searching for meaning, sensitivity to art, doing good, and sensitivity to inner beauty), religious fundamentalism (the Religious Fundamentalism Scale), support for right-wing authoritarianism (the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale), climate concerns (the Environmental Concern Scale), and pro-environmental behavior (the Pro-Environmental Behavior Scale). The cross-sectional study involved 512 Poles aged 18-63 (M = 34.63, SD = 5.96; Mdn = 33), including 51% females. Multiple regression analysis revealed that two dimensions of spirituality (sensitivity to art and doing good) and religious fundamentalism are significant and opposite predictors of climate concern and pro-environmental behavior. Spirituality appeared to foster increased climate concern and caring behavior, while religious fundamentalism negatively predicted the same variables. Mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between religion and environmentalism could be explained in part by differences in support for right-wing authoritarianism (authoritarianism itself was negatively related to environmental outcomes). In addition, analysis of variance revealed that believers (70% of participants in the study were Catholic) showed significantly lower scores regarding climate concerns and pro-environmental behavior than non-believers, yet the inclusion of support for right-wing authoritarianism as a covariate in the equation reduced intergroup differences to statistical insignificance. The data obtained suggest that religious attitudes and socio-political views may play important roles in solving environmental problems.

You Are What You Eat and So Is Our Planet: Identifying Dietary Groups Based on Personality and Environmentalism.

Behavioral change interventions promoting the reduction of animal product consumption are valuable tools to improve ecological sustainability as well as public health and help the mitigation of climate change. Recent findings revealed improved efficacy of interventions targeted at barriers (e.g., self-efficacy) of three different types of meat consumers over non-targeted interventions (e.g., completion of unrelated surveys). However, such interventions have yet to factor in the role of individual differences in personality. Therefore, in a first step, we performed segmentation analysis on barriers and benefits of reducing animal product consumption (e.g., meat attachment, environmentalism) with the inclusion of personality. In an online sample of N=1135 participants, latent profile analysis revealed five distinct dietary groups: "plant-based eaters", "meat-reducers", "medium-hindrance meat eaters", "medium strong-hindrance meat eaters, and "strong-hindrance meat eaters", based on inhibitors and facilitators of meat reduction. Groups differed in terms of consumption of different animal products (η2=0.08 to η2=0.80) as well as the Big Five (η2=0.08 to η2=0.80) and Dark Triad (η2=0.08 to η2=0.80). Strong-hindrance meat eaters were characterized by low Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness as well as high dark trait expression, implying new targets for future intervention design.

Be(e)coming pollinators: Beekeeping and perceptions of environmentalism in Massachusetts.

In an era of mass extinction and biodiversity crisis, it is increasingly crucial to cultivate more just and inclusive multispecies futures. As mitigation and adaption efforts are formed in response to these crises, just transitions forward require intentional consideration of the hybrid entanglement of humans, human societies, and wider landscapes. We thus apply a critical hybridity framework to examine the entanglement of the pollinator crisis with the cultural and agricultural practice of hobbyist beekeeping. We draw on ethnographic engagements with Massachusetts beekeepers and find apiculture to be widely understood as a form of environmentalism-including as both a mitigation to and adaptation for the pollinator crisis. Illustrating how power-laden socioecological negotiations shape and reshape regional environments, we then discuss how this narrative relies on the capitalistic and instrumental logics characteristic of Capitalocene environmentalisms. These rationalities, which obscure the hybridity of landscapes, consequently increase the likelihood of problematic unintended consequences. Also present, however, is a deeper engagement with hybrid perspectives, with some beekeepers even offering pathways toward inclusive solutions. We conclude that if more just and biodiverse futures are to be realized, beekeeping communities must foster increasingly hybrid visions of apiculture as situated within socioecological and contested landscapes.

The effects of ideological value framing and symbolic racism on pro-environmental behavior.

Environmental degradation continues to be one of the greatest threats to human well-being, posing a disproportionate burden on communities of color. Environmental action, however, fails to reflect this urgency, leaving social-behavioral research at the frontier of environmental conservation, as well as environmental justice. Broad societal consensus for environmental action is particularly sparse among conservatives. The lack of even small personal sacrifices in favor of the environment could be attributed to the relatively low salience of environmental threats to white Americans and the partisan nature of environmentalism in America. We evaluate if (1) environmental action is causally related to the ideological value framing of an environmental issue; and (2) if the perceived race of impacted communities influences environmental action as a function of racial resentment. With this large-scale, original survey experiment examining the case of air-pollution, we find weak support for the first, but we do not find evidence for the second. We advance our understanding of environmental justice advocacy and environmental inaction in the United States. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 10 June 2021. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14769558 .

Motivation and climate change: A review.

This paper reviews motivations people experience about climate change and integrates recent findings into the BUCkET model of core social goals. We argue that environmentalism is not the main cause of thoughts or behaviors about climate change. Rather, the evolved social needs for Belongingness, Understanding, Control, self-Enhancement, and Trust are more practical intervention targets than the attempt to create environmentalist beliefs or identities. We used database searches to identify the key research areas on motivation and climate change and synthesized articles into the BUCkET model. This reveals some limiting assumptions of previous approaches and suggests the effectiveness of targeting existing motives rather than fostering new values or worldviews.

Employee green behaviour: How organizations can help the environment.

Organizations are intrinsically involved in climate change - both in its causes and its solutions - and there has been a growing interest in the microfactors and macrofactors that affect employee green behaviour. On an employee level, the literature stresses the importance of values and self-concordance. On an organizational level, in contrast, recent developments emphasize environmental dynamic capabilities, leadership and human resource management practices such as training. However, an interplay between such microfactors and macrofactors suggests that organizational initiatives do not work uniformly but depend on employees' environmentalism. We thus highlight the need for a dynamic systems perspective in researching all types of employee green behaviour in organizations.

"Defensivos" ou "agrotóxicos"? História do uso e da percepção dos agrotóxicos no estado de Santa Catarina, Brasil, 1950-2002 / "Defensives" or "pesticides"? A history of the use and perception of pesticides in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, 1950-2002

Resumo O artigo apresenta uma história do uso e da percepção dos agrotóxicos no estado de Santa Catarina, Brasil, entre as décadas de 1950 e 2000. As fontes primárias utilizadas foram diversificadas, como boletins técnicos, relatórios governamentais, censos agropecuários, notícias de jornais, dados do centro estadual de informações toxicológicas e entrevista com um técnico de referência no setor. Verificou-se que o uso e a percepção dos agrotóxicos passaram por diferentes fases em Santa Catarina, o que também ocorreu em outros lugares, e que as atitudes mudaram tanto devido às experiências individuais de técnicos e agricultores, como também pela influência do contexto cultural mais amplo da circulação das ideias ambientalistas a partir dos anos 1980.

Abstract The article presents a history of the use and perception of pesticides in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, between 1950 and 2002. A variety of primary sources were used, including technical newsletters, government reports, agricultural censuses, newspaper articles, data from the state center for toxicological information, and an interview with a key technician from the field. It was found that the use and perception of pesticides passed through different phases in Santa Catarina, much as in other places, with changes in attitude prompted both by the personal experiences of technicians and farmers and by the influence of the broader cultural context and circulation of environmentalist ideas starting in the 1980s.