Public Attitudes to Environmental Change: a selective review of theory and practice, A Research Synthesis for The Living Within Environmental Change Programme.

From the executive summary: This research synthesis summarises a selection of the notable academic and non-academic evidence relevant to public attitudes to environmental change in the UK. The aim is to inform the UK cross-research council programme Living With Environmental Change (LWEC), and particularly public engagement under LWEC. The focus is on the public as citizens and consumers rather than other stakeholders, except where the latter are closely involved in shaping or mediating public attitudes. Environmental change is understood as change to aspects of the global environment and the UK?s ?natural? and manufactured environment, acknowledging that most of the UK terrestrial environment, and much of the marine environment, is to some extent managed or altered by humans. There is a focus on the particular forms of environmental change specified by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): climate change; ecosystem management; human, plant and animal health alteration due to climate change; energy and associated infrastructure.The main value of the report lies in its collation, summary of and inference from key references relating to the UK social science of environmental change, particularly public engagement in this. Some 60 UK organisations contributed reference material, supplying over 150 reports. In total, nearly 600 items of literature have been referenced, primarily relatively recent material. The review focuses primarily on theories and studies from the environmental psychology and (more briefly) the environmental sociology literature. We also make some reference to the multi-disciplinary risk perception and science and technology studies literatures. With a small number of notable exceptions, we do not review the literature on monetary valuation of environmental features.