Urban Agriculture and its Ecosystem Services from a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Case Studies in Germany, Turkey and India

Research on sense of place, specifically concepts of place attachment and place identity, is beginning to make an important contribution to the understanding of human responses to climate change. However, there has been a dearth of research on place attachment at multiple scales, and particularly the global level, despite strong advocacy two decades ago that climate change responses would be enabled by strengthened global and attenuated national attachments (Feitelson, 1991). To address this gap, survey data was collected from a representative sample of Australian citizens (N = 1147), capturing place attachment at neighbourhood, city/town, state/territory, country and global scales, as well as a range of climate change belief and individual difference measures. Findings support Feitelson’s arguments by suggesting that the interplay between national and global place attachments is important in influencing climate change beliefs. Individuals that expressed stronger global than national place attachment were more likely to attribute climate change to anthropogenic than natural causes, to hold higher levels of concern, to perceive climate change both to be personally relevant and as an opportunity rather than a threat, in comparison to individuals indicating stronger national over global place attachment. Further analysis indicated that individuals expressing stronger global than national place attachments were more likely to be female, younger, and self-identify as having no religion, to be characterized by significantly lower levels of right wing authoritarian and social dominance beliefs, higher levels of egalitarianism and to be more likely to vote Green. Implications for future research and the design and evaluation of climate interventions are discussed.