Environmental Attitude and Environmental Knowledge

Abstract

Increased knowledge about the environment is assumed to change environmental attitudes, and both environmental knowledge and attitudes are assumed to influence environmental policy. However, little research has focused on public environmental knowledge or the relationship between knowledge and environmental attitudes. This paper uses telephone survey data from 680 Kentucky residents to address this gap in the literature. Specifically, this analysis examines how environmental knowledge and attitudes are related sociodemographic factors (gender, age, education, income and residence). As in similar research, the respondents to this survey did not score well on the measures of environmental knowledge. Environmental knowledge is found to be consistently and positively related to environmental attitudes, although the relationship is not especially strong. With the correlation of knowledge and attitudes, the low level of environmental knowledge has disturbing implications for environmental policy.