Environmentalist Views Research Articles

Çevre Yanlısı Davranışlarla İlişkili Bilişsel İşlevlerin Nöropsikolojisi

The daily habits and behaviors of modern society people harm the environment more than expected. It is well known that in order to protect the inherent values of the natural assets of the world we live in, and to sustain the mutual interaction of people with the environment in a productive manner, necessary precautions should be taken to establish and maintain pro-environmental behaviors. However, people act in different levels of pro-environmental behavior. Although most of the people state that they have a pro-environmental attitude, they cannot transform their attitudes into actual behaviors in their daily lives for various reasons. Examining the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, known as the attitude-behavior gap, may contribute to the development of interventions that can help to understand how these behaviors differ among individuals and to eliminate this difference between the observed pro-environmental behaviors. At this point, neuroscience studies can provide a more comprehensive explanation of the reasons for the behavioral differences between these individuals, by comparing the performance of individuals with and without pro-environmental behaviors and those who have adopted and not adopting the environmentalist view, on behavioral tasks, and by simultaneously examining the physiological responses that may be related to sustainable behavior. This article will discuss how neuroscience and neuropsychological approach can provide an explanation for these questions through their unique methods.

Climate change, mental health, and reproductive decision-making: A systematic review

The impact of climate change on reproductive decision-making is becoming a significant issue, with anecdotal evidence indicating a growing number of people factoring their concerns about climate change into their childbearing plans. Although empirical research has explored climate change and its relationship to mental health, as well as the motivations behind reproductive decision-making independently, a gap in the literature remains that bridges these topics at their nexus. This review endeavours to fill this gap by synthesising the available evidence connecting climate change-related concerns with reproductive decision-making and exploring the reasons and motivations behind this relationship. A systematic review using six databases was conducted to identify relevant literature. Included studies reported quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods data related to: (1) climate change, (2) mental health and wellbeing concerns, and (3) reproductive decision-making. Findings were synthesised narratively using a parallel-results convergent synthesis design and the quality of studies was appraised using three validated assessment tools. Four hundred and forty-six documents were screened using pre-defined inclusion criteria, resulting in the inclusion of thirteen studies. The studies were conducted between 2012 and 2022 primarily in Global North countries (e.g., USA, Canada, New Zealand, and European countries). Climate change concerns were typically associated with less positive attitudes towards reproduction and a desire and/or intent for fewer children or none at all. Four themes explaining this relationship were identified: uncertainty about the future of an unborn child, environmentalist views centred on overpopulation and overconsumption, meeting family subsistence needs, and environmental and political sentiments. The current evidence reveals a complex relationship between climate change concerns and reproductive decision-making, grounded in ethical, environmental, livelihood, and political considerations. Further research is required to better understand and address this issue with an intercultural approach, particularly among many highly affected Global South populations, to ensure comparability and generalisable results.

The Power of the Periphery: How Norway Became an Environmental Pioneer for the World

The Power of the Periphery: How Norway Became an Environmental Pioneer for the World

The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Inescapable Challenge of the Anthropocene for Museums

Several indicators suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic has raised public awareness around climate and environmental emergencies, and expanded global consciousness around the interdependencies of natural systems and their individual components. These trends add up to a growing awareness of both environmental damage and social injustices, brought to wide global attention by the 2019 Climate Strikes and the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests of 2020. How can museums take advantage of this new social and activist climate, as we resurface form the severe limitations imposed by pandemic-related health and safety measures? The concept of the Anthropocene stands out as the most powerful, all-inclusive topic that museums can leverage to reshape their relationship with a new form of citizenship during and following the Covid-19 crisis. In this article, and drawing on my work and experiences at the MUSE – Science Museum in Italy, I will offer some discussion around the urgent need, for the entire museum community, to review museum polices and activities in light of the Anthropocene paradigm, a process that museums must undertake thorough a complex process of internal strategic change. One key issue with pervasive consequences over several museum activities is the need to shift our storytelling from the humanity-against-nature narrative (a 20th-century environmentalist view) to a humanities-against-(other)-humanities narrative, which more properly describes the current Anthropocene-era conflict between different values and ethical principles with regard to the ontological status of our planet. Moreover and above all, museums need to become increasingly aware of their political role in society, and be prepared to assert it more than is customary in our practices. If the commitment to the United Nations 2030 Agenda honours the institutional task of museums, the proposal for critical debate on Anthropocene issues stands out as the main challenge for museums who wish to fulfil their social and political roles in a post-Covid-19 world.

Toward a multifactorial model of expertise: beyond born versus made.

The debate over the origins of individual differences in expertise has raged for over a century in psychology. The "nature" view holds that expertise reflects "innate talent"-that is, genetically determined abilities. The "nurture" view counters that, if talent even exists, its effects on ultimate performance are negligible. While no scientist takes seriously a strict nature-only view of expertise, the nurture view has gained tremendous popularity over the past several decades. This environmentalist view holds that individual differences in expertise reflect training history, with no important contribution to ultimate performance by innate ability ("talent"). Here, we argue that, despite its popularity, this view is inadequate to account for the evidence concerning the origins of expertise that has accumulated since the view was first proposed. More generally, we argue that the nature versus nurture debate in research on expertise is over-or certainly should be, as it has been in other areas of psychological research for decades. We describe a multifactorial model for research on the nature and nurture of expertise, which we believe will provide a progressive direction for future research on expertise.

CONCERN FOR WILD ANIMAL SUFFERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF THE DISAGREEMENT?

This paper examines the extent of the opposition between environmentalists and those concerned with wild-animal suffering and considers whether there are any points they may agree on. The paper starts by presenting the reasons to conclude that suffering and premature death prevail over positive well-being in nature. It then explains several ways to intervene in order to aid animals and prevent the harms they suffer, and claims that we should support them. In particular, the paper argues in favour of carrying out more research to learn the best ways to intervene without causing more harm to other animals and to intervene first in areas significantly transformed by human action. It then examines what positions environmentalist views can have towards intervention in nature for the sake of animals. It claims that, while ecocentric and naturocentric views will strongly oppose intervention in certain circumstances, they should not do so in other cases in which the values they promote are not at stake or might be outweighed. The paper then argues that, contrary to what it might seem at first, biocentric views should strongly support intervention. It then discusses whether there may be certain practical issues about which those concerned with wild animal suffering and environmentalists may support the same approach, such as opposition to the greening of desert ecosystems. Finally, it claims that raising awareness about wild animal suffering seems to be the most urgent task now for those concerned about it.

The Saga of Progressive Racism

American Progressivism inaugurated the beginning of the end of American scientific racism. Its critics have been vocal, however, largely confusing the ideas that Progressives inherited from those they developed for themselves. Progressives have been charged with promotion of eugenics, and thus with mainstreaming practices such as housing segregation, compulsory sterilization of those deemed unfit, and exclusion of immigrants on racial grounds. But if the Progressives were such racists, why is it that since the 1930s Afro-Americans and other people of color have consistently supported self-proclaimed progressive political candidates, and typically by very wide margins?When examining the Progressives on race, it is critical to distinguish the views that they inherited from those that they developed. The rise of Progressivism coincided with the death of scientific racism, which had been taught in American universities since the early nineteenth century and featured prominently in the scientific debate over Darwin’s theory of evolution. Eugenics, which attempted to use genetics and mathematics to validate many racist claims, was its last gasp. The most notable thing about the Progressives is that they were responsible for bringing scientific racism to an end, although that did not happen immediately.My argument here is, first, that one of the most powerful characteristics of the progressive State was its attentiveness to science – a characteristic that it retains to this day. When the Era was forming, however, genetic racism was the scientific model of the day, cutting across a wide range of disciplines and reaching people of all political persuasions, even into the most elite of American research institutions. By and large, non-Progressives were just as racist as Progressives and some significantly more so. Further, the period lay entirely within the southern era of Jim Crow legislated segregation, often making it impossible to identify particular racial attitudes in the New South as Progressive or simply as inherited features of long held southern racial ideas. The all important question for the historian is, Which racial ideas did the Progressives inherit from their predecessors, and which did they develop on their own?Second, if public policy on race differed from prevailing alternatives, it was that Progressives believed in a more active State. Racism supported by an activist legislative agenda can be much uglier than racism that is simply tolerated. One cannot characterize most of the segregationist, exclusionary, and other racist legislation passed during this era as Progressive, however. Southern states actively regulated racial exclusion by statute, and all of the racial zoning laws sometimes attributed to Progressives were passed in formerly slave holding states. Whatever the ideological or scientific sources of these laws, they were supported by staunch anti-Progressives. The same thing is true of compulsory sterilization laws. For example, the Supreme Court Justices who voted consistently against labor protective and other regulatory legislation voted to uphold compulsory sterilization of mental defectives. While many Progressives advocated for more restrictive immigration laws, nothing that was passed during the Era matched the explicit restrictions on Chinese immigration that came earlier, or the racist immigration restrictions enacted during the terms of anti-Progressive Presidents Harding and Coolidge after the Era had ended. Finally, the attempts to link support for minimum wage laws to racial exclusion fail because they misunderstand the objectives of the minimum wage commitment and, further, pick and choose a small number of idiosyncratic examples from an enormous economic literature.Third, the one place where a sharp difference emerged between progressives and their various opponents was in the subsequent rejection of genetic racism in favor of more environmentalist, nurture-based models of human nature and development. More environmentalist views began to take hold in the social sciences in the 1910s and 1920s and began to change legal thinking in the 1940s. They found expression in a Supreme Court that was almost unanimously Democrat and self-acknowledged progressive. The result was gradual emergence of a division that has endured to this day, with progressives largely appearing as promoters of racial inclusion and diversity.

Refusing Help and Inflicting Harm: a Critique of the Environmentalist View

Due to a variety of natural causes, suffering predominates over well-being in the lives of wild animals. From an antispeciesist standpoint that considers the interests of all sentient individuals, we should intervene in nature to benefit these animals, provided that the expectable result is net positive. However, according to the environmentalist view the aim of benefiting wild animals cannot justify intervening in nature. In addition, harmful human interventions can sometimes be justified. This view assumes that (i) certain entities such as ecosystems or species have intrinsic value, and that (ii) at least sometimes these values are more important than nonhuman well-being. In this article I review the arguments in support of this view advanced by three prominent environmentalists (Albert Schweitzer, Paul W. Taylor and J. Baird Callicott) and show how none of them succeed at grounding these assumptions.

Eugenics and migration: a case study of Salvation Army literature about Canada and Britain, c.1890-1921.

The eugenics movement attracted a wide range of supporters. This article explores this theme with relation to literature about the charitable work of the Salvation Army in Britain and Canada c.1890-1921, with a focus upon the emigration scheme outlined in William Booth's book In Darkest England and the Way Out. These writings indicate the widespread dispersal of eugenic ideology, and demonstrate the flexibility with which these theories were interpreted in this period. It will be shown that the Salvation Army adopted elements of both hereditarian and environmentalist views regarding racial health. These arguments were unified by the claim that the work of the organization made a worthy contribution to public health, both in the present and in the future. This case study sheds new light upon the history of a prominent evangelical Christian organization and upon the development of the international eugenics movement.

Creating Greener Citizens: Political Liberalism and a Robust Environmental Education

Proponents of environmentalist views often urge the teaching of such views and the inculcation of ‘green’ values within the educational curriculum of schools as a key component of achieving their ends. It might seem that modern versions of political morality that refuse to take a stance on controversial questions—religious, ethical, philosophical—or eschew appeal to perfectionist doctrines, such as Rawlsian political liberalism, are beset by a particularly acute difficulty in this regard. To the extent that environmentalist views embody claims about ethical matters such as how individuals should live their lives, they fall foul of this version of political morality. This article evaluates the resources available to political liberalism to respond to the challenge of bringing the teaching of green values and virtues within the national curriculum. It argues that environmental concerns differ in morally important ways from other ethical, philosophical, and religious views that are typically off-limits to political liberalism. Much that passes as green ideals are not simply a conception of the good life in the manner that religious views, for example, are. Rather, many environmental goods are crucial to the realisation of socioeconomic justice and therefore escape the requirement of state neutrality on endorsing the truth or importance of their role. A minimal political liberal education includes teaching about justice-based concerns as part of a compulsory national curriculum.

Environmentalism and Civilizational Development in the Colonial British Histories of the Indian Archipelago (1783–1820)

This article argues that the British Histories of the Indian Archipelago written by William Marsden, Thomas Stamford Raffles, and John Crawfurd can be read as documents advocating better care and protection of the natural environment in the region. Extant scholarship has tended to discourage such a reading, although the writers express many beliefs and sentiments that suggest their ascription to what have been identified as early environmentalist views. The environmentalism of the Histories, however, rests on the belief that human cultivation was necessary for nature’s well being—a belief now seen as antithetical to the values of modern-day environmentalism.

Cruelty and the psychology of history

This response deals with seven of the major challenges the commentators have raised to the target article. First, I show that the historical-anecdotal method I have followed has its roots in sociology, and that there is a strong case for the development of a “psychology of history.” Next, the observational data suggesting that intentional cruelty cannot be restricted to humans is rebutted on the grounds that cruelty requires not only an intention to inflict pain, but to do so because that pain would cause the victim to suffer – which requires a theory of mind. Third, in the light of the commentaries, I recognise that not only predation but also intraspecific aggression contributes to the development of cruelty. Fourth, I contrast nativists and environmentalists, the former regarding cruelty as a universal human capacity and the latter holding the view that cruelty is acquired through social learning, and argue that there is an otherworldly quality to the environmentalist view. I then show (the fifth challenge) that the target article does generate testable hypotheses. Sixth is a consideration of the implications of the target article for the re-admission of the concept of evil to the psychological lexicon; and seventh, a consideration of the commentaries which note that the cultivation of compassion is a tool for the prevention of cruelty. The last section of the response replies to questions of detail and rebuts some misrepresentations of my argument.

Environmental Attitudes of Scientists in Ghana, Kenya, and Kerala: Evidence on NGOs and Traditional Research Sectors

Drawing on a survey of researchers in Ghana, Kenya, and the Indian state of Kerala, attitudes of NGO scientists are examined and compared with those in universities and national research institutes. Recently, some NGOs have initiated research activities, raising the question of whether those who pursue research in these organizations are similar to or different from those in more traditional contexts. Environmentalist views are now widespread among researchers in less developed countries. Two underlying dimensions are identified, one of which is tiers-mondisme, the degree to which a researcher adopts a distinctive developing country perspective on environmental issues. Results show that NGO researchers are not generally different in terms of their environmental views. However, national context and participation in the international system affect the degree to which researchers adopt a distinctive developmental perspective.

Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know about Cancer

our understanding of thatphenomenon. Rachel Carson brought the environmentalist view vigorously into the public arena in 1962 with Silent Spring. Since then, argument has proceeded about the extent to which industrial processes and their products cause cancer and, whatever that extent, what should be done about it. The tone of Cancer Wars, written with a historian's perspective on the environmentalist-antienvironmentalist struggle over cancer causation, lies midway between scientific restraint and journalistic expression. For those familiar with the literature, the book can be said to avoid the extremes of either Samuel S. Epstein's The Politics ofCan-

Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know About Cancer

Cancer Warsby Robert N. Proctor makes a highly valuable contribution to the debate on what has caused cancer to become so prominent in this century and, especially, the forces that influence our understanding of that phenomenon. Rachel Carson brought the environmentalist view vigorously into the public arena in 1962 withSilent Spring. Since then, argument has proceeded about the extent to which industrial processes and their products cause cancer and, whatever that extent, what should be done about it. The tone ofCancer Wars, written with a historian's perspective on the environmentalist-antienvironmentalist struggle over cancer causation, lies midway between scientific restraint and journalistic expression. For those familiar with the literature, the book can be said to avoid the extremes of either Samuel S. Epstein'sThe Politics of Cancer(environmentalist) or Edith Efron'sThe Apocalyptics(antienvironmentalist), though Proctor leans toward the former's point of view. Media attention during the past

Trade and Environment: An Environmentalist View

Trade and Environment: An Environmentalist View

An Environmentalist's View

An Environmentalist's View

Towards a food and nutrition policy for Australia: An environmentalist view

An Australian state government recently prepared a discussion paper as a first step toward a regional food and nutrition policy. It is severely deficient in various ways. In the belief that its deficiencies may be common to other attempts to develop policy on human nutrition, brief comment is offered along with recommendations for repairing the deficiencies in the Australian paper. The critique is aimed at making good (1) the absence of environmental considerations and (2) the lack of analytical structure that could have been used to highlight the complex roots of nutritional needs in the interaction between environment and human behaviour.

The environmentalist view

Changes in farming systems, including dairy farming systems, have had adverse effects on the countryside. The money available for the protection of the country environment is insignificant alongside the financial pressures which encourage change. Leaching from fields treated with nitrogenous fertilizers can cause contamination of water supplies with nitrates. The problem of effluent disposal from dairy farms is a particular problem. It is suggested that there may be a need to revert to less intensive farming methods, and that wastes should be utilized rather than disposed of. as fertilizers or to produce methane for power generation, or as feedstuffs after modification.