blog 2 thoughts, ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES

hello out there, have just had some thougths about my second blog which is about the attitudes and behaviours of people in regards to the environment so some initial thoughts.

In my opinion cognitive dissonance is an importat concept in regards to environmental attiudes and behaviours, due to if we want to save the environrment but we are using our cars and plastic bags excessively then we would need to change either our attiude, well maybe the enivronment is not such an important issue, or we will cut down our negative use of the environment, maye walking to uni and using green bags.

Another issue is where these attitudes firstly come from, for example the media, family or who we lie with. Something that links in with this is that at the moment it appears that for certain people being enviro friendly is a fad and cool, this can be alright except if there are no strong feelings or ideals when this fad does end there is less likely to continue on or be consistent with the behaviour. In addition to this there is no reason to say that the fad will then switch sides and become anti-environmental.

Ok so what else...i know the fact that some people may continue to do their "bad" behaviours towards the environment due to the fact that the problem seems to big for them to be able to make any help with the issue. Therefore they might see no reason for trying to help a "lost" cause.

In addition to this people might feel that everyone else will help and therefore they dont need to, so similar to when someone is in an emergency or if a analarm goes off people will wait for other people to take the initiative and until that time wont do anything on their own.

Other issues that may be involved include time contrainsts, political imput and what options are available for them such as recycling centres.

On a similar note councils and builders need to take into consideration when planning new suburbs and buildings the regulations, with new legislation setting out the rules. Transport, electicity and water are also involved with being of environmental concern with the ACT providing people with the opportunity to buy green electricity.

There is also the factor of wanting to live for the moment and not for the future, similar to wanting the rewards now and not waiting for a bigger reward. There is also the option for hybrid cars and such incitives as having three people in certain public car parks then you get it for free, encouraging car pooling.

So the question needs to be asked is this new slant on the environment as being a fad making the environment and environmental friendly products materilastic.

The severe drought that has been effecting Australia has been speculated to be due to climate change and the el nino effect and being a national issue you would have to think that people would be concernd about it. The use of nuclear energy, such as France does and the concern for logging, particularly in Tasmania are also national points of interest.

The actual question is, is there a gap between environmental attitudes and behaviours? If so why and what can be done about it? I am definatly intersted in your views on this particular question on the environment or broader thoughts on the issue :)