Environmental Citizenship

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Environmental Citizenship three lame ducks and
one nervous cygnet
Tim Jackson SDRN Annual Conference 20th
September 2007
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Outline of the Talk

• A perfectly reasonable case for environmental
  citizenship
• Some Values Theory
• The Value Action gap
• Value Conflicts and Mixed Messages
• Three lame ducks and one nervous cygnet

From Jerusalem to Jericho
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A perfectly reasonable case

• there exists a set of values which when espoused
  leads to environmental citizenship
• the task for policy is to change people's values
  so as to promote environmental citizenship
• the vanguard of environmental citizenship already
  exists it just needs to become mainstream.

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Some Values Theory

• values as high-level, 'stable', cognitive
  constructs which provide 'guides for living'
• Rohan 2000 Rokeach 1973
• values as derived from
• biological needs
• needs for social interaction
• survival and welfare of groups
• Schwartz 1992

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Inglehart post-materialism
Inglehart socio-political materialism
Richins Dawson Material Values Scale
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(No Transcript)
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Value bases for sustainability

• different kinds of environmental citizenship
  motivated by different kinds of values
• strongest predictor of frugality income
  (Pepper et al 2007)
• value shifts are moderated by evolutionary and
  social constraints

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The Value Action Gap

• Darley and Batson (1973) study with seminary
  students
• help overall 40
• help in hurry 10
• help in low hurry 65
• Subject of the talk made no difference!
• Conflict not callousness?

From Jerusalem to Jericho
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The Value Action Gap
Behaviour
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The Value Action Gap
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(No Transcript)
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Mixed Messages and Value Conflicts

• environmental activists (Hobson 2006)
• ethical consumers (Bedford 2007)
• fair trade (Shaw et al 2000)
• voluntary simplifiers (Shaw and Newholm 2002)
• religious groups (Darley and Batson 1973 Pepper
  et al 2007)
• spiritual groups (Armstrong and Jackson 2007)

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Three Lame Ducks

• Relying on a post-material value-shift
• Promoting value change
• Waiting for the vanguard to arrive.

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And one nervous signet

• government as a commitment device
• environmental citizenship as an emergent property

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And one nervous cygnet

• a vanguard of environmental citizenship already
  exists but it wont deliver sustainability
• there exist mainstream human values which are
  compatible with sustainability
• the task for policy is to create a social
  structure that supports these values.