Home
Manuscript Submission
HER Editors and Staff
Society for Human Ecology
Search HER Contents

Issue 10.1 Abstracts

Contents Page

Social Structural Influences on Meat Consumption

By Marcia Hill Gossard and Richard York

Meat production is a major hidden cause of many critical environmental problems, indicating that individual dietary habits are a form of environmentally significant consumption (ESC). We build upon the growing literature on ESC by analyzing the effects of social structural factors on the total meat and beef consumption of individuals. Our purpose here is to further our understanding of the factors that contribute to individual consumption patterns of environmentally significant commodities. Gender, race, ethnicity, location of residence (region and urban vs. non-urban), and social class all appear to affect dietary habits even when controlling for physiological variables such as body weight and age. We argue that social structural factors in combination with macro-economic structure and psychological factors provide a rich explanation of the consumption patterns of individuals.

Keywords: vegetarian diet, environmentally significant consumption

Full Text PDF | Back to top

Carrot Soup for the Mind: Carrot Growers and Ecological Rationality

By Win Kurlfink and Craig K. Harris

Over the past decade, a number of factors have negatively impacted the Michigan carrot industry and carrot growers have responded to the problems in various ways. We examine growers' use of various rationalities in making decisions about adaptive strategies. We investigate the extent to which ecological rationality exists among Michigan carrot growers and influences their strategic decision making. We first elucidate the most relevant analytical lenses of rationality presented in the literature, and focus finally on several types of ecological rationality. Using material from interviews, we demonstrate that Michigan carrot growers' reliance on a practical ecological rationality provides a ground for their farming practices as well as for their overall attitudes about the farming life.

Keywords: rationality, ecological rationality, pest management, integrated pest management, carrots

Full Text PDF | Back to top

Proenvironmental Attitudes and Behaviors: An International Comparison

By Midori Aoyagi-Usui, Henk Vinken, and Atsuko Kuribayashi

Data from international comparison surveys was analyzed to explore differences in environmental values amongst Asian and Western countries. We found that the structure of environmental values in Asian countries differs from those in Western countries. While an environmental way of thinking conforms to traditional Asian values of honoring parents and family security, Western people believe that such thinking opposes their traditional values. These structural differences, which have been documented by White (1967) and by several Japanese researchers (e.g., Watanabe 1995), are confirmed and clarified by our surveys. Our study reveals the following conclusions: First, in the Netherlands and the United States, environmental values are linked with altruistic values that are perceived as being contrary to traditional values. In Japan, Bangkok, and Manila, environmental values are linked with both traditional and altruistic values. Second, environmental values are contrary to egoistic and progressive values in all surveyed countries. Third, factors encouraging environmental actions differ by country and by type of actions.

Keywords: environmental values, general values, environmental behavior

Full Text PDF | Back to top

What is a Good Decision? Criteria for Environmental Decision Making

By Thomas Dietz

What constitutes a good decision about the environment? Some research traditions offer concepts, theories and methods intended to improve both individual and collective decision making about actions that will effect the environment. But there is relatively little explicit discussion of what would be appropriate criteria for calling an environmental decision a good choice. Six criteria for evaluating environmental decisions are suggested: human and environmental well-being, competence about facts and values, fairness in process and outcome, a reliance on human strengths rather than weaknesses, the opportunity to learn and efficiency. It is hoped that an explicit discussion of the appropriate criteria for environmental decisions will lead to better conceptualizations, better tools and ultimately better decisions.

Keywords : environmental decision making, environmental values; sustainability

Full Text PDF | Back to top

Towards an Integrated Approach to the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity: Lessons Learned from the Rideau River Biodiversity Project

By Martha C. Johnson, Michel Poulin, and Mark Graham

In the quest to conserve global biological resources there has been a growing recognition that conventional scientific methods and institutional arrangements are not always effective in dealing with the biophysical complexities and sociopolitical dimensions of biodiversity issues. Meeting these challenges requires an integrated approach that combines scientific methods with societal values. Community-based research promotes social change by building the capacity of communities to find collective and culturally appropriate ways to achieve sustainable development on their own terms. Ecosystem management recognizes the interconnectedness of social and ecological systems and attempts to link science, policy and societal goals through interdisciplinary research and multistakeholder decision-making. In 1998, the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada, in partnership with government agencies, educational institutions, and community groups, began a three-year multidisciplinary study of the ecosystem health of the Rideau River in eastern Ontario, Canada. This paper presents the Rideau River Biodiversity Project as a case study in the application of an integrated approach to assess the biodiversity of an aquatic ecosystem. Ultimately, we present a framework for an integrated approach to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity that combines the strengths of community-based research and ecosystem management through a process of social learning and transdisciplinary inquiry.

Keywords: biodiversity, monitoring, community-based research, ecosystem management, local knowledge, multistakeholder, public awareness

Full Text PDF | Back to top

Minding Animals, Minding Earth: Science, Nature, Kinship, and Heart

By Marc Bekoff

This paper emphasizes the importance of broadening behavioral, ecological, and conservation science into a more integrative, interdisciplinary, socially responsible, compassionate, spiritual, and holistic endeavor. I will stress the significance of studies of animal behavior, especially ethological research concerned with animal emotions, in which individuals are named and recognized for their own personalities and temperaments, for helping us not only to learn about the nonhuman animal beings (hereafter animals) with whom we share Earth, but also for learning about who we are, our place in Nature, our humanness. We can be best understood in relationship to others. I will also develop the notions of "minding animals" and "deep ethology." Animals are a way of knowing; sources of wisdom.

I am an optimist, a hopeful human being. I never say "never." I ache with the pains of other beings and also feel pangs when I feel inanimate landscapes being destroyed. Surely we do not want to be remembered as the generation that killed Nature. Now is the time for everyone to work for universal planetary peace. There is no alternative to world peace and we must sow seeds without hesitation to accomplish this urgent goal. It is essential that we do better than our ancestors. No one could argue that a world with significantly less, rather, no cruelty and boundless compassion, respect, grace, humility, spirituality, peace, and love would not be a better world in which to live and raise our children and theirs. We are all citizens of Earth, members of a global community in which intimate reciprocal and beneficent peaceful relationships are mandatory. We have compelling responsibilities for making Earth a better and more peaceful habitat for all beings. Time is not on our side. We must reflect and step lightly as we "redecorate Nature."

I yearn for a seamless tapestry of oneness, a warm blanket, a soul-scape, of deep and reciprocal friendships in which all individuals count, a single community in which individuals are at one with all others, in which the seer and the seen are one, a community in which it feels good and makes individuals happy to be kind to others. My own dreams and spirituality are based on a deep and passionate drive for reconciliation, a seamless unity - a wholeness and oneness - motivated by trust, compassion, respect, grace, humility, and love. I plead for developing heartfelt and holistic science that allows for fun, joy, and play, along with interdisciplinary talk about kindness, generosity, compassion, respect, grace, humility, spirituality, peace, and love. Science need not be suspicious of things it cannot fully understand. We must never avert our eyes or our other senses from the eyes and voices of all other beings, our kin, our friends, who urgently beg for and truly need our immediate, uncompromising, and unconditional aid and love. We are obliged not to do so. We certainly can do much more than we have done for animals and Earth.

Keywords: nature, nature's wisdom, Kalachakra for World Peace 2002, animal cognition, animal emotions, compassion, social morality, animal play, cooperation, forgiveness, fairness

Full Text PDF | Back to top