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Issue 16.2 Abstracts

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A Challenge of Learning for Sustainability: A Prolegomenon to Theory

By Adam Douglas Henry

A core question of sustainability science asks how and why human agents learn to deal effectively with complex problems. “Learning” refers to the process by which actors assimilate information and update their cognitions and behavior accordingly. Successful learning plays a vital role in our ability to achieve sustainability, and yet this process is poorly understood.  Commonly-employed perspectives on learning tend to differentiate along two dimensions: the mechanism of learning (social versus individual learning) and the properties of the information being learned (empirical versus normative knowledge).  This yields four ideal types of learning that correspond to a central challenge of learning for sustainability.  An integrated framework that transcends all of these perspectives is needed. Such a framework is proposed here, and includes four essential features: the structure of internal belief systems, the role of social networks in shaping knowledge, the role of knowledge in shaping networks, and the role of individual experience in the learning process. This framework is introduced as a prolegomenon (a preface to more detailed and exhaustive theoretical development) to facilitate the development of better theories and empirically-testable models of learning for sustainability.

Keywords: sustainability, social learning, individual learning, environmental policy, social networks, cognition

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Power, Profit and Pollution: The Persistence of Environmental Injustice in a Company Town

By Diane Sicotte

In Hayden, a formerly company-owned copper smelter town located in rural Arizona, pollution with toxic heavy metals and acids persisted for 90 years. Despite new environmental laws, the waning economic power of copper, and accumulating epidemiological evidence of health damage, Hayden residents received little help from state regulators. Environmental injustice in Hayden occurred through unequal power relations between copper workers and the multinational corporations that controlled U.S. copper production. Latino workers were subordinated and the labor force divided while corporations were able to mobilize bias and obtain favorable treatment from state government. But by the end of the 20 th century, the relative power of copper corporations had declined while public awareness of environmental health and justice issues had increased, leading to a lawsuit by Hayden residents but not a reduction in the mobilization of bias.

Keywords: environmental justice, company town, power

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Why We Don't "Walk the Talk": Understanding the Environmental Values/Behaviour Gap in Canada

By Emily Huddart Kennedy, Thomas M. Beckley, Bonita L. McFarlane, and Solange Nadeau

Worldwide, studies have shown increases in environmental values and beliefs over the past four decades. However, in few cases have researchers observed parallel increases in environmentally-supportive behaviour (ESB). In fact, the gap between environmental values and ESB is of growing concern for both academics and practitioners. We explored ‘the environmental values-behaviour gap' through a nationwide survey in Canada (n=1664). Approximately 72% of respondents ‘self-report' a gap between their intentions and their actions. We explore three categories of explanatory variables to account for the gap: individual, household, and societal. The descriptive analysis presented here provides a better understanding of why good intentions do not always translate into environmentally supportive behaviour. We demonstrate the relative importance of the three categories of constraint variables.

Keywords: environmentally-supportive behaviour, environmental values-behaviour gap, Canada

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Ideological Cleavages and Schism in the Czech Environmental Movement

By Thomas E. Shriver and Chris Messer

Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Czechoslovakia experienced a period of heightened environmental awareness characterized by strong public support and a proliferation of non-governmental environmental organizations. The political and economic climate shifted dramatically in 1992 with the election of the conservative Civic Democratic Party. Environmentalists soon found themselves out of favor with the political establishment and they experienced government harassment, dwindling public support, and a loss of funding for their campaigns. Drawing from in-depth interview data, archival research and fieldwork we find that these external pressures contributed to ideological cleavages and ultimately organizational schism within Rainbow Movement (Hnutí Duha), one of the largest and most influential environmental movement organizations in the country. Our research has important implications for environmental movements in diverse political and economic settings.

Keywords: environmentalism, social movements, factionalism, democratization

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Social Control and Contested Environmental Illness: The Repression of Ill Nuclear Weapons Workers

By Tamara L. Mix, Sherry Cable, and Thomas E. Shriver

Using in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, we examine obstacles faced by a group of nuclear workers organizing to challenge the Oak Ridge Nuclear Reservation and the Department of Energy (DOE) over health grievances. The Coalition for a Healthy Environment (CHE) is comprised of ill employees, formed after workers from the nuclear facility realized a pattern of denial and resistance to their health concerns. We highlight environmental problems in Oak Ridge and share respondents' narratives regarding the use of social control to limit mobilization. We focus on hard and soft forms of social control utilized by DOE/corporate management, physicians, and co-workers, conceptualizing repression on a continuum representing severity of harm. Social control tactics included on-the-job harassment in the form of task reassignment and layoffs, monitoring, lack of diagnosis and treatment, stigmatization, and ostracism. We also analyze how social control impacts CHE's recruitment, tactics, and mobilization of resources and discuss implications for future research on ill workers and social control.

Keywords: environmental activism, social control, contested environmental illness, nuclear industry

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Neighborhood Quality and the Older Elderly: Theory and Two Pilot Studies

By Michael R. Greenberg

Neighborhood quality ratings among those 75+ years old are compared with their 50-74 year old counterparts. Using a sample of 400 from central New Jersey and a national sample of about 20,000, I find that the older elderly have constructed elaborate mental models of their environment that incorporate feelings and emotions about their home, ethnicity/race, religion, and the nation, as well as their perceptions about their neighborhood. About 30-40% of respondents have quite positive perceptions of their neighborhoods along with similar perceptions of their other environments and their own lives. Ten to 15%, however, do not. Their neighborhood quality ratings are fair or poor and many are not happy with their home or spiritual environments. Assisting this second group is a major challenge.

Keywords: neighborhood quality, older elderly, perceptions, environment

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Mental Health and Psychosocial Distress Sequelae of Katrina: An Empirical Study of Survivors

By Francis O. Adeola

This study focuses on mental health and psychosocial distress sequelae of Hurricane Katrina cataclysm among survivors. The purpose of this article is to: (1) assess the variation in psychosocial distress among the survivors of Katrina by socio-demographic, structural and situational factors; (2) determine if there are significant racial and gender differences in the extent of psychological stress, especially between Black and White, male and female survivors; and (3) to evaluate the influence of resource loss or financial burden imposed, social support, and perceived victimization on psychosocial distress among survivors. The Gallup/CNN/USA Today survey data collected in 2005 and 2006 from a representative (random) sample of Katrina survivors are used. Among the results, significant racial differences were found in psychological impacts including reported symptoms of sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, and worries about the future. In a series of multivariate analyses including factor analysis and OLS regression models, residency in Orleans parish prior to the storm, older age, female gender, having dependent children, unemployment, extent of property damage, and financial impacts sustained consistently predict psychological distress among the survivors. The theoretical, methodological, and applied policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords: Hurricane Katrina, natural-technological disasters, flood, mental health, psychosocial distress, PTSD, conservation of resources model, social support deterioration hypothesis, survivors, internally displaced population, New Orleans, the Gulf Coast

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The Integrative Complexity of Wildfire Management Scale: Are We There Yet?

By Joshua Carroll and Alan D. Bright

Integrative complexity is a measure of how complexly people think about an issue. A newly developed integrative complexity scale was applied in a study of perceptions of wildfire management. We explored the relationship between value-laden basic beliefs and attitudes, and integrative complexity's role as a moderator between them. The study data came from residents along the front range of Colorado , the Chicago metropolitan area, and Southern Illinois . While integrative complexity toward prescribed burning was not directly related to value-laden basic beliefs about prescribed burning, it was related to the direction and extremity with which people held attitudes toward prescribed burning. Also, the level of integrative complexity toward wildfire management moderated the relationship between value-laden basic beliefs and attitudes. Understanding the complexity with which people think about natural resource management issues such as prescribed burning can contribute to greater understanding of public perceptions regarding natural resource management strategies and policies. Additional information is also provided to guide further use and development of the instrument.

Keywords: integrative complexity, cognitive hierarchy, wildfire management

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