The third post in this series is all about belief. I am not referring to any kind of religious belief, or belief in yourself. This post is about a persons belief, or understanding, regarding their own behaviour and how it impacts on their values.
Stern et al. (2000) describe this 'belief' as an Environmental World-View, indicating that this factor is all about how a person sees themselves within the system of the environment. For too long in modern society, the human race has, in it's own view, existed outside of natural environment. Environmental conservation was the work of 'dirty hippies' for much of the past 70 years. When in reality, these 'dirty hippies' were people who understood the connection between humans and nature, that was lost over the years, they are the people who looked at nature, not as something to monetise, but something to value, admire and appreciate for all the non-intrinsic values it offers. The recent rise in the UK, and other countries of Eco-therapy and nature based well-being activities has shown a return, in part, of this connection.
However, while we are relearning about our connection to nature, is there any understanding of our place in nature within modern society?
Much of of eco-therapy trends we see at the moment comes from an egotistical value. We have rediscovered the health and wellbeing benefits of spending time in nature. Benefits to ourselves, rather than anything else. However, as I discussed in the previous post (LINK) an egotistic value is invaluable in helping to change behaviour so it is important to have this in place before we look at our impacts.
The question here about further establishing behaviour change, lies in what we do outside of the eco-therapy values. Is there a connection between degrading environmental health of habitats and the rest of our lives? If you drive a large car, live in a new house or even mow your lawn on a weekly basis, are you conscious of the wider impacts? If you are, and you value the natural environment then you are moving towards behaviour change that will be pro-environmental. For this, we will look at some scenarios to help break it down:
Scenario 1: Bees and Flowers
Bumblebees are quite fondly thought of in society, the bumbly fumbly movement and fluffy look make them almost cuddly and nice. I annually see posts on social media about giving sugar water to struggling bees and outpouring of interest and love for them. Simply put, there is a relatively high value for our bumbling friends.
Many people know that bees visit flowers to gather nectar (and pollen) and are a vital part of the ecosytem for pollinating other plants and vegetables. They know that bumblebees should be protected, and people generally don't try and kill them in the same way they would wasps (which are equally valuable).
Yet, garden after garden across the country is destroyed, grass regularly replaced with artificial grass (for laziness) or mown to within an inch of it's life on a weekly basis throughout the spring and summer. Beautiful wild flowers are labelled 'weeds' and replaced with non-bee friendly plants. These are the actions of someone who doesn't understand their actions are impacting upon something they (generally) don't want to harm. This amplfies the need for a greater Environmental World View, the need to link their own destructive behaviour to the survival of bees.
Scenario 2: Litter, Picks and Pollution
As I discussed in the previous post, Blue Planet 2 introduced the plastic problem to many people across the country/planet, which led to an increase in litter picking and an upturn in the buoycotting of plastic (for however short/long). What we saw here was societies increasing value and understanding of the plastic problem facing our planet. People learnt that plastic never biodegrades, often isn't recycled properly and chokes animals on land and in the ocean. Value secured.
The we look at the environmental world view associated with it. The problem here was identified as litter getting into the oceans. People responded, primarily, through doing more litter picks and getting involved in beach clean ups and other such activities. Buoycotting the purchase of single use plastic occurred, but I guarantee it didn't stick. The reason litter picking was the popular choice above cutting out plastic from purchases can be easily explained. Firstly. at the end of a litter pick, you have a bag, or multiple bags, of rubbish that you have found on the floor. You can easily stand there and feel happy that you have contributed to a safer environment. Which you have, the world is a little bit cleaner because of that. Secondly, recycling options in the UK are at a high, you can have most of your rubbish collected kerbside on a weekly basis, so any guilt of buying plastic products is offset by the belief your waste is going to recycling.
The issue with this line of thought is supply and demand, wind, dropped litter, wrongly separated waste (meaning it can't be recycled). It has since emerged that vast quantities of plastic waste got sent to Malaysia to be recycled, but ended up in massive piles in remote areas (Greenpeace). The environmental world view here is skewed, people understand half of the problem (litter) but not that side that they directly contribute to. You can send your rubbish to be recycled, but does anyone question where it goes? Nah. In this instance, cutting out unnecessary plastic products is the key, and there are suitable alternatives for practically everything these days, reusable products, natural products etc.
The two examples above highlight where our belief comes into play, specifically, our belief that our own actions make a difference. Much like the old adage 'one vote never made a difference', we see it in the environmental sector regularly, 'one person can't change the world'. But this is about thinking locally, and doing what is right for you, your family and your local environment; think global but act local.
One of the challenges in changing environmental behaviour is combining values with belief. People will naturally value the environment differently. Some may value the benefits they gain, others will value the animals and complexity of the ecosystem, while some will value it because it benefits other people. Many people will value it across the three. Developing the understanding that our actions impact upon the environment, whether we see it or not, is what is missing. In an age where scientists are battling against vaccine conspiracies, covid conspiracies and flat-earth conspiracies, it appears the public have had about enough of experts telling them what to do.
So where do we go from here? How can we help people to see the impact they are having, especially when their day to day lives aren't being impacted. Frost in May doesn't seem to raise many eyebrows other than 'bit of a cold blip', the disappearing pollinator catastrophe hasn't been felt because we haven't had food shortages, increased storm activity, because of the slow increase barely raises concerns (other for those that suffer directly at the hands of them. Those that understand the impact of driving everywhere don't think one car will make a difference, so don't change.
So there we have it, a breakdown, that is hopefully clear to follow, of belief and how it influences our behaviour. Just as value alone isn't sufficient to change behaviour, an understanding that our own behaviour has an impact on the environment isn't sufficient on it's own. A combination of both is necessary to begin behaviour change, and sadly, improving the environmental world view is much more complicated than raising belief and understanding. Even when both are in place, other factors can prevent behaviour change, as we'll discuss in the next blogpost; Understanding Human Behaviour: the role of norms.
Thanks again.
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