Environmental attitudes and behaviour in Canada: Common Ground or a Rural-Urban Divide?

1. Environmental attitudes and behaviour in Canada:Common Ground or a Rural-Urban Divide? Emily Huddart, Solange Nadeau, Bonita McFarlane and Tom Beckley

2. Background and purpose • Long history of research on environmental attitudes. Much less research on environmental behaviour • Historical disconnect between environmental attitudes (positive) and environmental behaviour. • Little evidence that people were acting on their espoused concern for the environment. • Question was seldom asked.

3. Background and purpose • The early work on environmental attitudes suggested urban people had more pro-environmental attitudes. • Work that eventually tackled environmental behaviour also suggested urban folks had more pro-environmental behaviour • Virtually all of this work done in U.S. • Is Canada different?

4. Research questions • Do urban residents express more pro-environmental attitudes? • Do urban residents practice more pro-environmental behaviour? • In today’s mobile society, does residence during socialization (prior to age 18) play a larger role in PEA and PEB than current residence?

5. Operating hypothesis • There will be little to no difference between rural and urban residents in PEB if a broader and more “fair” set of measures are used. • Why? • Mobility (more people not living where they grew up) • Homogeneity of culture (similar exposure to mass culture) • Rural PEB was always there, it just looks different.

6. Key concepts • Social psychological variables • Pro-environmental behaviour • Behaviour that has a positive impact on Earth’s systems and natural resources • Public, Private, and Conservation-sphere PEB • Methodological wrinkle – The residence variable • Values are assumed to be formed through socialization (focus until 18th birthday) • Urban and rural settings may offer different environments for socialization

7. Key concepts • Social psychological variables • Basic values • The set of standards/principles that guide our lives • Egoistic, Altruistic, Traditional • Environmental beliefs • Judgement and mental acceptance of the validity of a situation, statement or object • Environmental attitude • Evaluation that predisposes an individual to react consistently positively or negatively to a situation, statement or object

8. Pro-environmentalBehaviour EnvironmentalAttitude Demographics Environmental Beliefs Basic Values Cognitive hierarchy model

9. Causal model: PEB Traditional Values Environmental Attitude Private-sphere PEB Male Altruistic Values Education Conservation-sphere PEB Age Residence Egoistic Values Public-sphere PEB Environmental Beliefs

10. The survey… • Mail survey • Addresses provided by a marketing firm • Rural/Urban status based on Statistic Canada Rural Small Town definition (by postal code designation) • Overall 34.7% response rate

11. Measurement • Basic values • 15 items; shortened Schwartz Values Inventory (Stern et al. 1998) • Environmental beliefs • 15 items; New Ecological Paradigm scale (revised version from Dunlap et al. 2000) • Environmental attitude • Priority of environment in daily life

12. Measurement • Pro-environmental behaviour • Consumptive & stewardship behaviour • Turn out lights, conserve water, carpool • Frequency of involvement in habitat restoration, tree planting • Use of environmental services (e.g. recycling, public transit, community garden, composting subsidies) • Challenge = separating environmental motivations from simple frugality • Activist behaviour • Write politicians, sign petitions, attend meetings, financially support ENGOs

13. Measurement • Residence • Categories: Remote, rural, adjacent to urban or urban area (definitions were provided): • What type of place respondent lived: • Until their 18th birthday • Most of their adult life • Their current residence

14. Residence • High correlation between • “Most of your life” category and “Until your 18th” • “Most of your life” category and “Current” • Creation of Residence Continuum: • Rural-socialized\Currently rural resident • Rural-socialized\Currently urban resident • Urban-socialized\Currently rural resident • Urban-socialized\Currently urban resident

15. Respondent profile

16. Key results • Pro-environmental behaviour • Public-sphere: generally low engagement • Lower for Rural/Rural • Highest for Urban/Rural • Private and Conservation-spheres: generally high engagement • No statistically significant differences for Private-sphere PEB • Currently rural residents have statistically significantly higher Conservation-sphere PEB

17. Key results • Environmental Attitude • Fairly high for all, no significant differences • Basic Values • Altruistic and traditional values: no significant differences • Egoistic values: Urban/Rural significantly lower than Urban/Urban

18. Conclusions • Availability of infrastructure plays a key role in engagement in Private and Conservation-sphere PEB • Rural citizens do not practice lower levels of PEB, as has been previously thought • Currently rural citizens practice more Conservation-sphere PEB • Private-sphere PEB does not differ between residence categories

19. Conclusions • Residence doesn’t play a very important role in the determination of environmental behaviour • Little difference in values and attitude (ex. Urban/Rural have lower egoistic values than Urban/Urban) • Differences in environmental beliefs are mostly due to lower levels of education in rural areas • Current residence is more important than past residence in determining engagement in PEB • Has more to do with available PEB infrastructure and possibilities than with socialization and attitudes. • What you do for PEB is more a function of what it makes sense to do given where you are.

20. Conclusion • Rural residents are no more or less pro-environment than urban residents. • Rural environmentalism expresses itself in a different way, through different actions.