Wealth does not dictate concern for environment

University of Oregon sociologist Richard York is co-author with Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State on article just published in The Sociological Quarterly. The study -- according to a brief news release issued by the publisher, Blackwell Publishing" -- reveals that that citizens of poorer nations are just as concerned about environmental quality as their counterparts in rich nations."

Such a finding goes against a long-held assumption that poor nations will not support efforts to protect the environment since their citizens are too preoccupied with meeting basic needs.

Dunlap, the principal investigator and corresponding author, and the UO's York, PhD compared results from four large cross-national surveys, each conducted in several dozen nations ranging with differing economic statuses. Representative samples of citizens were surveyed in each nation.

Results showed that citizens of poorer nations were equally if not more concerned about the environment compared to citizens in wealthier countries. The citizens of the poorer nations were supportive of efforts to solve environmental problems. The authors believe that previous studies failed to recognize that environmental problems are often a threat to material welfare and not just quality of life. For example, deforestation may threaten the livelihoods of people who depend on forests for firewood, food sources, and economic products.

“Our results suggest that well-designed policies to promote sustainable development will have more appeal to citizens of poor nations than is often assumed,” the authors conclude.

My thanks to Amy Molnar, who wrote the release for the journal's publisher. Members of the news media can land a copy of the study contacting her (click on her name).

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This is a good opportunity for me to say something about how I decide when to write a news release about work by a University of Oregon co-authored study. It is the general practice in my field of science writing to 1) only write about studies when our UO faculty member is the corresponding author, which means he or she is the recipient of funding is the principal investigator, and 2) the results appear to me to potentially be newsworthy.

I will write about a study if our co-author is a lead author in the list of authors at the top of the study. That generally means he or she is the researcher, often a doctoral student, who essentially did the heavy lifting on the project involved. Sometimes that person did that study at another institution and has just joined our faculty, in which case I may write about the study but I will clearly note where the study was performed and name the corresponding author at the other institution (and often let that institution's news office what I am doing).