Public opinion and environment

Résumé du document

A strong link between the environmental issues and the public involvement has been established since the end of the seventies (Kaase 1982). The resolutions 37/7 (28 October 1982 relative to the Nature World Chart) and 45/94 (14 December 1990 relative to the protection of environment) of the general assembly of the UN, constituted the European Chart on environment and health adopted in Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany (8 December 1989) and insisted on the necessity of making the public focus on the main question of protection of environment. The European community has dealt with environmental policies since the seventies under the pressure of ecological mobilizations and self-organized groups which were focusing on the necessity of protecting and respecting the environment. These environmental associations aimed at defining new participatory tools so that the public could be well-informed and conscious of this necessity.

Extraits

[...] The following scheme helps to understand the multiple challenges of environmental translation. In the scientific field, there is a first process of translation between Nature and Human Sciences to identify an ecological problem which is then taken into account by the political authorities (European Union). The political and administrative authorities implement a regulation on this issue which is translated in every country and applied at local level. The impact on associations, single citizens and local authorities is determining as this local network helps to clarify the regulation so that the rule can be applied. [...]

[...] Public opinion and environment Since the end of the seventies, a strong link between the environmental issues and the public involvement has been established (Kaase 1982). The resolutions 37/7 (28 October 1982 relative to the Nature World Chart) and 45/94 (14 December 1990 relative to the protection of environment) of the general assembly of the UN, the European Chart on environment and health adopted in Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany December 1989) insisted on the necessity of making the public focus on the main question of protection of environment. [...]

[...] Such a comparison should lead us to build a typology of citizen participation on environmental issues in all the European countries in an evaluative perspective. References -ARZHEIMER, Kai, KLEIN, Markus friedliche und die stille Revolution” in Oscar GABRIEL (Hrsg.), Politische Orientierungen und Verhaltensweisen im vereinigten Deutschland, Opladen, Leske+Budrich. -BACQUÉ, Marie-Hélène, REY, Henri, SINTOMER, Yves Gestion de proximité et démocratie participative, une perspective comparative, Paris, La Découverte, pp. 293-307. -BOUTINET, Jean-Pierre Vers une société des agendas, une mutation des temporalités, Paris, éditions PUF. [...]

[...] Political participation, environment and the standard of living Through the review of the participatory tools on environmental issues, the size and the situation of the communes will be regarded as key elements. An international project on metropolitan areas in the world was launched in 2003 (Hoffmann-Martinot, Sellers 13) with the inclusion of environmental indicators to measure the ecological sensibility of inhabitants of such areas. The definition of an ecological index is useful to see whether some cities deal more with environmental issues. It would be appropriate to scope the participatory tools and the associations and citizens' networks on environmental issues in those cities. [...]

[...] -STEYAERT, Patrick, OLLIVIER, Guillaume European Water Framework Directive: how ecological assumptions frame technical and social change”, Ecology and Society 12 25. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art25/ -UNGER, Roberto Mangabeira Democracy realized, the progressive alternative, Londres, New York, Verso. European Values Study Group and World Values Survey Association. EUROPEAN AND WORLD VALUES SURVEYS FOUR-WAVE INTEGRATED DATA FILE, 1981- 2004, v Aggregate File Producers: Análisis Sociológicos Económicos y Políticos (ASEP) and JD Systems Madrid, Spain/Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands. Data Files Suppliers: ASEP and JDS, Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung Köln. [...]