Is public support for environmental protection decreasing? An analysis of U.S. and New Jersey data.

Scientists highlight that actions that address environmental protection and climate change can also help with reducing infectious disease threats. Results using data from a national sample survey in New Zealand indicate that perceptions of co-benefits of actions to address environmental protection that also protect against infectious disease outbreaks such as the coronavirus is associated with policy support and political engagement. This association was partly mediated through perceived collective efficacy. Local councils with higher level of community collective efficacy were more likely to declare climate emergency. Communication about potential co-benefits is likely to shape public engagement and enact policy change.

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The Pinelands Development Credit Program

Case Studies in the Environment ◽

10.1525/cse.2021.1546241 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jordan P. Howell ◽

Mahbubur Meenar ◽

Christina Friend ◽

Jack Kelly ◽

Owen Feeny

Keyword(s):

New Jersey ◽

Environmental Protection ◽

Local Governments ◽

Economic Value ◽

Biosphere Reserve ◽

Management Plan ◽

State Agency ◽

Pine Barrens ◽

Development Rights ◽

Transfer Of Development Rights

The “Pine Barrens” are a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve encompassing about 1.1 million acres in southern New Jersey. A state agency, the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, in conjunction with county and local governments, works to implement land management and environmental protection goals via a comprehensive management plan. The pinelands development credit (PDC) program is one tool aimed specifically at land preservation outcomes. The PDC program is a regional “transfer of development rights” market allowing landowners to sell their rights to further develop their property and enter their land into permanent protected status. Since the program’s inception in 1982, over 55,000 acres of sensitive and rare ecosystem have been protected; the more than 1,200 transactions account for US$63 M of economic value. The PDC program is a clear illustration of the role that financial instruments and market mechanisms can play in achieving environmental protection outcomes. This case study offers an overview of the pinelands area, PDC program, and the transfer of development rights concept before examining the PDC program and its outcomes in greater detail. While the program has been hailed as a success, it will face challenges in the coming years, including a relatively inefficient process for converting PDCs into protected lands and the question of how the program can evolve once eligible lands become more scarce.

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Public Support for Environmental Protection: Objective Problems and Subjective Values in 43 Societies

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.2307/420583 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 57 ◽

Cited By ~ 138

Author(s):

Ronald Inglehart

Keyword(s):

Environmental Protection ◽

Public Support

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Ecosystem Service Arguments Enhance Public Support for Environmental Protection - But Beware of the Numbers!

Ecological Economics ◽

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.05.028 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 141 ◽

pp. 213-221 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Julian Rode ◽

Marc Le Menestrel ◽

Gert Cornelissen

Keyword(s):

Environmental Protection ◽

Ecosystem Service ◽

Public Support

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In the Wake of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter: The Plight of John Artis

New Jersey Studies An Interdisciplinary Journal ◽

10.14713/njs.v2i2.48 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 61

Author(s):

Rebekah Spaulding

Keyword(s):

New Jersey ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

African Americans ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Public Support ◽

Institutional Racism ◽

Secondary Character ◽

The Media ◽

The Impact

<p class="BodyA">In the summer of 1966 in Paterson, New Jersey, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis were arrested on suspicion of triple homicide. Tried and convicted the following year, Carter and Artis would spend almost twenty years in jail, despite evidence of witness tampering and police malfeasance. During and after their incarceration, Carter received an abundance of public support due to his famous boxing career, while Artis often went unnoticed as a secondary character by the media. By examining the details surrounding Carter and Artis’s wrongful imprisonment, it is clear to see the institutional racism and systematic criminalization of African Americans, as well as the impact of notoriety in criminal justice. While this case is undoubtedly a gross miscarriage of justice, it is the forgotten story of John Artis that shows the flaws of the criminal justice system and how society is told to remember its history.</p>

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Mental accounting shapes public support for green spending of carbon tax revenues

10.31234/osf.io/3vefj ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Mathilde Mus ◽

Coralie Chevallier ◽

Hugo Mercier

Keyword(s):

Environmental Protection ◽

Carbon Tax ◽

Public Support ◽

Value Added ◽

Mental Accounting ◽

Social Acceptability ◽

Tax Revenues ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Carbon Taxation ◽

Mental Budgets

Despite its potential for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, carbon taxation encounters strong public resistance in many countries. However, social acceptability of carbon taxation heavily depends on how the generated revenues are used. Citizens prefer carbon taxation schemes where tax revenues are earmarked for environmental protection rather than for non-environmental purposes (e.g., lowering the value-added tax or labour taxes). Here, we test the hypothesis that acceptability varies across earmarking domains according to a mental accounting heuristic, by which people create mental budgets where the origin of revenues is matched thematically with their domain of use. Across two experiments conducted in the United Kingdom and in France (Ntotal = 3500), we show that citizens display a specific preference for tax designs where the earmarking domain is matched with the revenue source (i.e. a carbon tax earmarked for environmental protection), relative to an unmatched tax scheme. Moreover, we find that acceptability of carbon taxation increases with the proportion of tax revenues earmarked for environmental protection.

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