Key Features of Environmental Law and Psychology

This chapter argues that environmental law is psychologically distinctive. This distinctiveness flows in large part from the unique emphasis environmental law has on environmental and ecological injury—injury that tends to be diffuse, complex, and nonhuman in character. These characteristics trigger a set of psychological phenomena, which tend to make environmental and ecological injuries challenging for people to perceive, understand, and care about. A psychology of environmental law should account for these distinctive characteristics, while respecting the normative goals and institutional constraints through which environmental law and policy is created and enforced.