What shapes cognitions of climate change in Europe? Ideology, morality, and the role of educational attainment

Cognitions about climate change are of critical importance for climate change mitigation as they influence climate-relevant behaviors and the support of climate policy. Using about 30,000 observations from a large-scale representative survey from 23 European countries, this study provides two major findings. First, important policy-relevant climate change cognitions do not only differ by individuals’ ideological identity (left versus right) but—independently—by their moral identity, that is, the pattern of endorsement of the moral foundations: Care, Fairness, Liberty, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity/Sanctity. In particular, controlling for ideological position, the cognitions that the world climate is changing, that climate change is human-made, and that climate change impacts are bad are significantly negatively related to stronger endorsement of the Authority and Sanctity foundations while being positively related to stronger endorsement of the Loyalty and Fairness foundations. Second, not only the ideology-related cognitive divide but the morality-related divide is larger in individuals with tertiary education, consistent with the idea that individuals with greater science literacy and numeracy use these skills to adjust their cognitions to their group identity. The finding that better education may amplify rather than attenuate the ideology and morality dependence of decision-relevant climate change cognitions sheds doubt on the proposition that better education unambiguously furthers the prospects for climate change mitigation.

Toxicants, entanglement, and mitigation in New England’s emerging circular economy for food waste

Drawing on research with food waste recycling facilities in New England, this paper explores a fundamental tension between the eco-modernist logics of the circular economy and the reality of contemporary waste streams. Composting and digestion are promoted as key solutions to food waste, due to their ability to return nutrients to agricultural soils. However, our work suggests that food waste processors increasingly find themselves responsible for policing boundaries between distinct “material” and “biological” systems as imagined by the architects of the circular economy—boundaries penetrable by toxicants. This responsibility creates significant problems for processors due to the regulatory, educational, and structural barriers documented in this research. This paper contributes to scholarship which suggests the need to rethink the modernist logics of the circular economy and to recognize the realities of entangled material and biological systems. More specifically, we argue that if circularity is the goal, policy needs to recognize the barriers food waste processors face and concentrate circularity efforts further upstream to ensure fair, just, and safe circular food systems.

Dismantling white supremacy in environmental studies and sciences: an argument for anti-racist and decolonizing pedagogies

Many academic disciplines are presently striving to reveal and dismantle structures of domination by working to reform and reimagine their curricula, and the ethics and values that underpin classroom settings. This trend is impelled by momentum from the Black Lives Matter movement in tandem with a worldwide call from Indigenous scholars and their allies for more equality in research and epistemological plurality. We contribute to such efforts through applying perspective and analysis concerning anti-racist and decolonized approaches to teaching environmental studies and sciences (ESS). This article discusses the opportunities and challenges of embracing a decolonized and anti-racist approach with an emphasis on courses in higher education in North America. We conclude with guidance for educators about strategies for incorporating such approaches.