Population and the environment : polls, policies, and public opinion

This study reviews: existing social science research on population and the environment; three tools for assessing government attitudes towards population and environmental issues (systematic expert assessments, direct queries of government officials, and content analysis of government documents); the limitations of the World Fertility Survey as a model for attitude surveys on population and the environment; and past and contemporary public opinion polls in the United States and other countries, including the Harris Poll and the Gallup Survey. Results showed that at all three levels (the scientific community, the general public, and government policymakers), environmental awareness has outpaced awareness of population issues, with the link between the two receiving little attention. It is recommended that more emphasis be put on studying attitudes toward demographic variables such as population growth, size, distribution, and migration, and the effects of these attitudes on behavior. In addition, analysis should move beyond descriptive statistics to include multi-variate statistical methods. The degree of consistency among various techniques such as content analyses, direct queries, and expert assessments needs systematic evaluation. Finally, lessons learned from this study should be used to devise a multi-national survey of Population/Environment Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice. References are included.