Au cours des années 2000, les gouvernements britanniques néo-travaillistes de Tony Blair et Gordon Brown ont porté un projet de politique publique appelé «Carte carbone», consistant à instaurer des quotas individuels d’émissions pour les particuliers. Ce projet avait initialement été formulé en 1996 par des chercheurs écologistes qui, en s’inspirant des politiques de rationnement passées, ont contribué à faire émerger un nouveau référentiel d’action publique structuré par l’idée de la finitude du monde. La mise à l’agenda de ce projet par les néo-travaillistes a cependant été suivie d’un travail de réinterprétation des limites environnementales, tendant à mettre à distance l’idée de finitude pour mieux concilier la carte carbone avec le référentiel environnementaliste de la modernisation écologique. Ce travail d’interprétation s’est doublé d’un processus d’aménagement des limites environnementales, encore éloignées par la rencontre du macrosystème énergétique avec les instruments du nouveau management public. Au terme de ce processus, le report sine die de la carte carbone témoigne d’une nouvelle relégation des limites environnementales aux marges de l’action publique. L’étude sociologique de la trajectoire institutionnelle de ce projet d’action publique vise à nourrir une réflexion plus théorique sur les difficultés d’émergence d’un référentiel de la finitude au temps de la crise écologique globale. À la lumière des travaux de la sociologie environnementale, il s’agira de montrer comment les réflexions politiques sur le rationnement participent à la recherche d’autres modalités de gouvernement dans un monde fini. / During the 2000s, the British New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have contemplated implementing a public policy called “Carbon card”, which consisted of allocating tradable emission rights to individuals. This project had originally been formulated in 1996 by green researchers who, drawing on past rationing policies, have contributed with this Carbon card to the emergence of a new public policy “référentiel” structured by the idea of ecological finiteness. Once agenda status was attained, however, this project was subjected to a reinterpretation of its environmental limits frame, that tended to relegate the idea of finitude, in an attempt to better conciliate the Carbon card with the ecological modernisation référentiel. This interpretation was coupled with a technical softening of environmental limits, still more relativized by the junction operated between the energy macrosystem and New Public Management-inspired policy instruments. At the outcome of this process, the indefinite postponement of the Carbon card reveals a renewed relegation of environmental limits to the margins of public action. The sociological study of the Carbon card’s institutional trajectory aims at feeding into a theoretical analysis of the obstacles to the emergence of a finitude référentiel, in a time of global ecological crisis. Drawing from environmental sociology, this work aims at showing that public policy research on rationing might contribute to investigating different ways of governing for a finite world.

Text in English / Climate change has become part of daily conversations for scholars and activists. Everyone feels entitled to an opinion on either the causes or the prescriptions of mitigation measures. Very few question the ontological existence of climate change or wonder whether their perceptions are pre-empted by over-arching metanarratives or discourses articulated elsewhere. The impact of media and other sources of information on people’s perceptions of climate change are often taken for granted. By using discourse theory, this study aims to uncover taken-for-granted metanarratives within environmentally oriented university Honours student’s perceptions of climate change. These students are majoring in the key areas of Environmental Management studies. It aims at assessing whether their perceptions are, consciously or inadvertently, mis (aligned) to any climate change discourses. In discourse theory, Laclau and Mouffe (1985) argued that within a particular knowledge domain, there are several meaning-conferring articulations (discourses) in a struggle of fixing meaning for particular social events and activities. As such, each discourse aims at negating alternative meanings from alternative discourses and naturalising its own interpretations. Within a particular discourse, actors (individuals or groups) are interpellated i.e. defined within specific confines of action and articulations. This study uses this discourse theory to test these hypotheses. As such, the study came up with three conclusions. First, there is a metanarrative of climate change realism, in which the ontological reality of climate change is taken as a given, with no attempt at individual reflection on its ontology. Secondly, the respondents held a mediated concept of climate change, in which their views largely mirror the conceptualisations of the media and other information sources. Lastly, there is an overarching climate-change aversion metanarrative, in which climate change is regarded as negative, without any distinction between its causes and effects. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Abstract This study describes the central views of MTK on Finnish environmental policy during the period 1980-2000. The empirical material is collected from the magazine Maataloustuottaja. The data is analyzed using ethnographic content analysis and examining the central arguments and discoursive structures of the texts. The study begins with a description of the development of Finnish agriculture and of MTK. The first chapter also presents and evaluates empirical studies on the environmental views of Finnish farmers. The following chapter discusses some theoretical and methodological issues in environmental sociology. The theoretical foundation of this study is grounded in the idea of ecological modernization and social justice in environmental issues. The essential methodological tension that underpins environmental sociology is between critical realism and social constructivism. The starting point of this research lies between critical realism and moderate constructivism; in other words, naïve realism and strong constructivism or scientism and relativism have been abandoned. This starting point is also closely connected to environmental pragmatism. The empirical part of the study begins with a thematical discussion on changes in the views that MTK has adopted toward environmental policy issues. Although these views have not changed significantly over the years, MTK has shown an increased interest in organic production and in cooperation with consumer and worker organizations to promote "environmentally pure", local food production and the social sustainability of Finnish food production and countryside. The second part of the empirical study reveals some stable discoursive practices in the environmental rhetoric of MTK that has traditionally accentuated the connection between nature and agriculture and the notion of farmers as stewards of nature. At the same time, MTK has emphasized the alienation of urbanites and environmental policy-makers from nature and countryside. MTK has also expressed a concern about private property rights, economic expenses and a variety of practical problems caused by nature conservation and preservation. MTK's attitude towards family farming is contradictory: they are regarded as the models of agriculture, while the scale of production is growing. / Tiivistelmä Tässä tutkimuksessa kuvataan MTK:n ympäristökäsityksiä vuosina 1980-2000. Tutkimusaineistona on käytetty sen julkaiseman "Maataloustuottaja" -lehden ympäristökysymyksiä käsitteleviä kirjoituksia. Aineiston käsittely perustuu etnografiseen sisällönanalyysiin tavoitteena tarkastella MTK:n ympäristöpoliittista argumentaatiota ja etsiä tekstin diskursiivisia rakenteita. Tutkimuksen alussa tarkastellaan MTK:n ja Suomen maatalouden kehitystä sekä viljelijäväestön ympäristökäsityksiä historiallisen ja yhteiskuntatieteellisen tutkimuksen sekä tilastojen valossa. Seuraavassa luvussa tarkastellaan ympäristösosiologian teoreettis-metodologista kysymyksiä ja niihin liittyviä ajankohtaisia kiistoja. Tutkimus rakentuu lähinnä ekologisen modernisaation teorian käsitteistölle täydennettynä ajankohtaisella, ympäristökysymyksiin liittyvän yhteiskunnallisen oikeudenmukaisuuden pohdinnalla. Ympäristösosiologian viimeaikainen metodologinen keskustelu on liittynyt kriittisen realismin ja konstruktionismin välisiin kiistoihin. Tutkimuksessa päädytään naiivin realismin ja radikaalin konstruktivismin hylkäämiseen ja ympäristösosiologisen pragmatismin mahdollisuuksien hahmottamiseen. Empiirisessä osassa tutkitaan aluksi MTK:n ympäristöpoliittisia käsityksiä ja niissä tapahtuneita muutoksia. Vaikka muutokset eivät ole kovin merkittäviä, on joitain merkkejä siitä havaittavissa: kiinnostus luonnonmukaiseen tuotantoon on kasvussa, tuottajien ja kuluttajien kesken on löytymässä yhteistoimintaa "puhtaiden" kotimaisten elintarvikkeiden ja lähituotannon puolesta ja järjestö on sitoutunut kestävän kehityksen periaatteiden toteuttamiseen. Toisessa empiirisen tutkimuksen osiossa etsitään diskursiivisia piirteitä MTK:n retoriikassa. Perinteisesti MTK on nähnyt viljelijät "todellisina luonnonsuojelijoina". Samalla se on katsonut kaupunkilaisten kuten myös ympäristöaktivistien ja -poliitikkojen vieraantuneen luonnosta. Järjestö on huolestunut omaisuudensuojasta, taloudellisista kustannuksista ja erilaisista käytännön ongelmista luonnonsuojelualueiden perustamisen yhteydessä. MTK:n suhtautuu perheviljelmiin ristiriitaisesti: niitä pidetään maatalouden mallina samalla, kun maataloustuotannon yksikkökoko on kasvamassa.

En France, le rapport aux moustiques et les politiques de démoustication présentent des histoires et des caractéristiques différenciées d’un territoire à l’autre. Si dans les DFA les moustiques n'ont jamais cessé d'être des facteurs épidémiques, sur le pourtour méditerranéen en revanche, ils ne constituaient plus de risques sanitaires depuis près d'un demi-siècle. Dans les DFA, les opérations de démoustication ont toujours principalement relevé de politiques sanitaires de Lutte Anti-Vectorielle, tandis qu'en métropole furent mises en place des démoustications de confort visant à réduire la nuisance. Mais, à partir de 2004, la situation évolue suite à l’installation durable du moustique vecteur Aedes albopictus sur le littoral méditerranéen et à l’élargissement progressif de son aire de répartition, exposant la métropole à des risques sanitaires jusqu'alors circonscrits aux régions tropicales. Mobilisant les cadres théoriques des sociologies de l’environnement, des risques et de la santé, et s'appuyant sur un corpus réunissant données qualitatives (311 entretiens et observation participante) et quantitatives (1415 questionnaires), cette thèse analyse la recomposition du rapport entre enjeux environnementaux et sanitaires face à la prolifération de moustiques vecteurs. L'analyse porte tout d'abord sur la place et le statut de l’insecte au sein des différentes populations. Puis, l’attention est portée aux caractéristiques socioéconomiques influençant la vulnérabilité individuelle. Ensuite, les attentes et demandes de la population relatives à la démoustication sont questionnées. Enfin, la dernière partie développe une analyse diachronique dans les Alpes-Maritimes. / In France,the human-mosquito relationship and the mosquito control policies show differentiated stories and features from one territory to another.Thus,if in FDA mosquitoes never ceased being epidemic factors,however,on the Mediterranean coast until recently they no longer represented a Health risk.Indeed,in the FDA,since their implementation,mosquito control campaigns have always been conducted for a sanitary purpose through vector control campaigns.Meanwhile,in metropolitan France,aiming to reduce the nuisance,these policies were initially implemented to ensure the inhabitants comfort.But,starting from 2004,following the durable installation of the Asian tiger mosquito on the French Mediterranean coastline and the progressive widening of its distribution area,the context evolves and,from now on,the metropolitan France is potentially exposed to health risks hitherto circumscribed to tropical areas.Mobilising the theoretical frameworks of environmental,health and risks sociologies,and based on a corpus gathering qualitative (311 interviews and direct observations) and quantitative data (1415 questionnaires),this PhD analyses the recombining of the relationship between environmental and health challenges in light of the vector mosquitoes proliferation.It initially focuses on the place and status of the insect within the different populations.Then, the socio-economic factors influencing the individual vulnerability of exposure to the insect are studied.The third part is devoted to the expectations and requests of the inhabitants regarding the public management of the mosquitoes’ proliferation.Finally, a diachronic analysis centered on the Alps-Maritimes region is developed.

In recent years, there has been an increase in environmental awareness in the United States leading to steady growth in environmentally conscious consumerism. These changes have come in response to issues such as the energy crisis, climate change, exponential population growth, and rapid urbanization. This fact is further supported by environmental campaigns and the green movement. Looking to the future of green home marketing, understanding the green consumer behavior of Generation Z (GenZ) is important for environmental and business reasons. The purpose of this research is to better understand the perception of GenZ on Green Homes (GHs). The study uses the lenses of dual inheritance and normative motivation theory to explain the influence of benefits and norms related to environmentalism and sustainability on GenZ consumers’ green behavior. This study seeks to evaluate 1) GenZ’s preferences related to Green Home Features (GHFs), 3) the extent of the influence of certain barriers on the adoption of GHFs, and 3) the types of motivation (intrinsic, instrumental and non-normative) influencing GenZ towards green home consumerism. Data was collected using an online survey questionnaire exclusively at Purdue University during March – April of 2021 (IRB 2020-1414). One hundred sixteen GenZ participants responded to the survey.The findings show that these GenZ consumers prefer a certain type of GHFs over others. Additionally, based on descriptive tests of GHFs, energy-related features were the most prized features, while the least preferred was water-efficient features. Descriptive tests on barriers suggest that GenZ consumers perceive the lack of choice in selecting GHFs in their homes to be a top barrier, followed by a lack of information and the perceived effort to analyze GHFs. Inferential tests for the same indicated that GenZ consumers perceive these barriers differently. Lastly, for GenZ consumers, intrinsic and non-normative motivations significantly affect their willingness to buy GHs. The findings concur with previous studies on green consumer behavior, yet they provide a new benchmark for understanding GenZ consumer behavior on GHs and an updated view of what GHFs they prefer. This research can be used by home marketers and policy makers to study future home trends, attract more potential homeowners to GHs, and help create a sustainable environment for future generations.

<p>Human interactions with white-tailed deer (<em>Odocoileus virginianus</em>) continue to change across the U.S. The growth of deer populations and urbanization of human populations have shifted values for wildlife away from traditional use toward mutual coexistence while simultaneously providing habitat for deer to thrive.<strong> </strong>Still, a mismatch exists between the reality of human-deer interactions and the management of them. Despite a changing social landscape, the human dimensions of deer management remain focused on hunting interests and the mitigation of crop damage to agricultural producers. Amid a national push to broaden wildlife ‘stakeholders’ to encompass all potential beneficiaries of wildlife, state wildlife agencies need to assess the needs and concerns of the broader public they serve to determine whether and how to engage non-traditional groups in wildlife management planning.</p> <p>Recognizing these needs, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IN-DNR) partnered with Purdue University in 2018 to initiate the Integrated Deer Management Project (IDMP). As part of the IDMP, this dissertation comprises the first empirical assessment of social perceptions of white-tailed deer across Indiana. My research aimed to: (i) examine the initial context of human-deer interactions in Indiana and identify key social and cognitive factors that shape them; (ii) investigate how emotions, an understudied construct, interact with beliefs and attitudes to influence resident judgements about deer management; (iii) understand existing levels of satisfaction with deer management, potentials for social conflict over management approaches, and their social-ecological drivers; and (iv) develop indices and tools that can help IN-DNR officials better account for social perceptions and concerns in deer management planning. Due to a lack of prior knowledge about human-deer interactions in the state, I used an exploratory mixed-methods research design to address these objectives. I began by conducting 59 semi-structured interviews with residents around Indiana and two focus groups in the city of Bloomington (n=14) to understand their existing perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions related to deer and deer management. These interviews informed the development of a quantitative survey which I distributed to 6,000 residents across the state. I received 1806 completed surveys for a response rate of 33%.</p> <p>My data show that social perceptions of deer and deer management remain complex, driven by dynamic feedbacks among emotions, personal experiences, livelihood and behavioral contexts, beliefs about deer management, and beliefs about other social groups. I found that mixed emotions, situational contexts, and perceived power imbalances play key roles in shaping and shifting deer-related cognitions, yet models of cognitive processing, and human-wildlife interactions more broadly, neglect these dynamics. Emotions, specifically, have been marginalized by researchers and practitioners, likely due to the perception that they represent irrational reactions rather than calculated judgements. Under different scenarios of encountering deer, however, I found that respondent emotions exert a mediating effect on their judgments about deer management, and that the type of deer encountered matters. Emotions thus work together with cognitions to process various stimuli in a human-wildlife encounter and reach a normative decision. I posit that understanding when and why emotional responses arise will help practitioners develop more effective and socially accepted approaches to wildlife management.</p> <p>I next developed and analyzed indices of public satisfaction with the IN-DNR and potentials for social conflict over deer management approaches. I found that public satisfaction with deer management is nuanced and multidimensional. Cognitive variables like residents’ perceived acceptability of management methods and their deer-related concerns most strongly predicted agency performance and quality measures of satisfaction, whereas demographic characteristics including self-identity, wildlife value orientation, and allowance of hunting on one’s property exerted the strongest influences on trust components of satisfaction. Future studies should advance a multidimensional conception of satisfaction and associate it with key variables that I suspect underly satisfaction but were not captured in this study: perceived control, psychological distance, and norms of knowledge exchange between wildlife agencies and the public. Next, I found that potentials for social conflict over deer management varied with resident self-identities and management methods but showed more predictable variation with political ideologies. Geographically, hotspots of social conflict clustered around urban areas, indicating that cities and their residents should serve as a focus for public engagement efforts and mixed management strategies. Expanding agency conceptions of public satisfaction and social conflict represents a critical step towards broadening support for wildlife management and practicing good wildlife governance.<strong> </strong>I conclude by discussing barriers to integrating social and ecological data and the practicality of incorporating complex social dimensions into wildlife management planning.</p>

<p>Promoting sustainable consumption is critical to meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Food systems can cause considerable environmental impacts, which are exacerbated by the rapidly increasing global population and urbanization. Policy makers are seeking strategies to promote sustainable food consumption to reduce food-related environmental footprints. However, literature assessing environmental implications of food consumption has several gaps: first, studies using national average diets or one-day dietary recall data are likely to neglect the heterogeneous food purchasing patterns in different households and over longer time spans; second, few studies have considered reducing the overall food-emissions-water-land (FEWL) impacts and the FEWL impact reduction potentials have not been fully examined due to lack of considering changing consumption patterns of food items within food groups. Additionally, knowing the environmental impacts of food consumption is only the first step towards sustainable consumption. Providing the information to consumers to guide their decision making is also critical. Ecolabels are increasingly used to inform consumers about the environmental performance of products. However, the effectiveness of ecolabels is unclear because methods used in existing studies may not show consumers’ naturalistic behavior.</p> <p> </p> <p>This dissertation aims to address these research gaps to provide better understanding of the reduction potentials and trade-offs of food environmental impacts, and the effectiveness of ecolabels to facilitate consumer decision making for sustainable consumption. To achieve the objective, a variety of models and methods are used: (1) detailed food purchasing records from 57,578 U.S. households were analyzed and a process-based life cycle assessment (LCA) model is developed to evaluate the food carbon emissions and identify reduction pathways; (2) the LCA model was then expanded to also quantify food-related blue water footprint and land footprint. The FEWL impact reduction potentials were evaluated in two dietary change scenarios: (a) only adjusting intake in each food group to the recommended amount and (b) in addition to adjusting food group intake amount, changing consumption patterns to shift towards the food item that minimizes the overall FEWL impacts within each group). A food-item level analysis was also conducted to examine the FEWL impact trade-offs associated with food item substitutions; and (3) survey and attention data were collected from 156 participants in a naturalistic shopping environment using eye tracking glasses to evaluate the effectiveness of ecolabels on informing consumers’ product selection for sustainable consumption. </p> <p> </p> <p>By assessing the environmental impacts of food consumption and the effectiveness of ecolabels, this dissertation proposed pathways to reduce food-related environmental impacts (i.e., through identifying target households and food groups for impact reduction) and strategies to improve ecolabels’ effectiveness in consumers’ decision making. The results can provide insights to policy makers to promote sustainable consumption. </p>

River sand mining from the Maha Oya is the main source of income and a force that drives economic activity for residents along the river. This study takes place in Sri Lanka, there are three villages included in this project: Jambugaswatte, Janituspuraya and Thoppuwa. In Sri Lanka, sand serves as the main building material. It is used to make bricks, tiles, asphalt and concrete, therefore demanding a high market value. However, the over-extraction of sand comes along with significant environmental problems. These communities depend on the river in many ways and the health of the river directly corresponds to the health of the ecosystem as a whole. Along the Maha Oya two important elements of survival are in conflict with one another: residents simultaneously need a healthy, thriving ecosystem to live in, as well as economic opportunities. With support from the Environmental Foundation Ltd. (EFL)--a Sri Lankan environmental justice NGO--this study focuses on the complex situation with sand mining on the Maha Oya. Data for this study comes from fifteen formal interviews with a Sinhala-English translator. These interviews are used to address the two research questions for this project: how do village residents along the Maha Oya perceive sand mining? And what are the emotional, practical and theoretical responses of village residents to the effects of sand mining on their local ecosystems? In order to envision a sustainable future, it is vital to begin with a clear understanding of community perceptions of these complex issues, which are at the heart of this project.

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This paper analyses the environmental policy documents of Vänsterpartiet (Left Party) and Socialdemokraterna (Social Democratic Party) based on the theories of ecological modernization (EMT) and critical environmental sociology (CES), constructed as ideal types. The aim is to explain ideational differences and similarities based on the ideal types of each theory and how well the parties can be linked to the ideal types of EMT and CES, their similarities and differences. The results show that there is a clear ideational distinction between the Left Party and the Social Democratic Party and that their views on solutions to climate change and subsequent environmental issues, based on ecological modernization theory and critical environmental sociology, differ despite other ideational similarities. The Left Party adheres more to the ideal type of CES and the Social Democratic Party adheres more to the ideal type of EMT.