Assessing environmental consequences of human attitudes

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. Agenda 21 recommends developing research on human attitudes and behaviour as driving forces central to an understanding of the causes and consequences of environmental change and resource use.

1. The conservation of a sound environment, and the sustainability of development in the long-term require an attitude which is fundamentally new and imaginative. It is an approach culturally different from norms and regulations whose rigorous application is always impossible to guarantee.

1. Studying human dimensions of environmental change
2. Researching opinions, behaviour and attitudes
3. Developing integrated environmental frameworks

1. Setting appropriate fashion for consumption of goods and services
2. Requiring re-evaluation of social patterns
3. Re-orienting attitudes to resource allocation
4. Improving knowledge on ecosystem processes
5. Eradicating harmful social attitudes

1. Rights
2. Misbehaviour
3. Inhumanity
4. Behaviour