Values, Education, Social Capital, and Transaction Costs: Their Role in Mobilizing Disadvantaged Communities to Address Environmental Conservation

摘要

The thesis of this paper is that weak values, poor education, deficient social capital, and high transaction costs can explain the relatively poor environmental quality found in Black Belt communities. This paper argues that environmental education creates awareness and provides the technical and social knowledge communities need for taking action to tackle and solve environmental problems. Social capital reduces transaction costs that inhibit collective action toward advocacy and activism for resolving environmental issues. Values are relatively enduring principles that guide behavior. Values provide the basis for vigorously scrutinizing and choosing among the many options for managing the environment that are generated through science and technology. The authors will draw on a recent Natural Resource Conservation study conducted in the Black Belt, and the literature on social capital, education, values and transaction cost to develop arguments to support the thesis of the paper. The paper concludes with suggestions for raising environmental awareness, increasing the formation of social capital, and strengthening the environmental ethic of disadvantage communities.