Environmental Concern, Social Capital and the Social Context of Tailpipe Emmisions-Related Knowledge in Northern Climate.

摘要

Approximately a quarter of all greenhouse gases originate from motor vehicle tailpipe emissions (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Along with reducing household energy usage, changes in transportation behavior would have the most direct impact on lowering consumer output of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide. Despite increased levels of awareness surrounding global warming and interest in reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, there is little evidence that people have been willing to make changes in their lives to attain this collective goal. Moreover, it is not clear that consumer-oriented strategies designed to change patterns of consumption e.g., switching over to more efficient hybrid electric vehicles will alone be able to reduce emissions to levels necessary to prevent irreversible climate change by the middle part of this century (Hansen et al., 2008). Researchers in this area have long observed a rebound effect or efficiency paradox with relation to technological advances in efficiency which result in the increased utilization of the technology in question (Clark and Foster 2001; Greene et al., 1999; Jevons 2001; York and Rosa 2003). In the case of automobiles this has meant that the benefits of greater fuel efficiency have been outweighed by increased vehicle ownership and greater miles per year driven by the average driver (Portney et al., 2003). That technological improvements alone have not been able to reduce overall CO2 emissions draws our attention to the motivations people have, if any, to reduce vehicle emissions as a matter of daily practice. Our work on this project has thus been motivated by three central questions: What do people know about vehicle tailpipe emissions; How does social context inform this knowledge and concern about environmental impacts, more generally; and How do knowledge of vehicle tailpipe emissions and environmental concern grounded in social context affect individual transportation behavior.