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Political polarization is often analyzed at the mass level through examination of attitudinal differences, but little attention is devoted to how polarization might be manifested through differences in individual behavior, especially in areas that do not appear to be explicitly political in nature. Political polarization, however, may extend to differences in lifestyles among individuals, especially differences in prosocial environmental behavior. This could be especially true for behaviors that are perceived as markers of political attitudes. In an examination of self-reported recycling and conservation behavior, we find that controlling for a range of alternative explanations for why individuals engage in pro-environmental behavior, partisan and ideological dispositions are among the most robust causes of such behavior. We demonstrate that these behavioral differences are exacerbated by attention to political news. The findings indicate that the effects of polarization extend beyond political attitudes into social and economic choices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do we understand political polarization within the U.S. climate change debate? This article unpacks the different components of the debate to determine the source of the political divide that is so noted in the mainstream media and academic literatures. Through analysis of the content of congressional hearings on the issue of climate change, we are able to explain political polarization of the issue more fully. In particular, our results show that, contrary to representations in the mainstream media, there is increasing consensus over the science of the issue. Discussions of the type of policy instrument and the economic implications of regulating carbon dioxide emissions, however, continue to polarize opinion. This article concludes by exploring how these findings help us understand more recent political events around climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Analysis of three cross-sectional polls administered by the Gallup Organization at 10-year intervals—in 1990, 2000, and 2010—demonstrates that partisan identification has become an increasingly important determinant of environmental concern within the American mass public. Polarization on global warming is especially clear, even when compared to a variety of other social, economic, and political problems, but party sorting seems to occur only as citizens acquire information and become familiar with elite cues. The implications of this for the U.S. environmental movement and the strategies it employs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been engaged in a process of organizational learning to build civic capacity for nearly 4 decades, in effect discovering its civic mission. This article examines how EPA has increasingly become a more effective enabler of democratic network governance in the watershed arena and has developed ambitious cross-media initiatives to help transform the culture of the agency. Its very progress, however, highlights significant challenges that the agency must address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the need for environmental protection is generally accepted in the United States, there is debate over what form environmental policies should take. The articles in this collection offer a variety of perspectives on the need for policy innovation to deal with the challenges of the future. Their common themes are the need for bottom-up problem solving, the value of nonregulatory approaches, the importance of citizen participation, the use of the precautionary principle, and a focus on ecological as well as health issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policies have brought dramatic improvements in air and water quality during the past 25 years, but further expansion of command-and-control regulations is likely to have diminishing marginal returns. Corporations are taking new initiatives in managing their environmental impacts in ways that reduce their costs, increase their efficiency, lower their liabilities, and enhance their competitiveness while reducing pollution, conserving resources, and eliminating waste. In the future, significant gains in environmental quality are more likely to come from widespread adoption of pollution prevention practices than from more stringent regulation of end-of-pipe emissions. Bridging the gap between public policy and the trends in private-sector management will require .fundamental changes in .federal and state governments' approaches to regulation. New policies must use economic incentives to encourage clean manufacturing and the adoption of pollution prevention technologies and forge public-private partnerships for improving environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]