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Research about the religion and environmental attitudes relationship in the United States has yielded mixed results. Some studies find that religion relates to heightened concern about environmental threats and greater environmental interest whereas others find religion relates to diminished concern and interest. A new perspective that applies ideas from psychology and sociology may help resolve these discrepant findings. It is hypothesized that religious meaning reduces concern with environmental threats since meaning helps people cope with distressing stimuli. This reduction is specific to threats and does not extend to environmental interest. Using the 2016 General Social Survey to test this hypothesis, after controlling for sociodemographic and political variables, structural equation modeling shows Americans who are more religious experience diminished sense of danger from environmental threats, yet exhibit heightened general environmental interest. These findings align with the proposed theory and suggest new ways to promote environmentalism and policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major goal of the environmental movement is to conserve or improve the natural environment, but evidence showing that environmental mobilization produces positive environmental outcomes is mixed. This article addresses a fundamental question about the relative impact of pro‐environmental mobilization and the scope of an environmental policy regime on the natural environment. Using panel data at the state level from 1990 through 2007, we explore how environmental protest and environmental policies independently (or jointly) reduce CO2 emissions in U.S. states. We find that the level of emissions in a state declines in states with increases in pro‐environmental protest, net of the effects of the range of environmental policies enacted, gasoline taxes, liberal attitudes, reliance on the fossil fuel industry, number of registered lobbyist organizations, gross state product, and population size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major goal of the environmental movement is to conserve or improve the natural environment, but evidence showing that environmental mobilization produces positive environmental outcomes is mixed. This article addresses a fundamental question about the relative impact of pro‐environmental mobilization and the scope of an environmental policy regime on the natural environment. Using panel data at the state level from 1990 through 2007, we explore how environmental protest and environmental policies independently (or jointly) reduce CO2 emissions in U.S. states. We find that the level of emissions in a state declines in states with increases in pro‐environmental protest, net of the effects of the range of environmental policies enacted, gasoline taxes, liberal attitudes, reliance on the fossil fuel industry, number of registered lobbyist organizations, gross state product, and population size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses environmentalism-related civic republicanism and action in Lincoln County, West Virginia between 1974 and 1990, and it mentions the greening of American society which involved individuals who put concerns about the common good, equality, and autonomy ahead of their own self-interests. The efforts of young baby boom generation members to prevent surface coal mining in West Virginia are examined, along with environmental politics and ideologies.

The article acknowledges the increasing participation of people into various assembly for climate-justice campaigns in the U.S. as of September 2015. Engagement of high-profile activists including Bill McKibben, Jane Goodall, and Vandana Shiva, in the People's Climate March on September 21, 2014 provided major impact. The significance of the climate justice movement as an avenue of hope to climate change is recognized. The concept of justice is discussed in application to advocacy towards a healthy environment.

Since the early 1990s, the American conservative movement has become increasingly hostile toward environmental protection and Congressional Republicans have become increasingly anti-environmental in their voting records. Party sorting theory holds that such political polarization among elites will likely extend to the general public. Analyzing General Social Survey data from 1974 to 2012, we examine whether political polarization has occurred on support for government spending on environmental protection over this time period in the US general public. We find that there has been significant partisan and ideological polarization on support for environmental spending since 1992--consistent with the expectations of party sorting theory. This political polarization on environmental concern in the general public will likely endure save for political convergence on environmental concern among elites in the near future. Such polarization likely will inhibit the further development and implementation of environmental policy and the diffusion of environmentally friendly behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous scholars have used political philosophy to characterise the US environmental justice (EJ) movement’s conception of justice. I build upon that work by identifying and critically evaluating the ideas of justice that manifest in mainstream (non-EJ) environmental politics. I do so through a comparative analysis of two groups of activists concerned with the threats posed by pesticides to human health in California. Mainstream agri-environmental activists’ narratives and practices evince libertarian and communitarian ideas of justice that support the neoliberalisation of an already compromised regulatory system, as they motivate and legitimise policies, practices, and discourses that undermine the state’s environmental protections and shift environmental responsibility to individuals. In contrast, California’s EJ activists, like the broader EJ movement, marshal a pluralist notion of justice as distribution, recognition, participation, and capabilities, which rejects the neoliberal project and explicitly criticises the social inequalities and relations of oppression that help produce environmental inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]