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In light of rapid ecosystem and biodiversity decline globally, and in recognition of the key role that humans play in this, it is not surprising that increasing community awareness and engagement with biodiversity is a centrepiece for many biodiversity strategies. The current paper seeks to contribute to this growing focus by developing an indicator of community appreciation of biodiversity that conceptualises appreciation as comprising cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions. We tested the indicator by drawing on existing data from a survey (N = 2000) conducted with residents of New South Wales, Australia in 2015. The findings confirm the importance of the tripartite conceptualisation in that respondents reported high levels of basic knowledge of biodiversity (cognitive appreciation) and positively valued biodiversity (affective appreciation) but much lower levels of behavioural appreciation. Further analysis revealed six clusters of respondents based on differing levels of cognitive, affective and behavioural appreciation of biodiversity. There were key variables that distinguished membership in the different clusters including education level, level of concern about environmental issues and climate change, views on and use of national parks, and region – where people live. Our indicator provides a nuanced way to monitor and track the effectiveness of programs and policies aiming to increase community appreciation of biodiversity, and thereby support collective actions to reverse ecosystem and biodiversity decline. We also provide recommendations for how the indicator might be improved in future iterations.

Studies showing that scepticism about anthropogenic climate change is shaped, in part, by conspiratorial and conservative ideologies are based on data primarily collected in the United States. Thus, it may be that the ideological nature of climate change beliefs reflects something distinctive about the United States rather than being an international phenomenon. Here we find that positive correlations between climate scepticism and indices of ideology were stronger and more consistent in the United States than in the other 24 nations tested. This suggests that there is a political culture in the United States that offers particularly strong encouragement for citizens to appraise climate science through the lens of their worldviews. Furthermore, the weak relationships between ideology and climate scepticism in the majority of nations suggest that there is little inherent to conspiratorial ideation or conservative ideologies that predisposes people to reject climate science, a finding that has encouraging implications for climate mitigation efforts globally.

Recent growth in the number of studies examining belief in climate change is a positive development, but presents an ironic challenge in that it can be difficult for academics, practitioners and policy makers to keep pace. As a response to this challenge, we report on a meta-analysis of the correlates of belief in climate change. Twenty-seven variables were examined by synthesizing 25 polls and 171 academic studies across 56 nations. Two broad conclusions emerged. First, many intuitively appealing variables (such as education, sex, subjective knowledge, and experience of extreme weather events) were overshadowed in predictive power by values, ideologies, worldviews and political orientation. Second, climate change beliefs have only a small to moderate effect on the extent to which people are willing to act in climate-friendly ways. Implications for converting sceptics to the climate change cause—and for converting believers’ intentions into action—are discussed.

Securing water supplies in urban areas is a major challenge for policy makers, both now and into the future. This study aimed to identify the key determinants of household water use, with a view to identifying those factors that could be targeted in water demand management campaigns. Objective water use data and surveys were collected from 1008 households in four local government areas of southeast Queensland, Australia. Results showed that demographic, psychosocial, behavioral, and infrastructure variables all have a role to play in determining household water use. Consistent with past research, household occupancy was the most important predictor of water use. Households in regions recently exposed to drought conditions and higher‐level restrictions also used less water than those who had less experience with drought. The effect of water efficient technology was mixed: some water efficient appliances were associated with less water use, while others were associated with more water use. Results also demonstrated the importance of considering water use as a collective behavior that is influenced by household dynamics. Households who reported a stronger culture of water conservation used less water. These findings, along with evidence that good water‐saving habits are linked to water conservation, highlight the value of policies that support long‐term cultural shifts in the way people think about and use water. Identifies key predictors of household water conservationHighlights limitations of efficiency approachesIdentifies significant psycho‐social predictors of water use