Environmental Beliefs and Attitudes in Sweden and the Baltic States

Abstract

This article compares environmental beliefs and attitudes in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. It is based on interviews in Tartu, Estonia, and Riga, Latvia, and on an extract from a postal survey in the county of Östergötland, Sweden. Four scales were used in the study: the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale, a scale to measure support for science and technology, a scale to measure postmaterial values, and a scale to measure concern for local environmental problems. The expected correlations between support for the NEP, distrust of science and technology, postmaterial values, and concern for environmental conditions were only partially supported by the results of the Swedish study, and, in the case of the Baltic samples, not at all. A fourth explanatory factor—that environmental concern can be based either on direct personal experience of the environment, or on symbolic general representations of reported global problems-is used to explain these discrepancies.