David S. Stodolsky
Entropy is on the rise.

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Myth of Environmental Fragility

"Nature's balance is fragile" is a dominant cultural myth, even among agricultural scientists. Agricultural scientists working in the country, however, can directly observe Nature's resilience. The university educated personnel had enough background knowledge to reject the notion that "the balance of Nature is fragile". However, without the university education and direct contact with Nature to ground their thinking, the myth dominated individuals' attitudes. It is amusing that it is the same people who have different attitudes at different times. Movement from one placement to another is part of their job rotation.

The graph shows responses (ranging from Completely Disagree to Completely Agree) to the statement:
Nature's balance is very sensitive and easy to disturb.

Effects of university education and of administrative placement within the Danish Forest and Nature Administration are illustrated.

Figure: University educated vs. technical educated agricultural scientists.

Method:

In an ordinal logistic regression, which included 68 persons, neither education alone nor placement alone was significant. The interaction was significant at the p<.04 level. The overall model chi-square was p<.0006. A test of university educated agricultural scientists with country placement vs. all other agricultural scientists was significant at the p<.0004 level. The whole model chi-square was p<.0002. Therefore, we can conclude that this is a rigorous finding.

Background:

The statement, "Nature's balance is very sensitive and easy to disturb," was part of a cluster of statements answered very similarly:
:When humans interfere with Nature, there are often catastrophic consequences.
:Interference with Nature results in unforeseen consequences, because everything is interdependent in ecological systems.

Rasch Analysis

The statement discussed here was shown to fit on an optimism-pessimism scale using Rasch Analysis. The scale, summarized by the statement, "We can solve environmental problems," included the following items ("-" before the variable number indicates that agreement shows pessimism):
: -169a Denmark lacks the institutional framework to really solve environmental problems.
: -151 Our knowledge of ecological systems and processes is characterized by great uncertainty.
: -152 Nature's balance of is very sensitive and easy to disturb.
: -153 When humans interfere with nature, there are often catastrophic consequences.
: 165b Industry in Denmark accepts its responsibility for the environment.
: -169c There is a contradiction between sustainable development and competition between political parties in a democracy.
: 174d Denmark is well on its way to fulfilling international goals for Nature and the environment.

Multivariate analysis

The original multivariate analysis included the statements (abbreviated):
:the balance of nature is fragile
:cultural landscape important to identity
:no import of species to fauna_flora
:importance of cultural landscape not recognised
:synthetic chemicals main problem
:label products for bio-diversity

"The balance of nature is fragile" had the greatest influence, accounting for about 1/3 of the variation in responses among this group of statements

Data:

We analyzed the responses to 47 attitude statements by employees in the environmental bureaucracies in Denmark (Stodolsky, 1999). The administrative units included those concerned with nature and environmental protection, planning, farming, and roads, on both the local and central level. The administrative units were classified in several different ways for the analyses, as was education, administrative placement, and educational and demographic background of the respondents, in order to explain attitudinal differences.

Reference:

Stodolsky, D. S. (1999). Note to FSL on Structure and Significance of Attitudes Concerning the Project "Management Cultures in the Nordic Environmental Bureaucracy" - Danish Administrators (Notat til FSL vedrørende holdningers struktur og signifikans i forbindelse med projektet "Management Cultures in the Nordic Environmental Bureaucracy" - Danske embedsmænd). Hørsholm, Denmark: Research Center for Forest and Landscape (Forskningscentret for Skov & Landskab).