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Pippa Norris

Are We All Green Now? Public Opinion on Environmentalism in Britain

OWING TO THE GROWTH OF THE GREEN MOVEMENT IN THE 1980s MANY feel that Britain has experienced a cultural revolution on environmental issues. According to conventional wisdom, public opinion has come to reflect a deep-rooted and widespread sense of environmental awareness, with long-term consequences for British politics. Yearley suggests that there has been a significant ‘greening’ of British public opinion in recent years.’ In a series of articles reviewing attitudes towards environmental values, Young concludes that evidence for a culture shift ‘is almost beyond dispute’.2 Environ- mentalists commonly make three distinct claims, namely: there has been a growth of public concern about environmental issues; as a result public support for green policies and ideas has increased; in turn this has led to greater environmental activism, including support for the Green Party, involvement in environmental groups and green consumerism.

Yet sceptics remain doubtful, suggesting that environmental concerns rise and fall on the public agenda according to specific events such as Chernobyl, the siting of cruise missiles, and the Exron V u h . Rather than a systematic green world-view, attitudes towards the environment may be divided according to the issues: there may be a consensus about preserving the countryside but not about nuclear power, the use of animals in medical research or the trade- off between environmentalism and jobs. The ideological coherence of green leaders may be lacking among grassroots supporters. Lastly, green activism may be strong among the welleducated, younger ‘Guardian-reading’ chattering classes but not among the general public.

Steven Yearley, The Gwen Case: A Sociology of Environmental Issues, Arguments and

Ken Young, ‘Shades of Green’ in British Social Attitudes: the 8th Rcpwt, Aldershot, Politics, London, HarperCollins, 1991, pp. 78-87.

SCPR/Dartmouth, 1991, p. 113.

ARE WE ALL GREEN NOW? 32 1

Accordingly the aim of this article is to reconsider the distribution and consistency of support in British public opinion for environmentalism. The article seeks to explore these questions: is there strong public concern over green issues? Are attitudes towards the environment structured into a coherent and consistent green view- point? And who supports different forms of green activism? Surprisingly, British public attitudes towards the environment have received little systematic scrutiny.3 These questions are descriptive rather than theoretical, but it is essential to establish whether there has been a greening of public opinion, before we can go on to consider appropriate explanations for this phenomenon.

DATA AND METHODS

The study of attitudes towards the environment needs to meet certain criteria. Commentators often assume that public opinion reflects indirect indicators such as media coverage of environmental issues, voting intentions €or the Green Party, or membership of groups like the National Trust or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Yet this evidence, while clearly suggestive, cannot be treated as conclusive. Support for the Green Party may vary according to a number of external factors; for example it performed well in the June 1989 Euro elections, at least in part, owing to the mid-term protest against the government and the temporary unpopularity of the Liberal Democrats. Likewise, people may join the National Trust for diverse reasons, to explore gardens and houses, as much as to preserve stretches of wild coastline. The media may be in touch with public interest, or they may reflect particular newsworthy events such as the Rio Summit. Any plausible analysis therefore requires direct evidence from public opinion surveys.

Yet the survey analyst confronts the problem that the study of trends in public attitudes requires continuity over time. Since interest in green politics is a fairly new phenomenon, and terms like ‘global

’ For the main studies see Ken Young, ibid.; A. Heath et al., UndentandingPolitil Chngz: The British Voter 1964-1987, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1991, pp. 186-299; J. Vaus, ‘How Green is the British Public?’, UK CEED Bulletin, Vol. 26, 1989, pp. 10-1 1; S. Cotgrove and A. Duff, ‘Environmentalism, Values and Social Change’, BritishJouml of Sociology, Vol. 32, 1981, pp. 92-110; S. Cotgrove and A. Duff, ‘Environmentalism, Middle Class Radicalism and Politics’, Sociological Review, Vol. 28, 1980, pp. 333-51.

322 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

warming’ were not heard in public debate until fairly recently, there are few comparable items before the 1980s in surveys such as the Gallup report, and even fewer consistent items in the series of British Election Studies.

Lastly, it is difficult to measure support for green ideas since the movement represents a diverse agenda and coalition: ecologists and peace activists, holistic theorists and anti-nuclear power activists, feminists, animal rights activists, the organic farming movement, the soft energy movement and converts from radical left groups. There are fuzzy boundaries. Support includes activities as different as joining the National Trust, recycling bottles and cans, signing a petition against a new motorway or protesting against cruise missiles. Attitudes towards environmentalism cannot be gauged adequately with only a few items on conventional issues such as nuclear power or nuclear weapons.

Accordingly to reflect the diversity of green concerns, data will be analysed from the British Social Attitudes 1990 Survey (BSA- go), administered by Social and Community Planning Research (SCPR). The 1990 survey includes a total weighted sample of 2,698 respondents. The series started in 1983, so trend analysis is limited, but the survey provides the most comprehensive guide available to the current state of public attitudes towards green concerns.

CONCERN ABOUT GREEN ISSUES

Previous studies commonly emphasize growing concern about environmental issues among the British public during the 1980s. Opinion surveys carried out by NOP for the Department of the Environment in 1989 found about a third of the public mentioned the environment among the most important issues the government should be dealing with, compared with only 8 per cent in 1986. Problems involving the disposal of hazardous substances (chemicals in rivers, sewage contamination, oil spills at sea, radioactive waste), the destruction of the ozone layer, the loss of wildlife and the use of insecticides caused the most concern; over 80 per cent were worried by these problems.’ Young, in a series of chapters based on

See Social Trends 21, London, Central Statistical Office, 1991, p. 157. See also J. Vaus, ‘How Green is the British Public?’, op. cit.

ARE W E ALL GREEN NOW? 323

the annual British Social Attitude surveys, has found increased concern about the risks of nuclear power stations, industrial pollution, and the preservation of the countryside. In Young’s view, the BSA surveys have charted a ‘seismic shift in environmental awareness’?

Yet there are reasons to be sceptical about the extent of any change in public opinion. Heath and his colleagues found little movement on attitudes towards nuclear defence, nuclear power and protection of the countryside over the longer term. ‘Attitudes towards nuclear defence do not appear to have changed very much over the last twenty years.”j Environmental concerns were rarely debated in the 1992 general election campaign, which was dominated by basic bread-and-butter issues - the poor performance of the British economy, the state of the health service, the need to invest in education.’ In Gallup polls, when asked to nominate the two most urgent problems facing the country, using open-ended questions, normally only a few people even mention the environment (at most about 5 per cent).” Media coverage during the campaign reflected this lack of interest: in the last week only six out of 614 stories on the main television news featured the environment, while the related topics of energy and transport were equally negle~ted.~

See Ken Young, ‘Shades of Green’ in British Social Attitudes: The 8th Report, op. cit., p. 107. See also Ken Young, ‘Interim Report: Rural Prospects’ in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 5th Report, Aldershot, SCPR/Gower, 1988; Ken Young, ‘Local Government and the Environment’, in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 1985 Report, Aldershot, SCPR/Gower, 1985; Ken Young, ‘A Green and Pleasant Land?’ in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 1986Report, Aldershot, SCPR/Gower, 1986; Ken Young, ‘Interim Report: The Country-side’ in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 1987 Report, Aldershot, SCPR/Gower, 1987; Ken Young, ‘Living Under Threat’ in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 7th Report, Aldershot, SCPR/Gower, 1989. See also ‘Countryside and Environment’, S-1, S-4, S-19 British Social Attitudes Cumulatiue Sourcebook, Aldershot, SCPR/Gower, 1991.

Anthony Heath et al., Undmtanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964-1987, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1991, pp. 190-92. ’ In the final NOP/BBC and Harris/ITN exit polls the environment was not even

included as an option in the questionnaire in the list of ‘most important issues’. See The Gallup Political and Economic In&, April, May, June 1992.

@ David Hencke, ‘Poll Shift Pushes Policies off Air’, The Guardian, 6 April 1992, p. 13, a study by the Communications Research Centre, Loughborough University.


Turning to evidence in the BSA survey, when asked whether they were worried about a list of environmental issues, the majority ex- pressed strong or moderate concern (see Table 1). People said they were apprehensive about immediate domestic issues (the use of insecticides, the quality of drinking water) and more global concerns (the thinning of the ozone layer, the loss of wildlife). There was, somewhat surprisingly, more anxiety about issues which emerged on the public agenda fairly recently, like the greenhouse effect, than long-standing and more familiar problems such as the growth in the world’s population.

Table 1 Concern about Environmental Issues (percentagv)

‘How concerned about.. .’ Very Quite Not Very Not at all DK Disposal of sewage 69 25 3 2 1 Loss of wildlife 57 30 8 3 1 Insecticides 57 34 6 2 1 Thinning of ozone 57 30 8 2 3 Risks nuclear power 53 28 13 5 1 Quality drinking water 51 31 13 4 1 Greenhouse effect 46 36 12 4 3 Depleted fossil fuel 37 38 19 4 2 Growth in population 30 39 24 5 2 Q. ‘How concerned are you about each of these environmental issues?. . .’ Source: BSA-90.

Table 4 Effects on the Environment (percentage)

‘How serious an effect. . . ?’ Very Quite Not very Not at all Industrial waste 75 23 2 0 Cutting rainforests 68 25 6 2 Nuclear waste 64 26 8 1 Industrial fumes 58 36 5 1 Acid rain 53 36 8 1 Aerosal chemicals 51 37 9 1 Lead from petrol 38 51 9 1 Traffic noise 28 53 17 1 Aircraft noise 7 26 57 10 Q. ‘How serious an effect on our environment do you think each of these things has?’ Source: BCS-90.

Similar concern w a s evident when people were asked whether they thought a range of hazards - from traffic noise to acid rain,

ARE WE ALL GREEN NOW? 325


Table 3 Effects on the Environment: Annual Surveys (percentage)

‘Very serious effect.. .’ 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1989 1990

Industrial waste 62 67 56 65 60 75 75 Nuclear waste 63 69 58 72 60 67 64 Industrial fumes 41 46 43 46 44 60 58 Lead from petrol 48 45 39 42 34 45 38 Traffic noise 23 20 21 25 25 31 28 Aircraft noise 8 7 6 9 7 9 7 Acid rain 54 50 58 53 Cutting rain-forests 68 68 Aerosal chemicals 67 51

Q. ‘How serious an effect on our environment do you think each of these things has?’ Source: BCS-90.

nuclear waste, industrial fumes and cutting rain-forests - had serious consequences for the environment. As shown in Table 2, industrial and nuclear waste, the depletion of the rain-forests, industrial fumes and acid rain were widely perceived as serious environmental threats. Only aircraft and traffic noise were regarded as less important hazards.

But, although the majority express concern, if we turn to trends over time, there is no evidence of a steady and consistent rise in green awareness during the 1980s (see Figure 1 and Table 3). Per- ceptions about the threat from nuclear waste fluctuates slightly, with public attention heightened by the Chernobyl accident in 1986, before returning to previous levels. On some issues (e.g. traffic noise) the public has become a bit more worried over time while on others (e.g. lead from petrol) there is a modest fall in concern. Therefore contrary to exaggerated claims by advocates about ‘inexorable trends’ towards green awareness it seems safer to conclude that public concern is temporarily heightened by particular events in the news, such as the overdose of chemicals in South West Water, Union Carbide’s accident in Bhopal, the publicity surrounding bovine spongiform encephalopathy (‘mad cow disease’), and the Ewua Vuldez disaster. Once the headlines fade, unless attitudes are reinforced by personal experience, then so too may public attention.

Yet even this more cautious conclusion can be questioned, since different measures may produce quite different outcomes. Measures of salience which are ‘costless’ may fail to give a sense of the public’s


priorities. We are all in favour of tax cuts and more government spending: the real test is the trade-offs between these. In the same way we all favour protecting the habitat of the spotted owl and creating rural employment; the tough choice is where these priorities conflict. As Dunlap argues, we need to assess the relative importance of environmentalism compared with other problems.'O One way of doing this is to ask people to consider their priorities for government spending. This measure is not perfect, since government regulation may be seen as more effective than direct subsidies. Environ- mentalists may feel changing personal lifestyles and grassroots organizations like food cooperatives are more effective than top- down government action. Nevertheless it does provide one indica- tion of priorities over issues. The results, in Table 4, show that the environment emerged as the fourth priority for public spending, more important than unemployment, law and order, defence, and the arts, but less important than the National Health Service, old age pensions and education.

Table 4 Priorities for Government Spending (percentage)

Spending Much more More Same Less Much less

Health 39 51 9 0 0 Pensions 31 53 18 1 0 Education 29 51 18 1 0 Environment 15 49 33 2 1 Police & law enforcement 12 39 44 3 1

Military & defence 2 7 41 33 17 Culture & arts 2 11 44 28 14

Q2.09. 'Listed below are various areas of government spending. Please show whether you would like to see more or less government spending in each area.' Source: BCS-90.

Unemployment benefits 8 29 45 13 4

We can draw three main conclusions from this. First, the conventional journalistic wisdom about ever-rising levels of green awareness can be questioned. Instead of a consistent rise in public concern about the environment, the pattern in the BSA surveys since the early 1980s is one of trendless fluctuations, or short-term jumps

"R. E. Dunlap, 'Public Opinion and Environmental Policy' in J. P. Lester, Environmental Politics and Policy, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1989.


in reaction to specific events. Public concern may have increased since the 1960s and 1970s; we cannot say from this data, but there has been no clearat change during the 1980s. Secondly, the degree of public concern varies substantially according to the issue: the majority are concerned about nuclear and industrial waste but traffic and aircraft noise are not regarded as serious threats. Lastly, it must be stressed, interpretations of the results are strongly influenced by the specific measures used to gauge saliency. Ask people whether they are concerned about nuclear waste, ‘the greenhouse effect’ or the ozone layer, and they will probably say yes. How much weight should be given to this response is a more open question.

A COHERENT GREEN WORLD-VIEW?

It is commonly suggested by advocates that rising levels of concern about environmental issues have made the public more sympathetic to green policies and beliefs. The apparent popularity of green ideas, and their promise of a new economic and social order, has led Jonathon Porritt to argue that environmentalism is as much an ideology, a consistent body of principles, a coherent world-view, as liberalism or conservatism: ‘The Green Movement lays claim to being the most radical and important political and cultural force since the birth of socialism.’” Porritt argues that deep ecology sees links between our environmept, our politics, our economy, our social structure, our educational system, our health care and our spirit- uality. Radical or ‘dark‘ greens are concerned about protecting the environment but also with a broad range of concerns which challenge orthodox politics, including a radical reordering of values, relationships and political structures. ‘Dark‘ greens, Porritt argues, emphasize a new holistic morality so that issues like global warming, industrial pollution, Third World poverty, the preservation of threatened species, and eco-feminism are seen as interconnected, systemic problems, in an intricate network of relationships. re

Has public opinion been influenced by the environmental movement to see questions as apparently diverse as nuclear power,

I I Jonathon Porritt, Seeing Green, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984; Jonathon Porritt

I t Jonathon Porritt and D. Winner, ibid. and D. Winner, The Coming of the Gnens, London, Fontana, 1988.


the use of animals in medical research, global warming, defence policy and preservation of the green belt, as related and interconnected issues? Some have found little evidence that attitudes towards different environmental issues are strongly associated. ‘The holism and internal consistency found in the pronouncements of green activists is scarcely reflected by respondents to our survey. They take utilitarian approaches to issues which greens see as fundamental.’’3 Heath and his colleagues found that attitudes towards environmentalism fell into two distinct dimensions, one nuclear and one non-nuclear, rather than a consistent green perspective.’+

Factor analysis can be employed to explore whether attitudes towards the environment are structured into a coherent and consistent ‘green’ ideology. The BSA survey included nineteen items on the environment which, when entered into a factor analysis, produced three underlying factors with eigen values greater than 1.5. (see Table 5).15 Green attitudes therefore form three separate dimensions based on a distinction between what can be termed ‘new green’, ‘old green’ and ‘anti-nuclear’ issues.

The first factor, the ‘new green’ scale, included a range of attitudes about issues which have come on to the green agenda since the late 1970s, including the use of animals in medical research and cosmetics testing, the role of science in solving environmental problems, the seriousness of the threat from global warming, whether ecological damage is seen as an urgent, !ife-threatening crisis, and government spending on the protection of wildlife. Attitudes towarb these issues are closely clustered. The second factor, the ‘old green’ scale, included more traditional attitudes towards the protection of the countryside, including the encroach- ment of housing and roads, the protection of wildlife and industrial development. Although the new and old green scales are closely associated, with a strong correlation, they remain distinct.16 Lastly

I’ Young, 1991, op. cit. I‘ Heath et al., op. cit., pp. 188-9. Is This was based on principle component analysis transformed with varimax

rotations. Items with factor loadings greater than 0.3 were used in the analysis. The figures in the Table include factor loadings after rotation.

The Pearson product moment correlation was as follows: Old Green New Green

New Green .89 .56 Anti-Nuclear .58 .56


the ‘anti-nuclear’ scale included items towards British and American nuclear weapons, unilateral disarmament, membership of NATO, and nuclear power stations. In total these factors explained 51 per cent of variance.

Table 5 Factor Analysis of Attitudes towards Environment

Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 New greens Old greens Anti-nuclear

Animal research .90 Spending on wildlife

Scientific research .87 Environmental damage .86

Picnic areas .79 Improve road/public

Medical research .71

protection .88

World temperature .a5

transport .74

Develop housing in countryside Develop roads in countryside Wildlife Put farmers before wildlife Industry prevented damage

countryside

British nuclear missiles American nuclear missiles Unilaterialism NATO membership Threat of nuclear power Power stations

.74

.69

.69 -4 1

.41

.83

.75

.66

.38

.34

.34

Eigen value 5.53 2.19 1.83 Variance explained 29.70 11.6 9.6

Source: BSA-90.

Strikingly, rather than a single coherent green perspective, this suggests that the structure of attitudes in public opinion reflects long-standing divisions within the green movement.” There are

” For details see P. Lowe and J. Goyder, Environmental Croups in Politics, London, Allen & Unwin, 1983.

ARE WE ALL GREEN NOW? 33 1

many traditional and long-standing environmental groups in Britain concerned with the ‘old green’ issues of preserving the countryside. Organizations such as the National Trust, the National Society for Clean Air and the Council for the Protection of Rural England are an established part in the policy-making system. These groups rely upon conventional channels to get their voices heard Whitehall lobbying, private members’ bills and press campaigns. They include champions of the countryside, defenders of public footpaths and conservationists worried about polluted rivers. They combine environmental concerns with leisure activities. Traditional groups usually assume that industry can be improved by technological developments and government controls, so that it no longer damages the countryside.

In contrast the ‘new green’ dimension reflects the concerns of more radical organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace which were set up in the early 1970s. Friends of the Earth uses direct action, focused on a series of diverse single-issue campaigns: the Windscale and Sizewell inquiries, the Schweppes no-deposit bottle campaign and the protection of endangered species. The organization shares the concern to protect the countryside, and therefore works with established environmental groups like the National Trust, but it takes a more radical stance on technological developments, the consequences of economic growth and personal responsibility for ecology. ‘New green’ concerns are also typified by Greenpeace, founded in 1972 with the aims of non-violent direct action against human exploitation of natural and animal resources. Perhaps the most notable have been campaigns to save the whale, and against seal culling.

The last dimension of anti-nuclearism is represented most clearly by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, founded in 1958. The organization has experienced fluctuations in its fortunes with a major revival in the early 1980s due to the collapse of detente, shifts in American nuclear strategy, the modernization and deployment of intermediate range nuclear forces, and decisions about the modernization of British nuclear deterrents with Trident missiles. The organization has used massive rallies and direct action such as the peace camps at Greenham Common.

Therefore the factor analysis of public opinion suggests that attitudes towards environmental issues are broadly structured along three separate dimensions, which reflect divisions in the


organization of the green movement. Attitudes towards new and old green concerns are different although closely related, while anti- nuclearism is a more distinctive strand. Do these dimensions also distinguish between different groups in the public? To test this these items were recoded into three scales. The new green scale proved extremely reliable when tested for internal consistency, and the old green and anti-nuclear scales proved satisfactory.'*

Table 6 Regression Am1ysi.s of Environmental Attitudes

Greens Greens nuclear New Old Anti- Coding

Education .16** .14** .06** Highest qualification 'I-point

.07** .09** .04 Urban/rural .04

Income .05 .05

Class .03 .03 Gender .02 .03

Age

Region .03 .02 Religion .04 .o 1

R2 .03 .03

.04*

.51**

.o 1

.01

.02

.01

.02

.27

scale Years Big city, suburb, small

Household income

Manual/non-manual Male/female North/South Religion/none

country

scale

town/

1 6-p t

Source: BSA-90.

Multiple regression analysis, summarized in Table 6, found education and age to be the most significant predictors of support for environmentalism across all three scales, as previous studies have commonly found. Graduates in their mid-twenties to mid- thirties were among the greenest, while the lowest support was among pensioners. In addition support for anti-nuclearism was remarkably and unexpectedly strong among people living in the countryside. Yet, contrary to expectations, income, class, gender and religion all proved insignificant. Aside from education and age, attitudes towards environmental issues were distributed fairly evenly among most sectors of the public. The regression by social background failed to explain much of the variance in attitudes.

'I Cronbach's Alpha for the reliability of each scale was as follows: Old Green 0.42; New Green 0.93; Anti-Nuclear 0.58.


THE GROWTH OF GREEN ACTIVISM?

Lastly we can turn to analysing who supports different forms of green activism. In recent years there is considerable evidence that involvement in the green movement has grown, although some feel support is largely confined to the well-educated professional middle classes. The green consumer movement has expanded, with the success of ‘environmentally friendly’ companies like the Body Shop, the publication of popular consumer guides, I9 and advertisers jumping on the green bandwagon.z0 Groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the National Trust, the Royal Society for Nature Conservation and the World Wildlife Fund experienced a resurgence in grassroots supporters during the 1980s. According to official statistics, membership of selected voluntary environmental organizations grew from 753,000 in 1971 to 3,794,000 in 1989, or almost 1:lO of the adult population.2’ Yet green movement activism may have fallen back from its peak in the late 1980s. International development, associated with the thawing of the cold war after 1985, reduced active support for the peace movement.

Conventional party politics has also been influenced by the environmental movement. The major parties gave a higher profile to green issues, symbolized by Mrs Thatcher’s highly publicized Royal Society speech on global warming in 1988, seeking to align Conservatism with conservation.** In the 1992 general election Labour and the Conservatives pledged, among other initiatives, to establish a new Environment Agency/Environmental Protection Executive, issuing an annual report on the state of the environment,

I’ See, for example, J. Elkington and J. Hailes, The Green Consumer Guide, London, Gollancz, 1988; L. Howlett, Cruelty-fie Shopper, London, Bloomsbury, 1989; J. Button, How to be Green, 2nd ed., London, Century, 1990; J. Porritt (ed.) Friends of the Earth Handbook, London, Optima, 1990. See also D. Mackenzie, ‘The Rise of the Green Consumer’, Consumer Policy Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1991, pp. 68-75.

S. Irvine, ‘Beyond Green Consumerism’, Friends ofthe Earth Discussion Paper 1, London, FOE, 1989.

*I See Social Trends 21, London, HMSO, 1991, Table 11.8. This figure represents population. It should be noted that the BSA-90 estimate, based on survey data is higher. See also Geraint Parry, George Moyser and Neil Day, Political Participation and Dnnorracy in Brihin, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 241-266.

=See E. Gene Frankland, ‘Does Green Politics have a Future in Britain? An American Perspective’ in Wolfgang Rudig, Green Politicc One, 1990, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1990, pp. 12-15.


and working within the European Community to improve standards.2’ Nevertheless the significance of the shift in the major parties should not be overstated in many ways the change represents packaging more than substance. A comparison of the 1987 and 1992 manifestos for the major parties suggests a shift of emphasis rather than direction.

The British Green Party has never achieved the popularity of many of its European counterparts, for reasons best explored by Rudig and LOW^.'^ Nevertheless the unexpected success of their candidates in the June 1989 Euro elections -when they won 15 per cent of the vote - increased credibility, boosted membership and produced an immediate jump in p~pularity.*~ For twelve months after the Euro elections the Greens averaged 5.7 per cent in the polls, well up on their share of the vote (0.3 per cent) in the previous general election.% Yet success proved short-lived. The performance of the Green Party in the general election was poor, even by its own standards. Greens stood in a record number of constituencies (252), twice as many as in 1987. Yet they won only 168,806 votes, that is 6’73 votes per candidate (1.3 per cent), the same as in 1987, slightly down on their performance in 1979. Green support was strongest in inner-city seats (such as Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Islington North and Liverpool Riverside), although even in their best seat, Stroud, they only polled 2,005 votes. But, as suggested earlier, it may be misleading to deduce public support for environmentalism from these indirect indicators, which may be influenced by many specific contextual factors.

x$ S e e The Best Future for Britain: The Conservative Manifcto 1992, London, Conservative Central Office, 1992, p. 43; It’s Time to Get Brilain Working Again: Labousf Election Manifesto, London, Labour Party, April 1992, pp. 22-23.

x4 For an analysis of the problems facing the party see Wolfgang Rudig and Philip Lowe, ‘The Withered “Greening” of British Politics: A Study of the Ecology Party’, PoliticalStudics, Vol. XXXIV, 1986, pp. 262-84. For a theoretical explanation of their lack of success see Wolfgang Rudig, Explaining Green Party Development, Strathclyde Papers on Government and Politics, No. 71, Glasgow, 1990. For a comparison see F. Muller-Rommel (ed.), Ncv Politia in Wcstrrn Eumpe: The &and Sutccsr of Green Parties and Alternative Lists, Boulder, Colo., Westview Press, 1989; Sara Parkin, Green Parties: An International Guide, London, Heretic Books, 1989.

=See E. Gene Frankland, ‘Does Green Politics have a Future in Britain? An American Perspective’ in W. Rudig, Green PolitiGF One, 1990, op. cit.

This figure is the average derived from over 100 polls by all the major companies from June 1989 to June 1990.


For this analysis we explore the differences between three dimensions of green activism: ‘green concern’, ‘green consumers’ and ‘green members’. It is anticipated that the largest group among the public will be the ‘green concerned’, that is, people who stress the importance of environmental dangers such as global warming, the use of chemical insecticides, the growth of the world’s population, or the loss of wildlife. The items in Table 1, reflecting concern about these issues, proved a highly consistent scale when tested for reliabilit~.~’

The second category, the ‘green consumers’, was expected to represent a smaller sector of the population. For green politics, as for feminism, the ‘personal is the political’. Ecologists emphasize that concern for the environment should start with our everyday life, from recycling to cutting back on the excessive use of fossil fuels. Green consumers were classified according to whether they reported regularly returning bottles and newspapers for recycling, using unleaded petrol, choosing organically grown fruit and vegetables, and buying environmentally friendly detergents.4s This measure may exaggerate the extent of green consumerism in practice, but it provides an approximate guide. The items in Table 7 suggest considerable variation depending upon the type of activity. Many people said they bought environment-friendly aerosols and

Table 7 Green C m w i s m (@rcentaH)

Regularly Sometimes Not at all Buy environment-friendly aerosols 62 21 17 Save electricity 48 23 28 Use unleaded petrol 41 4 55 Recycle bottles & papers 35 25 40 Buy cosmetics not animal tested 33 32 35 Buy environment-friendly detergents 29 25 46 Choose to eat less meat 26 21 53 Choose recycled materials 18 40 41 Cut back driving car 16 19 65

Source BSA-90. Buy organic fruit & veg 8 33 59

Cronbach’s Alpha for these ten items was 0.89. Those who reported that this did not apply were excluded from the analysis,

along with the ‘Don’t Knows’.


tried to save electricity, while far fewer reduced dependency on the car or bought organic vegetables. The green consumer scale, when tested for reliability, proved highly consistent.49

Lastly, it was expected that the smallest group would be the ‘green members’: those belonging to environmentalist groups ranging from the mainstream and traditional, such as the National Trust, the World Wildlife Fund and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to more radical groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. People may become members for diverse reasons, for leisure activities as much as environmental concern, but this provides a guide to the social background of the joiners. In the survey a surprisingly large number, one in five (19 per cent), said that they belonged to one of these groups, with the National Trust attracting most support (5 per cent). People were classified with a dichotomous measure according to whether they were a member of one of these groups or not.w

Table 8 Rcgnssion Analysis of Environmental Attitudes

Green Green Green Coding concern consumer member

Education .14** .21** .16** Highest qualification 7-point

Gender .11** .19** .01 Male/female Income .09** .18** .18** Household income 16-pt

Class .01 .11** .15** Manual/non-manual .03 .02 .lo** Years

Urban/rural .02

Religion .03 .04 .03 Religion/none Region .01 .02 .01 North/South

R2 .03 .17 .12

scale

scale

.04 .07** Big city, suburb, small town/ Age

country village

Source: BSA-90.

The results of the regression analysis suggest education, income, gender and class proved the most significant predictors of green activism, although this pattern varied across different forms of

Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.71. sa The Cronbach Alpha for the reliability of these items was 0.71.


Table 9 Environmental Involvement by Social Group

Green Green Green concern consumer member

83 56 19 All

Education

Gender

Income

Area live in

Party identity

Degree 86 A level 84 0 level 84 CSE 83 None 80 Male 81 Female 84

< 5,000 79 5- 10,000 83 10-15,000 84 15-20,000 85 20-25,000 84 25,000+ 81

Salariat 84 Routine non-manual 84 Petty bourgeoisie 82 Manual foreman 83

18-24 79 25-34 83 35-44 85

85 5 -64 84

78 65+ Big city 81 Suburbs 84 Small town 82 Country village 82 Countryside 84 Con 83 Lab 84 LibDem 83

Working class 80

4$-54

65 59 58 54 51 54 58 48 56 58 59 59 56 63 59 55 55 51 51 58 61 57 57 51 53 57 55 57 59 58 54 60

48 29 25 17 10 20 18 6 8 19 26 34 32 35 20 13 21 8 16 16 23 22 22 16 13 18 17 21 43 23 14 31

Green 89 69 50 Note: see text for details. Green concern and green consumers are scale measures ranging from least green (0) to most green (100). Green membership is based on whether respondents belong to at least one environmental group. Source: BSA-90.


involvement. Education proved particularly strong, as it did with environmental attitudes. Although income and class failed to predict support for green views, they did prove significant for who took an active part in environmentalism. Perhaps this reflects the fact that green consumers often have to be willing to pay extra for politically correct fruit and vegetables. Members of green groups tended to be well-educated, affluent middle-class professionals. Overall social background proved a better predictor of green activism than attitudes.

CONCLUSIONS

By the end of the 1980s it had become fashionable to claim that, as a result of the rise of the environmental movement, 'we are all green now'. Some accounted for the rise of environmentalism by reference to specific catalytic events which produced stimuli for environmental action: the public inquiry at Windscale, plans to develop a nuclear plant at Sizewell, the deployment of cruise missiles at Greenham Common and Chernobyl. Rudig and Lowe explain the fortunes of the Green Party by the way these events interacted with the established policy-making process, electoral system and party system in Britain."'

Others, following Inglehart, tended to emphasize broader cultural changes in post-material values.3* The post-materialist thesis suggests that there has been a long-term and fundamental shift from the 'old' politics of class to the 'new' politics concerned with the quality of life. Dalton found the number of post-materialists in Britain doubled from 1970 (8 per cent) to 1984 (17 per cent).33 As a result of value change, it can be argued, a new set of issues - environmental quality, nuclear energy, women's rights and consumerism - became increasingly salient, particularly among the younger and well- educated professional middle classes.

"See, Rudig and Lowe, op. cit. a Ronald Inglehart, Silent Revolution, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1977;

Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial S&Q, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990; Ronald Inglehart, Modernism and Post-Modernism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997.

Russell Dalton, Citizen Politics in Watern Dnnocmcia: Public q i n i i m and Political Partics in the United States, Gnat Britain, West Germany and Fmnce, Chatham, NJ, Chatham House, 1988, pp. 82-95.

ARE W E ALL GREEN NOW? 339

The conclusion of this article can be encapsulated in three major points. First, the extent of the change in public concern may be less than advocates commonly claim. The majority of the public does express worry about issues on the green agenda, from the excessive use of insecticides and chemical sprays to the risks of nuclear power stations, the quality of drinking water and the loss of plant and animal species. Yet as we have seen there has been little consistent increase in concern across a range of issues during the 1980s. Secondly, public attitudes towards the environment are divided in ways which reflect differences within the organized movement. Agreement about the need to preserve the countryside, a central aspect of the ‘old green agenda’, does not imply a similar consensus about the ‘new green’ or ‘anti-nuclear’ issues. Lastly, as expected, green activism was far stronger among the well-educated affluent salariat than among the traditional working class.

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Are We All Green Now? Public Opinion on Environmentalism ... · Are We All Green Now? Public Opinion on Environmentalism in Britain ... topics of energy and transport were equally