Recent social scientific research has often dealt with public perceptions of climate change as an isolated topic. In contrast, we explored through qualitative interviews (n = 202) across five European countries how members of the public conceptualized climate change within a wider context of energy and the future, drawing on social representation theory.Our analysis suggests that, rather than separating between environmental issues, participants interpreted both climate change and energy consumption in a context of unsustainable resource use. Views on climate change were often very sceptical, but the unsustainability of contemporary resource use was almost unanimously of great concern. However, despite their strong plea for political change towards sustainability, many interviewees found it challenging to translate their views into behaviour. We argue that obstacles for behavioural change might lie in the tensions between cognitive, normative and affective aspects of people's representations, and conclude with recommendations for European climate change mitigation policies.
This article presents the results of an international comparative study on food self‐provisioning, an activity still widespread in the countries of the Global North. We collected the data in a sociological survey done in 2010 as a part of the household energy use research project GILDED. We selected a region with urban and rural areas as a case study in each of the five EU countries, including Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Our article raises two main research questions: (1) What is the level of food self‐provisioning in the regions? (2) Who participates in it? Additionally, we inquired into the motivations of self‐provisioners using the results of analyses of sociodemographic and food consumption habits for their interpretation. We found that the level of self‐provisioning varies considerably among the regions. Its share ranges from 13 percent in Dutch urban areas to 58 percent in German rural areas. The effects of some sociodemographic and geographic factors differ significantly among the countries. However, we can summarize that living in one's own property, living in a house or in a rural area, having a partner or children, being retired, or having a low income increases the probability of food self‐provisioning.
A shift from flood protection to flood risk management is occurring in many Western countries, but less is known about the social perception of floods and flood management changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The objective of this paper is to study the social perception of selected water‐related issues and to find possible compatibilities with existing flood management. A sociological survey was conducted within a local population living in flood plains in South Bohemia (N = 89). The results are discussed in relation to changes in Czech flood management governmental policies over the last 15 years. We conclude that the local population accepts floods as regular events, expects their increased frequency and prefers natural measures of flood mitigation. Czech flood management governmental policies are moving from flood defence and hard structural measures (e.g. dams) to flood risk management and more natural solutions (polders, free spill, etc.). However, there is still a strong legacy of a top‐down approach in governmental policies that hinders full incorporation of local perceptions into flood management.
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