Environmentalism and public

Abstract

The article deals with the relationship between environment and public opinion. Differently from social movements such as ecologism or conservationism, it is argued that environmentalism is better understood as one of the communicative and legitimating environments for the production and reproduction of arguments and topics for public opinion. It is also suggested that a key element for the production of arguments and topics related to the environment is the notion of risk, a rarely discussed issue in the context of developing countries.

Using this link between environmentalism and risk, some problems within the field of risk perception and risk evaluation studies are discussed, and in turn linked to the problem of studying public opinion on the environment. The paper ends with a brief conclusion which highlights the relevance of the notion of "capacity to confront the risks" to understand the variable level of importance that environmental problems have in public opinion in different countries.