Unintended Consequences

Hmmm. Turns out that those who identify with the environment the strongest tend to imperil it the most, by where they choose to live. Dean Bill Chameides of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke says,

Sometimes going green is counterproductive. Think corn ethanol. Or the new super-high mileage, low-cost car in India by Tata Motors. It may lead to more pollution by making it possible for millions of people to afford a car. Even more surprising is a recent study that concludes: people who identify strongest with the environment may imperil it the most — by where they choose to live.

Researcher M. Nils Peterson and colleagues compiled data from more than 400 households in the Teton Valley (of Wyoming and Idaho), arguably one of the country's most breathtaking areas, to gauge whether there is a consistent relationship between people’s attitudes about the environment and their behavior when it comes to deciding where to live.

The researchers, whose study was published in Conservation Biology, found that people who valued nature the most overwhelmingly chose to live in natural, relatively undeveloped areas. This, in spite of the fact that that choice eats away at the heart of what made them attractive in the first place – by placing natural, functioning ecosystems and the plants and animals that depend on them at risk from bulldozers and all that they bring.

Once the researchers compiled this data with other demographic information the picture became bleaker.

The people who valued nature the most also tended to be somewhat older and more educated and have smaller households. In contrast, somewhat younger, less educated people, to whom the environment was of less consequence, chose to live in established neighborhoods. These locations, ironically, had little direct impact on surrounding natural ecosystems. While there also appears to be a correlation between higher income and those choosing to live in natural areas, the study concluded that education more than wealth was the driver of this correlation (i.e., statistically speaking, wealthier people tend to be more educated).

So what is going on here? Why would people who care most about the environment (and, in light of their educational backgrounds, probably best understand the importance of leaving precious ecosystems undisturbed) choose to live in and thus disrupt those very same ecosystems?

Perhaps they believe that development is inevitable and they would be better stewards than others. Perhaps they think their little incursion into Mother Nature’s land is insignificant in the great scheme of things. Or perhaps they figure some development of pristine areas is okay, as long as it is done responsibly – in the same way that proper management of forests can maximize forest production.

The researchers conclude that their unexpected findings "demonstrate a need for environmentalists to make household location decisions that reflect their environmental attitudes."