Book reviews / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 529–537
methodologies and analyses to produce a comprehensive understanding of users and absent users of such places. Communication
with potential users is encouraged throughout the book because
awareness of their varied viewpoints can aid designers and planners in the creation of inclusive places.
Issues relating to specific populations who can be neglected
when planning everyday open spaces are rightly considered in
the book, but the applicability of these issues for spaces used by
all (inclusive design) is rarely discussed. The chapters encourage
reflection upon how designs might better accommodate these
individuals’ needs and preferences to ensure inclusive open spaces.
Considering the outcomes of the case studies, a goal of universal
design may at times seem improbable though, as successful specific
design attributes in one place may run counter to those in different
circumstances. Moreover, individual chapters recognise the diversity within and across groups of people that can create problems
with planned shared space. More importantly, the book raises
awareness of the diverse range of individuals’ open space needs
and benefits to be gained from access to quality open spaces.
Concepts and methods are introduced clearly and broadly,
making them accessible to a wide range of readers, yet provocatively enough to promote reflection upon their applicability. Therefore, the intended readers of ‘‘policy makers, researchers, urban
designers, landscape architects, planners, managers and students’’
(book blurb) should all be satisfied by the content of Open Space:
People Space. Similarly, the authors are key people representing
different academic disciplines, practicing architects and landscape
architects, and members/directors of organisations relating to
green spaces, social inclusion and public policy. As half of them
are associated with the OPENspace Research Centre in Edinburgh,
the majority of the research, historical and political context is in
reference to the UK and USA. This limits the book’s worldwide
perspective, although many of the ideas and discussions will surely
still be relevant to other westernised countries.
Overall, the book is well presented with plenty of images and
tables to supplement the text, making it an enjoyable, thoughtprovoking read. I find myself referring back to elements of the
book in conversations, thereby underlining its valuable contribution for the consideration of open spaces, their use and design.
Sarah Payne1
School of Information Studies,
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
E-mail address: sarah.payne@mail.mcgill.ca
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.10.007
Climate change 2007: Mitigation of climate change, Bert Metz,
Ogunlade Davidson, Peter Bosch, Rutu Dave, Leo Meyer (Eds.).
Cambridge University Press, New York (2007). 851 pp., $85.00
(paperback), ISBN: 978-0-521-70598-1
Bert Metz received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Delft
University. He is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and led the Netherlands delegation to
the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Convention.
He was elected co-chairman of the Working Group on Climate
1
Sarah Payne is a Post-Doctoral researcher at McGill University studying the
restorative value of soundscapes within urban parks. Her research interests are in
urban public spaces, affordances, restoration, soundscapes, fear of crime and
wayfinding.
533
Change Mitigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change of the UN for the third and fourth Assessment Report.
Ogunlade R. Davidson is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering
and served as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Fourah Bay
College, University of Sierra Leone. He is currently Dean of PostGraduate Studies at the University of Sierra Leone at that institution. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, and MacArthur Scholar at Princeton
University and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the USA in 1990–
1992. He has published extensively on African energy systems
and policies, power sector reform, renewable energy policy, mitigation of climate change and on national climate change strategy.
Rutu Dave received her Bachelors degree in Environmental
Sciences from the University of East Anglia (UK) in 2000. She was
awarded her Masters degree by Wageningen University
(Netherlands) in 2002. Furthermore she was a special student at
Yale University, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in
2001–2002, where she conducted research on Public Private Partnerships in the Renewable Energy Sector.
Leo Meyer is Head of the Technical Support Unit of the IPCC and
is a climate and energy specialist with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
Climate change 2007: Mitigation of climate change is not light
reading for a summer afternoon. With 851 large format pages, it’s
not light anything and that sense is only magnified when you get
to the content. This is a serious report organized by four scientists
with contributions from hundreds of others (it takes 12 pages just
to list all the contributors!) Climate Change 2007 is not something
you sit down and read – it is a reference book, and a valuable one
for anyone who is serious about understanding the present and
future of climate policy.
This volume, actually, is only one of a set that make up the Fourth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), the others being a description of the scientific basis
for the analysis, and an analysis of the consequences of climate
change for natural and human systems. The IPCC has good breeding,
established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ‘‘to provide the
world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate
change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.’’ (http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm) For
good measure, it also shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore
two years ago for this effort. However, winning a Nobel Prize does
not necessarily assure an easy path. As reported recently in the
New York Times (Revkin, 2009), the IPCC has had some difficulty
straddling the boundaries of science and international politics
given the rather strict limitations on its mandate to present the
evidence but not make specific policy recommendations. The
interface between science and policy has many twists and turns
that can be very awkward to navigate.
While much the nitty-gritty of what this report covers will be
most comfortably read and best understood by physical scientists,
this book is designed largely to serve policy makers because that
is where the action is. It is policy makers in governments
throughout the globe who can do what is necessary to move us
from the most pessimistic to more optimistic scenarios these scientists have created. The volumes address five questions:
-
How can Global Climate Change be reduced or avoided?
What are the costs of action versus inaction?
What is the critical timeline available for action?
What are the policy options available to ‘‘overcome the barriers
to implementation’’ (p. ix)?
- How do these policies options align with other sustainable
development policies?
534
Book reviews / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 529–537
Even though issues of human behavior are embedded in all
policy questions, from how policy is made to assessing barriers to
implementation, and finally measuring its impacts on people and
social systems, this volume doesn’t dwell on psychology other
than to occasionally note its relevance. Psychology does make an
occasional entrance, such as in section 6 – ‘‘Residential and
Commercial Buildings’’ – where they note that:
‘‘The energy use of a building also depends on the behavior and
decisions of occupants and owners. Classic studies at Princeton
University showed energy use variations of more than a factor of
two between houses that were identical but had different occupants (Socolow, 1978). Levermore (1985) found a variation of 40%
gas consumption and 54% electricity consumption in nine identical
children’s homes in a small area of London. When those in charge
of the homes knew that their consumption was being monitored,
the electricity consumption fell. Behaviour of the occupants of
non-residential buildings also has a substantial impact on energy
use, especially when the lighting, heating and ventilation are
controlled manually (Ueno, Sano, Saeki & Tsuji., 2006)’’ (p. 389).
In spite of all the well-reported difficulties in getting governments to make significant progress, and the appropriate level of
concern, and even alarm, that is increasingly voiced about the prospects for avoiding the worst effects of Global Climate Change in
news reports and other discussions, I found more hopeful portents
in this book than is often acknowledged. Scenarios are presented
here that address the problems. There are answers in science
leading to policy that can make a difference. Not surprisingly, the
barriers are political and social. There is no doubt where these
scientists stand on the question that is only an issue in the minds
of some climate change deniers – global climate change is
happening, it is getting worse, it will have serious effects human,
social and economic effects, and ‘‘increasing emissions of GHGs
due to human activities (emphasis mine) have led to a marked
increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations’’ (p. 3).
The 12 chapters here have details that address the breadth and
scope of the climate problem, including energy, transportation,
building, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management,
but it is the ‘‘Summary for Policy Makers’’ that will be most read.
The trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions that they identify are
unmistakable – a 70% increase in emissions between 1990 and
2004, a growth from 28.7 to 49 GigaTonnes of CO2 equivalent gas.
The worst offender here is the energy supply sector (up145%),
followed by transportation (þ120%), industry (þ65%). Agriculture
(þ27%) and building (þ26%) are pikers by comparison. Some would
argue that much of the problem of pollution is driven by world
population growth, which was þ69% in the same period.
It is important to remember that there have been useful policy
successes that provide lessons in the Global Climate Change discussions. Emissions of ozone depleting substances in 2004 were onefifth of 1990 levels, following the successful efforts in the late
20th century drive to reduce and eventually eliminate use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC). They also note that trends in energy production and sustainable development have been effective, though not
yet of large enough scale to make a major difference.
The IPCC, by the way, believes in truth in packaging. After each
policy related projection they indicated the level of agreement
among scientific reviewer and the quality of the evidence behind
it. For instance, there is a high level of agreement and strong evidenced behind the assertion that, given current policy and without
mitigation, GHG emissions will grow from 9.7 to 36.7 GiCO2, mostly
from growth in developing countries, although per capita use in
developed countries will still be far higher. They are also careful
to use appropriately probabilistic terminology to describe future
events, even where more definitive (if less defensible) statements
might be more effective in prompting action. It is important to
note, though, that humans are poor at interpreting probability
and likelihood statements such as those used in this report. In
fact, a recent study (Budescu, Broomell, & Por, 2009) demonstrated
that people who read these IPCC statements misinterpreted them,
overestimating the amount of uncertainty in the findings.1 These
authors provide useful suggestions about ways reports like this
IPCC volume might better describe likelihood probabilities to so
that that can be more accurately understood.
The hopeful part comes from the scenario options they build. If
political will can be built (granted, a very big ‘‘if’’) there are scenarios
presented here that could lead to reductions in GiTCO2 from 20% to
60%. While the assumptions are mostly technical, the behavioural
aspects keep creeping in. It seems you can’t really effect change
without addressing behavior. ‘‘Changes in lifestyle and behaviour
patterns can contribute to climate change mitigation across all
sectors’’ (p. 12) including education, technological choices, transportation demand, and rewards and feedback in industry for efficiency.
In order to stabilize the levels of GHG in the atmosphere, they point
out, emissions need to peak and then decline. The level of short term
success in reaching these goals will determine the long term potential for lower stabilization levels.
The Kyoto accords have been much maligned in the press and by
some politicians, but here it is noted for its success in getting this
ball rolling by the ‘‘establishment of a global response to the climate
problem, stimulation of an array of national policies, the creation of
an international carbon market and the establishment of new institutional mechanisms that may provide the foundation for future
mitigation effort.’’ (p. 21) (a statement they make, it should be
noted, with ‘‘high agreement, much evidence’’). Part of the hope for
the future is that ‘‘successful agreements are environmentally
effective, cost-effective, incorporate distributional considerations
and equity, and are institutionally feasible (high agreement, much
evidence).’’ (p. 21).
We have then, a major report internationally recognized for its
thoroughness that makes reference to but barely touches psychological issues in cause, change implementation or impact. The
perfect companion to this book – especially for JEP readers – may
be the report that was recently issued by the American Psychological Association on ‘‘Psychology and Global Climate Change’’ (Swim
et al., 2009) available through the APA website. While the IPCC book
provides the scientific data about what is happening, and scenarios
for what could happen under various policy conditions, the APA
report provides great detail on what are the human drivers of
climate change, how current and projected change will impact
human behavior and systems, and what might be done to change
human behavior to avert, delay, or minimize these impacts. There
is a massive (size, it seems, does count) 120 page literature review,
replete with discussion of issues and recommendations for future
research, as well as policy implications.
The APA report was certainly intended to be a call for action to
psychologists to re-energize research on the connections between
environment and behavior. One can hope that researchers will
respond to the call and in the process provide a much needed injection of energy toward the growth of environmental psychology
which, in the U.S. at least, has languished since the budget cuts of
the Reagan years, with little growth in degrees offered, courses
provided, and tenure-track lines available in major universities.
The popular and recently overused saying that one should never
waste a good crisis suggests that crises offer opportunities for seachange and paradigmatic shifts as they force an unfreezing of
1
I thank Bob Gifford for pointing out the relevance of that study to this review.
Book reviews / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 529–537
traditional modes of operating. Global Climate Change has all the
elements of a crisis that has great risks but also the potential for
significant social and economic change. Environmental Psychology
should be – needs to be – involved in finding ways to make sure
critical policy is implemented in a way that maximizes the chances
of success with minimal human suffering. In the process, the field
itself may grow and flourish.
References
Budescu, D. V., Broomell, S., & Por, H. H. (2009). Improving communication of
uncertainty in the reports of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.
Psychological Science, 20(3), 299–308.
Levermore, G. J. (1985). Monitoring and targeting; motivation and training. In A. F.
C. Sherratt (Ed.) (pp. 21–30). Cambridge, UK: CICC.
Revkin, A. C. (2009). Nobel Halo Fades fast for climate change panel. New York Times.
August 3, 2009p. D1.
Socolow, R. H. (1978). Saving energy in the home: Princeton’s experiments at Twin
Rivers. Ballinger Publishing Company.
Swim, J., Clayton, S., Doherty, T., Gifford, R., Howard, G., Reser, J., et al. (2009).
Psychology and global climate change: Addressing a multi-faceted phenomenon
and set of challenges. A report by the American Psychological Association’s Task
Force on the interface between psychology and global climate change. Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.
Ueno, T, Sano, F, Saeki, O, & Tsuji, K (2006). Effectiveness of an energy-consumption
information system on energy savings in residential houses based on monitored data. Applied Energy, 83(2), 166–183.
Richard E. Wener2
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Polytechnic Institute
of NYU, 6 Merotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States
E-mail address: rwener@poly.edu
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.10.008
Meeting environmental challenges: The role of human identity,
Tom Crompton, Tim Kasser. Godalming, Surrey: World Wildlife
Federation-UK (2009). ISBN 978-1-900322-64-5, 81 pp., £8.00.
Also available as a free download at. www.wwf.org.uk/
strategiesforchange
Tom Compton is Change Strategist at the World Wildlife Federation– UK (Godalming, Surrey, UK) where he authored the 2008
WWF-UK report, Weathercocks and Signposts: The Environmental
Movement at a Crossroads.
Tim Kasser is Professor of Psychology at Knox College (Galesburg,
Illinois, USA). He is co-editor of Psychology and Consumer Culture:
The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World (APA, 2004)
and author of The High Price of Materialism (MIT Press, 2002) as
well as dozens of journal articles and book chapters on the relationship
between people’s values and goals, their quality of life, and their social
and environmental behaviors.
This slim volume is one in a series of publications produced as
part of the WWF’s Strategies for Change Project, which aims to
evaluate critically the empirical bases for commonly used strategies
in environmental campaigns, so as to shed light on why today’s
campaigns are not creating the ‘‘level of change that is needed.’’
The booklet is targeted at environmental organizations, including
both professional groups and those working in the non-profit
volunteer sector. In their Introduction, the authors make a persuasive case for why the two dominant strategies in the environmental
2
Richard Wener is professor of environmental psychology and co-chair of
the program in Sustainable Urban Environments. His interests include post
occupancy evaluation of green buildings, environmental stress, distracted
attention in urban settings, and design-behavior in correctional settings.
535
movementdpushing for policy changes in governmental and business organizations and encouraging individual behavior changedare not likely to produce adequate long-term systemic
solutions in the absence of additional strategies that they label
identity campaigning. In their words,
Our proposal is that acquiring an understanding of the
psychological make-up of the person who participants in
organizations and who makes private-sphere behavioral
choices, will help both of the dominant approaches to be more
effective. Further, identity campaigning will help environmental
organizations to foresee and avoid some of the ways in which
current strategies may have counter-productive effects. Finally,
understanding the psychological make-up of the person opens
up a number of additional types of interventions that can be
used in efforts to address environmental problems. (p. 4)
In the sections that follow, the authors focus on three aspects of
human identity that ‘‘create proclivities towards unsustainable
behavior’’: holding materialistic values and life goals; defining
non-human nature as an out-group relative to the self; and coping
with threats to existence, self-esteem, and identity in comforting
but environmentally unfriendly ways. The authors do not claim
that these three factors comprise a complete list, or even that
they are the most important ones to examine, but explain that
they focus on them based on empirical evidence that these three
features of identity contribute to unsustainable behavior and that
they are amenable to intervention. In Part 1, Human Identity and
Environmental Challenges, the authors briefly review some theoretical ideas and empirical research that suggest how each of the three
facets of identity may contribute to unsustainable behavior. In Part
2, Identity Campaigning: Strategies for Addressing the Environmentally Problematic Aspects of Human Identity, they suggest strategies
that environmental organizations might adopt to minimize iatrogenic effects of environmental campaigns (i.e., common tactics
that may actual exacerbate the identity-related problems), to
change features of society that support the problematic aspects of
identity, and to promote alternative self-definitions and coping
mechanisms that are likely to result in environmentally friendly
behaviors.
Given a general lack of directly relevant experimental data to
support their points, the authors make some assumptions and
claims throughout their discussion that at times seemed debatable
to this reader. For example, following their review of several correlational and quasi-experimental studies the authors describe the
gist of the problem with materialistic values and goals,
to the extent people prioritise values and goals such as
achievement, money, power, status and image, they tend to hold
more negative attitudes towards the environment, are less likely
to engage in positive environmental behaviors, and are more
likely to use natural resources unsustainably (p. 10).
The implications – that materialistic values and goals precede
anti-environmental attitudes and behaviors, and the suggested
solutions, that environmental organizations first decrease the
extent to which they, themselves, model materialistic values and,
secondly, develop programs and policies that promote ‘‘intrinsic,
self-transcendent values’’ (p. 28)drest on the assumption that
environmental groups’ promotion of non-materialistic values will
lead to different behaviors in individual citizens. Recognizing that
correlation does not equal causation, and that the stubborn attitude-behavior gap is always with us, the authors, themselves, say,
‘‘We have presented evidence that individuals who hold more
intrinsic and self-transcendent values are more likely to engage
in pro-environmental behavior. Nevertheless, it is important to