Population and the environment: Polls,policies, and public opinion

Although recent academic and popular attention has argued for a wedding between population and environmental problems and policies, the scientific knowledge base for these topics has grown separately and at differential rates. Environmental research has grown faster than population research, while the joint treatment of these topics remains in its infancy. International polls that have included many questions concerning environmental attitudes have included far fewer on population. The few surveys on population attitudes have ignored the environment. The World Fertility Survey and the Demographic and Health Survey are fertility, rather than population, surveys. They have been useful in precipitating national policies on family planning, but are poor models for needed attitudinal and cognitive research on population and the environment. Some contemporary polls, such as the UNDEP sponsored poll conducted by the Louis Harris Agency, have serious methodological defects. Others, such as the 1992 Gallup poll, contain valuable data from which future surveys could profit. The conclusion outlines the need for a new multinational survey of Population/Environment Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (PEKAP).An earlier version of this paper was published in Clarke, John and Leon Tabah (1995).Population—Environment—Development. Paris: CICRED.