Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683 DOI 10.1007/s11356-014-3221-0
RESEARCH AND EDUCATION HIGHLIGHTS
Survey on environmental awareness of Shanghai college students Deyu Kong & Egil Ytrehus & Anne Jarmot Hvatum & He Lin
Received: 4 September 2013 / Accepted: 17 June 2014 / Published online: 29 June 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
Introduction It is well known that environmental problems have become worldwide, which have great influences not only on economy, but also on human health. China’s environment situation has become a topic both domestically and internationally, especially during last decades of economic growth and rapid development. The environmental situation in China is described by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP 2012) in its “2012 Report on the State of the Environment in China” as “severe.” Urban air pollution and water pollution are environmental issues with big problems in large parts of China; according to MEP’s report “the quality of national water environment allows no optimism,” only 23.9 % of Chinese cities meet the national air quality standard. Besides these examples of local environmental issues that affect people and their daily lives, China’s emission of green house gases and their contribution to global warming have got considerable international media attention. As a part of the environment, people’s behavior and environmental awareness will influence the surroundings in return. Although China is a socialist country, the general public has relatively much less direct influence on policy and the political developments of the state in this era (The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1982). Social scientists have done research on environmental governance in China (Carter and Mol 2007; Xue et al. 2007) that the general public elected their Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues D. Kong (*) : H. Lin Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China e-mail: [email protected] E. Ytrehus : A. J. Hvatum Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag 0072, Norway
delegates of the People’s Congress to participate in the administration and discussion of the state affairs in China. In this way, the general public’s views on different policies and political matters could therefore possible have an indirect effect on the policies of the state. However, it is still important to learn about how the Chinese general public thinks about environmental issues as well as their opinions and views on different environmental problems and environmental-related concerns. Students, as a group, together with their views and opinions about environmental concerns and issues, are especially significant because students represent the future educated workforce, future developers of technology, energy systems, and probably policy. In addition, college students (carry the responsibility of sustainable development) can be the backbone of sustainable development strategy in the future, as they will be the policy makers, managers, and executives in economy, technology, and social aspects. Besides, after the enrollment of different jobs, their environmental awareness and behavior can influence more people. Obviously, college students’ environmental awareness is an important factor in environment protection. This report looks into the opinions and priorities of the students concerning environmental issues. Through a surveybased approach, this report will investigate and analyze the influences of various factors in correlation with the respondents’ environmental views, which may lead to a deeper understanding of these results. Only one report similar to this subject about the environmental awareness in China is found during the literature study: a survey from universities in Beijing from 1998 (Wong 2003). Considering the importance of environmental questions, the significance of students as a group in today’s society, and especially the significance role of college student in the future Chinese society, it is important to get a deeper understanding of their views and opinions on environmental issues and environmental concerns.
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
Methodology The questionnaire has two sections. Section one presents the background about the respondents concerning their gender, field of study, study level, hometown, and family income; section two measures the understanding level of college students on environmental issues in different respects, which consists questions like urgency of environmental concerns, idea of renewable energy, the responsibility to protect the environment and favorable rating of renewable energy sources, etc. Some of the items for the survey were primarily derived modified from the city-wide studies before. Others are designed according to the actual situation such as respondents’ characteristic and national conditions. The questionnaire was conducted among students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, East China Normal University, Fudan University, and Tongji University in Shanghai China. The survey was conducted in Chinese. The main target population was Chinese students. The idea behind using a quantitative research is to get numeric data that can be used to compare different variables. Numeric data give an overall view of opinions and priorities concerning environmental issues of college students in Shanghai China. The total sample size was 753, of which 527 majored in science and engineering and 226 majored in liberal arts. Of all the respondents, 63 % were males and 37 % were females. We do survey in June and July, and some students of liberal arts had gone out of school, which may explain this phenomenon. The education levels among the students in this survey are divided into undergraduate, postgraduate, and PHD. The number shows that almost 60 % of the students are undergraduate, 30 % are post graduated, and only 13 % are PHDs. The students’ family income level was also taken into consideration in the survey, into three categories as under 3,000 Yuan per month, from 3,000 to 6,000 Yuan per month, and over 6,000 Yuan per month according to average family income status in China (China Statistical Yearbook 2012). Hometown is defined as a first, second, or third degree city, in accordance to a well-known Chinese classification system. China’s first-class cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Second-class cities include mainly capital of provinces, some regional central cities, and other economically developed cities. Third-class cities refer to large- or medium-sized cities in economic developed provinces.
Results and discussions Urgency rating of environmental issues Results and anaylsises are shown as the following about the most urgent environmental issues in the college students’ eyes. Participants were asked to rate a number of environmental
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issues on a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 was defined as very urgent and 1 as not urgent at all. Average ratings As shown in Fig. 1, the trend of urgency ratings illustrates these students’ preference. Overall, most respondents regard environmental problem very urgent. For better understanding, Fig. 2 shows the urgency by average scores. From Fig. 2, it can be concluded that all environmental issues are rated over moderately urgent. Urban air pollution rates the most urgent environmental issue with an average score of 4.37, followed by water pollution with 4.21, which comes the second vital issue. Few people rated these two problems as “not urgent at all” or “not urgent” (only around 5 %). Global warming and solid waste pollution are put less emphasis, which average rating scores are around 3.75. Deforestation, noise pollution, and acid rain are regarded as the least urgent environmental concerns, with scores around 3.5, still rated very high in general. This indicates that environmental issues are viewed as quite urgent among Chinese students in Shanghai, a worldwide metropolitan, which was different from the conclusion of “Study on Comparison of Citizens’ Environmental Awareness among Four Cities in China and Japan” (Lin 2011) that environmental awareness of Japanese citizen was better than that of Chinese citizens. People in China are suffering from severe air and water pollutions (MEP 2012) which have close relationship with human health and life quality, which makes it not surprising that these two aspects come as the most urgent problems. Global warming is unexpected to rate as the third highest environmental issue. Global warming has been a worldwide problem since The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009. The side effects of global warming have already been recognized in Canada, where recent warm winters have broken the biological balance, and in Australia, whose forests have been devastated by drought and forest fires. However, its consequences are hard to pinpoint comparing with the first two problems, and it is not usual to detail local problems to this global environmental problem. Overall, students in China turn out to be more concerned about local environment problems rather than macro ones which are far from the lives they experienced. The urgency rating results vary from the responses to view of environmental problem urgency acquired in England (Richmond 1978; Jenkins and Pell 2006), South Australia (Worsley and Skrzypiec 1998), and Singapore (Ivy et al. 1998). Of the English respondents, 16.3 % considered no problems in their community, while 14.4 % regarded land use the most serious one in 1978. Twenty-nine years later, public concerns changed to radiation dangers and ozone destruction. South Australia saw a similar trend that ozone layer holes attracted second most attention, with power sources the first. When it comes to
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Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
Fig. 1 Urgency rating of environmental issues (percentage)
60 0=not sure/dont want to answer 50 1 = not urgent at all 40
percentage
2 = not urgent 30 3 = moderately urgent 20 4 = urgent 10 5 = very urgent 0
50 % of the males which indicates that females are generally more concerned about global warming and rate it much more urgent than males do. This difference in rating of global warming according to gender is similar to the findings of A, B, and C that women express more concern over potential environmental risks (Blocker and Eckberg 1997; Davidson and Freudenburg 1996; Fortmann and Kusel 1990) and more likely to participate in protection movements (Mohai 1997; Ozanne et al. 1999). According to Davidson and Freudenburg, five hypotheses can explain this phenomenon, which refers to knowledgeable
Singapore, rubbish disposal was perceived to be the most urgent problem (17.7 %) followed by land use (17.4 %). Gender influence In order to study the influence of gender on urgency rating, cross analysis is used here. Figure 3 illustrates the rating of each gender for the urgency of global warming, and similar trend was found during cross analyzing about other environmental problems. Over 75 % of the females rated global warming “very urgent” or “urgent,” compared to fewer than Fig. 2 Urgency rating of environmental issues (average scores)
5.00 4.50
Average Score
4.00 3.50 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00
Average rang
Urban air polluon
Water polluon
Global warming
Solid waste polluon
Deforistao n
Noise polluon
Acid rain
4.37
4.21
3.75
3.74
3.54
3.44
3.37
1=not urgent at all, 2= not urgent, 3=moderately urgent, 4 = urgent, 5= very urgent
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683 Fig. 3 Gender factor influence on urgency rating of global warming (percentage)
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100% 90%
5=very urgent
80% 4=urgent
Persentage
70% 60%
3=moderately urgent
50% 2=not urgent
40% 30%
1=not urgent at all 20% 10%
0=not sure/don’t want to answer
0% male
support hypothesis, institutional trust hypothesis, economic salience hypothesis, safety concerns hypothesis, and parental roles hypothesis, respectively. However, further investigation should be done to discover the explanation, which required further research. Similar trends are found among analysis on other aspects despite urban air pollution, as illustrated in Fig. 4. Figure 4 illustrates that both male and female shared almost the same attitude towards urban air problems. According to the air quality report of China, it was acceptable that air pollution brought such severe crisis that both genders regard it as the most vital issues, for its vital roles in human’s daily lives. So, gender difference is more applicable when the consequences are less specific, harder to pinpoint, and more of a future concern (such as global warming). Comparison with Beijing Figure 5 compares the average ratings of this survey with the average ratings from a survey done among Chinese students of universities in Beijing in 1998 (Wong 2003:519–536), which used the same rating system as this survey. As the figure illustrates, environmental problems were on average rated with a higher urgency in the survey from Beijing for all environmental categories. There are many possible factors which could partly explain the differences for each environmental category. The geographical difference should be considered the first, together with cultural and environmental differences from Shanghai to Beijing. Secondly, there is a 15-year time difference between the two surveys, and it would be strange if there was no change over this timeframe, considering the enormous changes China has been through over
female
this period economically, politically, culturally, and also environmentally. It is beyond the scope of this report to investigate these factors individually, but both surveys saw similar trends of high urgency rating for the environmental issues. Prioritization: environment protection or economic growth In order to figure out whether college students will still insist to precede environmental protection under economic stress or not, their attitudes towards this issue was investigated. Their attitudes were measured rating from 1 to 5, with 1 defined as “completely disagree” and 5 defined as “completely agree.” The resulting distribution is given in Fig. 6. As shown in Fig. 6, approximately 62 % of the participants explained their agreements about that environmental protection should be prioritized over economic growth, which was more than four times the share of students of the opposite opinion. This tendency that Chinese students prioritized environment protection over economy growth indicates a high sense of environmental awareness of Chinese college students. Although the economy is certainly related to all people, they still prioritize the environment over the economy, which indicates that they pay attention to environmental problems and the importance of environment for human sustainable development. Family income and hometown factors Figure 7 illustrates the distribution of the prioritization above by family income. Apparently, students from families with income lower than 3,000 Yuan have a tendency to prioritize environmental concern lower than those from higher-income
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Fig. 4 Gender factor influence on urgency rating of urban air pollution (percentage)
100% 90% 5=very urgent 80% 4=urgent
Persentage
70% 60%
3=moderately urgent
50% 40%
2=not urgent
30%
1=not urgent at all
20% 0=not sure/don’t want to answer
10% 0% male
Average Score
families, which represented more priority on environmental concerns. According to the Human Needs Theory of Maslow (Maslow 1943), only after biological and security needs are fed can people focus on social needs. If lacking economic security, people tend to be busy securing their primary needs without having the capability to concern themselves with other things such as better environment for sustainable development. Students from families with lower income may have been affected by the priorities of their family through upbringing, so they tend to favor economic development rather than environment protection. Compared to them, those who come
5.00 4.50 4.00 3.50 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00
female
from families with higher income hold the opposite opinion because they and their families have had the time and effort to focus on more macro issues. Figure 8 illustrates the distribution by the students’ hometown classification. As mentioned in “Methodology”, to some degree, the hometown classification represents the development situation of a city, and generally speaking, first-class cities being more developed than second and third class. The results of this distribution are in compliance with the analysis of the family income factor: the better developed hometowns of the students are, the more they are willing to prioritize the environment. This tendency is very clear; almost 60 % of the
Urban air polluon
Water polluon
Global warming
Solid waste polluon
Deforistaon
Noise polluon
Acid rain
Average Shanghai
4.37
4.21
3.75
3.74
3.54
3.44
3.37
Average Beijing
4.5
4.6
4.2
4.6
3.6
3.5
1=not urgent at all, 2= not urgent, 3=moderately urgent, 4 = urgent, 5= very urgent Fig. 5 Comparison with research in Beijing on urgency rating of environmental issues
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683 Fig. 6 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (overall view)
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Environmental protection v.s. Economic Growth 5
Score
4 3 2 1 0 0.00
Percentage
5.00
0 0.39
10.00
1 1.57
15.00
2 12.55
20.00
25.00
3 23.92
30.00
4 35.29
35.00
40.00
5 26.27
0=I don’t know/don’t want to answer, 1= completely disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 3=neither disagree or agree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5= completely agree
students from first-class cites completely agreed to the statement, compared to fewer than 20 % of the students from third degree cities. Gender factor Gender factor also influences the attitude towards this issue. According to Fig. 9, over 35 % of female students completely agree with the statement that environmental concerns should be prioritized over economic development, and only 8.5 % of females disagree with this statement. This is quite different from the male participants, of which 20 % disagreed with this statement. The neutral percentages of male and female are different too. Males tend to be more neutral towards this Fig. 7 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (family income comparison)
competition between environment and economy with a ratio of nearly 30 %. There are several possible reasons of this phenomenon. Firstly, males are expected to take more economic responsibility not only at home but also in society due to the family roles they will play in future (Blocker and Eckberg 1997), which makes them more anxious when faced with economic problems. Secondly, females have a nature to be compassionate, which makes them worry about the damage of environmental issues will bring and urge to cure these problems to ensure the sustainable development of their offspring. Thirdly, males are more knowledgeable about given technological controversy than women (Davidson and Freudenburg 1996). Without giving the content of environmental concerns and the
100% agree
90% 80%
Percentage
70%
neutral
60% 50% disagree
40% 30% 20%
have no idea/don’t want to answer
10% 0% 6000
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Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
Percentage
Fig. 8 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (hometown comparison)
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
5 4 3 2 1 1st-Class City
2nd-Class City
3rd-Class City
0
0=I don’t know/don’t want to answer, 1= completely disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 3=neither disagree or agree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5= completely agree
degree of influence on economic growth, quite a lot of students choose to hold their own thinking without taking a side. In this part, neutral ration of male students are much higher than female students. Fig. 9 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (gender comparison)
Environmental responsibility Table 1 provides the average number of responsibility to protect the environment according to the students’ answers.
Gender Factor Influence 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
5
20%
4
10%
3
0%
Male
Female
2
5
21.25%
35.11%
1
4
33.75%
37.23%
0
3
26.88%
19.15%
2
15.63%
7.45%
1
1.88%
1.06%
0
0.63%
0
0=I don’t know/don’t want to answer, 1= completely disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 3=neither disagree or agree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5= completely agree
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
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Table 1 Students’ responses to perception of environmental responsibility (by average number and rank order, respectively) Total sample
Government Industry General public Other environmental protection organization
Male
Average number
Rank
Average number
Rank
Average number
Rank
3.54 3.41 2.81 2.73
1 2 3 4
3.52 3.29 2.7 2.64
1 2 3 4
3.59 3.61 2.9 2.89
2 1 3 4
protect the environment maybe is that the general public of China has quite limited direct influence on politics and policies. Since environmental issues are so comprehensive and their causes are so complex, participants may feel the general public does not have the power to take responsibility for the environment.
The participants were asked to rate the responsibilities of these actors from 1 to 4, with 1 defined as “no responsibility,” and 4 defined as “a lot of responsibility.” As shown in Table 1, the government was regarded to take the most responsibility. As all students have a consensus that no body or institution should be responsible for environmental protection solely, “everybody” selection was excluded. This item is designed to study which body or institution should take more responsibility in the students’ view. In the survey of Tan Geok-Chin Ivy, similar results were also presented. Students regarding Government and National Council on the environment responsible accounts to 81 %, with those who chose “everyone should take responsibility” excluded. As Fig. 10 shows, almost 65 % of the students hold the opinion that the government has a lot of responsibility to protect the environment, and almost 50 % of the students think that the industry has a lot of responsibility. Contrary to the responsibility of the government and the industry, one can see from the results that only 19 % of the students think that the general public has a lot of responsibility. The reason why the students in Shanghai think that the government and the industry have a lot of responsibility to Fig. 10 Environmental responsibility (percentage)
Female
Pay extra for environmental friendly power Figure 11 illustrates the distribution of students’ responses about willingness to pay extra for environmental friendly power. Almost 80 % of the respondents were, to some degree, willing to pay more for renewable electricity, and only about 20 % were not willing to pay more. It can be concluded that Chinese students are in general willing to pay extra for electricity if it was guaranteed renewable. Considering that in the last 20 years, the Chinese society has developed its economy in some part by the expense of the environment, it is staggering that the majority of Chinese students are willing to make the kind of private opposite choice. The result is even more apparent when compared to a similar Norwegian survey. “Den
70.00% 60.00%
Percentage
50.00%
government
40.00%
industry
30.00% general public 20.00% other environmental protecon organisaons
10.00% 0.00% 0
1
2 Selection(0-4)
3
4
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Fig. 11 Willingness to pay extra (percentage)
Are you willing to pay extra for environmental friendly electricity? 21.57%
78.43%
willing to not willing to
deregulerte forbruker” from Norway by Henrik Karlstrøm (2010:12) asked the same question among 1,500 participants of the general public (not exclusively students). In the Norwegian survey, almost 65 % of the participants were willing to pay more for electricity if it was guaranteed renewable, 15 % lower than the almost 80 % of the college students in Shanghai (Fig. 12). It is not saying that Norway citizens refuse to accept renewable energy. The existing way of electricity production should be taken into consideration. In Norway, most of the electric energy is already renewable hydro power, while most of the electric energy in China is produced by coal power. Considering the Chinese students’ sense of urgency for environmental problems such as urban air pollution, and coal power as a pollutionintensive energy supply, it is therefore no wonder that Chinese students are more willing to pay for cleaner electricity. Relevant data shows that consumers were willing to choose higher-priced environmental-friendly products (Irland 1993), especially when the product quality was also guaranteed (Rao
Percentage
Fig. 12 Urgency rating of environmental issues (average scores)
and Bergen 1992). Considering China is still viewed as a developing country and the limited private resources of the general public, it is further interesting to see if the economic background of the students affects their views on this matter. Figure 13 illustrates the willingness to pay more for renewable electricity by family-income category. As Fig. 13 illustrates, students from families earning more than 6,000 Yuan per month have a tendency to be more willing to pay for renewable electricity. Obviously, people are influenced by their growing-up conditions. The better their family conditions, the more they will focus on other problems than economic pressure. The influence of development standard of students’ hometown had a lot of similarity. According to Fig. 14, students from first-class city and second-class city were more willing to pay extra, accounted to almost 70 % of those willing to pay extra for environmental-friendly power. Lots of students in Shanghai China are aware of that new technology can be used widely only by means of financial support. Economy can
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
SJTU
Norway (2010)
Dont know/dont want to answer
No
Yes
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
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Fig. 13 Willingness to pay extra for environmental-friendly power (family income comparison)
Family Income Influence 100% 90% 80%
Percentage
70% 60%
>6000
50%
3000-6000
40%
RESEARCH AND EDUCATION HIGHLIGHTS
Survey on environmental awareness of Shanghai college students Deyu Kong & Egil Ytrehus & Anne Jarmot Hvatum & He Lin
Received: 4 September 2013 / Accepted: 17 June 2014 / Published online: 29 June 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
Introduction It is well known that environmental problems have become worldwide, which have great influences not only on economy, but also on human health. China’s environment situation has become a topic both domestically and internationally, especially during last decades of economic growth and rapid development. The environmental situation in China is described by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP 2012) in its “2012 Report on the State of the Environment in China” as “severe.” Urban air pollution and water pollution are environmental issues with big problems in large parts of China; according to MEP’s report “the quality of national water environment allows no optimism,” only 23.9 % of Chinese cities meet the national air quality standard. Besides these examples of local environmental issues that affect people and their daily lives, China’s emission of green house gases and their contribution to global warming have got considerable international media attention. As a part of the environment, people’s behavior and environmental awareness will influence the surroundings in return. Although China is a socialist country, the general public has relatively much less direct influence on policy and the political developments of the state in this era (The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1982). Social scientists have done research on environmental governance in China (Carter and Mol 2007; Xue et al. 2007) that the general public elected their Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues D. Kong (*) : H. Lin Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China e-mail: [email protected] E. Ytrehus : A. J. Hvatum Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag 0072, Norway
delegates of the People’s Congress to participate in the administration and discussion of the state affairs in China. In this way, the general public’s views on different policies and political matters could therefore possible have an indirect effect on the policies of the state. However, it is still important to learn about how the Chinese general public thinks about environmental issues as well as their opinions and views on different environmental problems and environmental-related concerns. Students, as a group, together with their views and opinions about environmental concerns and issues, are especially significant because students represent the future educated workforce, future developers of technology, energy systems, and probably policy. In addition, college students (carry the responsibility of sustainable development) can be the backbone of sustainable development strategy in the future, as they will be the policy makers, managers, and executives in economy, technology, and social aspects. Besides, after the enrollment of different jobs, their environmental awareness and behavior can influence more people. Obviously, college students’ environmental awareness is an important factor in environment protection. This report looks into the opinions and priorities of the students concerning environmental issues. Through a surveybased approach, this report will investigate and analyze the influences of various factors in correlation with the respondents’ environmental views, which may lead to a deeper understanding of these results. Only one report similar to this subject about the environmental awareness in China is found during the literature study: a survey from universities in Beijing from 1998 (Wong 2003). Considering the importance of environmental questions, the significance of students as a group in today’s society, and especially the significance role of college student in the future Chinese society, it is important to get a deeper understanding of their views and opinions on environmental issues and environmental concerns.
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
Methodology The questionnaire has two sections. Section one presents the background about the respondents concerning their gender, field of study, study level, hometown, and family income; section two measures the understanding level of college students on environmental issues in different respects, which consists questions like urgency of environmental concerns, idea of renewable energy, the responsibility to protect the environment and favorable rating of renewable energy sources, etc. Some of the items for the survey were primarily derived modified from the city-wide studies before. Others are designed according to the actual situation such as respondents’ characteristic and national conditions. The questionnaire was conducted among students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, East China Normal University, Fudan University, and Tongji University in Shanghai China. The survey was conducted in Chinese. The main target population was Chinese students. The idea behind using a quantitative research is to get numeric data that can be used to compare different variables. Numeric data give an overall view of opinions and priorities concerning environmental issues of college students in Shanghai China. The total sample size was 753, of which 527 majored in science and engineering and 226 majored in liberal arts. Of all the respondents, 63 % were males and 37 % were females. We do survey in June and July, and some students of liberal arts had gone out of school, which may explain this phenomenon. The education levels among the students in this survey are divided into undergraduate, postgraduate, and PHD. The number shows that almost 60 % of the students are undergraduate, 30 % are post graduated, and only 13 % are PHDs. The students’ family income level was also taken into consideration in the survey, into three categories as under 3,000 Yuan per month, from 3,000 to 6,000 Yuan per month, and over 6,000 Yuan per month according to average family income status in China (China Statistical Yearbook 2012). Hometown is defined as a first, second, or third degree city, in accordance to a well-known Chinese classification system. China’s first-class cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Second-class cities include mainly capital of provinces, some regional central cities, and other economically developed cities. Third-class cities refer to large- or medium-sized cities in economic developed provinces.
Results and discussions Urgency rating of environmental issues Results and anaylsises are shown as the following about the most urgent environmental issues in the college students’ eyes. Participants were asked to rate a number of environmental
13673
issues on a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 was defined as very urgent and 1 as not urgent at all. Average ratings As shown in Fig. 1, the trend of urgency ratings illustrates these students’ preference. Overall, most respondents regard environmental problem very urgent. For better understanding, Fig. 2 shows the urgency by average scores. From Fig. 2, it can be concluded that all environmental issues are rated over moderately urgent. Urban air pollution rates the most urgent environmental issue with an average score of 4.37, followed by water pollution with 4.21, which comes the second vital issue. Few people rated these two problems as “not urgent at all” or “not urgent” (only around 5 %). Global warming and solid waste pollution are put less emphasis, which average rating scores are around 3.75. Deforestation, noise pollution, and acid rain are regarded as the least urgent environmental concerns, with scores around 3.5, still rated very high in general. This indicates that environmental issues are viewed as quite urgent among Chinese students in Shanghai, a worldwide metropolitan, which was different from the conclusion of “Study on Comparison of Citizens’ Environmental Awareness among Four Cities in China and Japan” (Lin 2011) that environmental awareness of Japanese citizen was better than that of Chinese citizens. People in China are suffering from severe air and water pollutions (MEP 2012) which have close relationship with human health and life quality, which makes it not surprising that these two aspects come as the most urgent problems. Global warming is unexpected to rate as the third highest environmental issue. Global warming has been a worldwide problem since The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009. The side effects of global warming have already been recognized in Canada, where recent warm winters have broken the biological balance, and in Australia, whose forests have been devastated by drought and forest fires. However, its consequences are hard to pinpoint comparing with the first two problems, and it is not usual to detail local problems to this global environmental problem. Overall, students in China turn out to be more concerned about local environment problems rather than macro ones which are far from the lives they experienced. The urgency rating results vary from the responses to view of environmental problem urgency acquired in England (Richmond 1978; Jenkins and Pell 2006), South Australia (Worsley and Skrzypiec 1998), and Singapore (Ivy et al. 1998). Of the English respondents, 16.3 % considered no problems in their community, while 14.4 % regarded land use the most serious one in 1978. Twenty-nine years later, public concerns changed to radiation dangers and ozone destruction. South Australia saw a similar trend that ozone layer holes attracted second most attention, with power sources the first. When it comes to
13674
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
Fig. 1 Urgency rating of environmental issues (percentage)
60 0=not sure/dont want to answer 50 1 = not urgent at all 40
percentage
2 = not urgent 30 3 = moderately urgent 20 4 = urgent 10 5 = very urgent 0
50 % of the males which indicates that females are generally more concerned about global warming and rate it much more urgent than males do. This difference in rating of global warming according to gender is similar to the findings of A, B, and C that women express more concern over potential environmental risks (Blocker and Eckberg 1997; Davidson and Freudenburg 1996; Fortmann and Kusel 1990) and more likely to participate in protection movements (Mohai 1997; Ozanne et al. 1999). According to Davidson and Freudenburg, five hypotheses can explain this phenomenon, which refers to knowledgeable
Singapore, rubbish disposal was perceived to be the most urgent problem (17.7 %) followed by land use (17.4 %). Gender influence In order to study the influence of gender on urgency rating, cross analysis is used here. Figure 3 illustrates the rating of each gender for the urgency of global warming, and similar trend was found during cross analyzing about other environmental problems. Over 75 % of the females rated global warming “very urgent” or “urgent,” compared to fewer than Fig. 2 Urgency rating of environmental issues (average scores)
5.00 4.50
Average Score
4.00 3.50 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00
Average rang
Urban air polluon
Water polluon
Global warming
Solid waste polluon
Deforistao n
Noise polluon
Acid rain
4.37
4.21
3.75
3.74
3.54
3.44
3.37
1=not urgent at all, 2= not urgent, 3=moderately urgent, 4 = urgent, 5= very urgent
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683 Fig. 3 Gender factor influence on urgency rating of global warming (percentage)
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100% 90%
5=very urgent
80% 4=urgent
Persentage
70% 60%
3=moderately urgent
50% 2=not urgent
40% 30%
1=not urgent at all 20% 10%
0=not sure/don’t want to answer
0% male
support hypothesis, institutional trust hypothesis, economic salience hypothesis, safety concerns hypothesis, and parental roles hypothesis, respectively. However, further investigation should be done to discover the explanation, which required further research. Similar trends are found among analysis on other aspects despite urban air pollution, as illustrated in Fig. 4. Figure 4 illustrates that both male and female shared almost the same attitude towards urban air problems. According to the air quality report of China, it was acceptable that air pollution brought such severe crisis that both genders regard it as the most vital issues, for its vital roles in human’s daily lives. So, gender difference is more applicable when the consequences are less specific, harder to pinpoint, and more of a future concern (such as global warming). Comparison with Beijing Figure 5 compares the average ratings of this survey with the average ratings from a survey done among Chinese students of universities in Beijing in 1998 (Wong 2003:519–536), which used the same rating system as this survey. As the figure illustrates, environmental problems were on average rated with a higher urgency in the survey from Beijing for all environmental categories. There are many possible factors which could partly explain the differences for each environmental category. The geographical difference should be considered the first, together with cultural and environmental differences from Shanghai to Beijing. Secondly, there is a 15-year time difference between the two surveys, and it would be strange if there was no change over this timeframe, considering the enormous changes China has been through over
female
this period economically, politically, culturally, and also environmentally. It is beyond the scope of this report to investigate these factors individually, but both surveys saw similar trends of high urgency rating for the environmental issues. Prioritization: environment protection or economic growth In order to figure out whether college students will still insist to precede environmental protection under economic stress or not, their attitudes towards this issue was investigated. Their attitudes were measured rating from 1 to 5, with 1 defined as “completely disagree” and 5 defined as “completely agree.” The resulting distribution is given in Fig. 6. As shown in Fig. 6, approximately 62 % of the participants explained their agreements about that environmental protection should be prioritized over economic growth, which was more than four times the share of students of the opposite opinion. This tendency that Chinese students prioritized environment protection over economy growth indicates a high sense of environmental awareness of Chinese college students. Although the economy is certainly related to all people, they still prioritize the environment over the economy, which indicates that they pay attention to environmental problems and the importance of environment for human sustainable development. Family income and hometown factors Figure 7 illustrates the distribution of the prioritization above by family income. Apparently, students from families with income lower than 3,000 Yuan have a tendency to prioritize environmental concern lower than those from higher-income
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Fig. 4 Gender factor influence on urgency rating of urban air pollution (percentage)
100% 90% 5=very urgent 80% 4=urgent
Persentage
70% 60%
3=moderately urgent
50% 40%
2=not urgent
30%
1=not urgent at all
20% 0=not sure/don’t want to answer
10% 0% male
Average Score
families, which represented more priority on environmental concerns. According to the Human Needs Theory of Maslow (Maslow 1943), only after biological and security needs are fed can people focus on social needs. If lacking economic security, people tend to be busy securing their primary needs without having the capability to concern themselves with other things such as better environment for sustainable development. Students from families with lower income may have been affected by the priorities of their family through upbringing, so they tend to favor economic development rather than environment protection. Compared to them, those who come
5.00 4.50 4.00 3.50 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00
female
from families with higher income hold the opposite opinion because they and their families have had the time and effort to focus on more macro issues. Figure 8 illustrates the distribution by the students’ hometown classification. As mentioned in “Methodology”, to some degree, the hometown classification represents the development situation of a city, and generally speaking, first-class cities being more developed than second and third class. The results of this distribution are in compliance with the analysis of the family income factor: the better developed hometowns of the students are, the more they are willing to prioritize the environment. This tendency is very clear; almost 60 % of the
Urban air polluon
Water polluon
Global warming
Solid waste polluon
Deforistaon
Noise polluon
Acid rain
Average Shanghai
4.37
4.21
3.75
3.74
3.54
3.44
3.37
Average Beijing
4.5
4.6
4.2
4.6
3.6
3.5
1=not urgent at all, 2= not urgent, 3=moderately urgent, 4 = urgent, 5= very urgent Fig. 5 Comparison with research in Beijing on urgency rating of environmental issues
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683 Fig. 6 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (overall view)
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Environmental protection v.s. Economic Growth 5
Score
4 3 2 1 0 0.00
Percentage
5.00
0 0.39
10.00
1 1.57
15.00
2 12.55
20.00
25.00
3 23.92
30.00
4 35.29
35.00
40.00
5 26.27
0=I don’t know/don’t want to answer, 1= completely disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 3=neither disagree or agree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5= completely agree
students from first-class cites completely agreed to the statement, compared to fewer than 20 % of the students from third degree cities. Gender factor Gender factor also influences the attitude towards this issue. According to Fig. 9, over 35 % of female students completely agree with the statement that environmental concerns should be prioritized over economic development, and only 8.5 % of females disagree with this statement. This is quite different from the male participants, of which 20 % disagreed with this statement. The neutral percentages of male and female are different too. Males tend to be more neutral towards this Fig. 7 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (family income comparison)
competition between environment and economy with a ratio of nearly 30 %. There are several possible reasons of this phenomenon. Firstly, males are expected to take more economic responsibility not only at home but also in society due to the family roles they will play in future (Blocker and Eckberg 1997), which makes them more anxious when faced with economic problems. Secondly, females have a nature to be compassionate, which makes them worry about the damage of environmental issues will bring and urge to cure these problems to ensure the sustainable development of their offspring. Thirdly, males are more knowledgeable about given technological controversy than women (Davidson and Freudenburg 1996). Without giving the content of environmental concerns and the
100% agree
90% 80%
Percentage
70%
neutral
60% 50% disagree
40% 30% 20%
have no idea/don’t want to answer
10% 0% 6000
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Percentage
Fig. 8 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (hometown comparison)
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
5 4 3 2 1 1st-Class City
2nd-Class City
3rd-Class City
0
0=I don’t know/don’t want to answer, 1= completely disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 3=neither disagree or agree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5= completely agree
degree of influence on economic growth, quite a lot of students choose to hold their own thinking without taking a side. In this part, neutral ration of male students are much higher than female students. Fig. 9 “Environmental protection should be prioritized than economic growth?” (gender comparison)
Environmental responsibility Table 1 provides the average number of responsibility to protect the environment according to the students’ answers.
Gender Factor Influence 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
5
20%
4
10%
3
0%
Male
Female
2
5
21.25%
35.11%
1
4
33.75%
37.23%
0
3
26.88%
19.15%
2
15.63%
7.45%
1
1.88%
1.06%
0
0.63%
0
0=I don’t know/don’t want to answer, 1= completely disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 3=neither disagree or agree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5= completely agree
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Table 1 Students’ responses to perception of environmental responsibility (by average number and rank order, respectively) Total sample
Government Industry General public Other environmental protection organization
Male
Average number
Rank
Average number
Rank
Average number
Rank
3.54 3.41 2.81 2.73
1 2 3 4
3.52 3.29 2.7 2.64
1 2 3 4
3.59 3.61 2.9 2.89
2 1 3 4
protect the environment maybe is that the general public of China has quite limited direct influence on politics and policies. Since environmental issues are so comprehensive and their causes are so complex, participants may feel the general public does not have the power to take responsibility for the environment.
The participants were asked to rate the responsibilities of these actors from 1 to 4, with 1 defined as “no responsibility,” and 4 defined as “a lot of responsibility.” As shown in Table 1, the government was regarded to take the most responsibility. As all students have a consensus that no body or institution should be responsible for environmental protection solely, “everybody” selection was excluded. This item is designed to study which body or institution should take more responsibility in the students’ view. In the survey of Tan Geok-Chin Ivy, similar results were also presented. Students regarding Government and National Council on the environment responsible accounts to 81 %, with those who chose “everyone should take responsibility” excluded. As Fig. 10 shows, almost 65 % of the students hold the opinion that the government has a lot of responsibility to protect the environment, and almost 50 % of the students think that the industry has a lot of responsibility. Contrary to the responsibility of the government and the industry, one can see from the results that only 19 % of the students think that the general public has a lot of responsibility. The reason why the students in Shanghai think that the government and the industry have a lot of responsibility to Fig. 10 Environmental responsibility (percentage)
Female
Pay extra for environmental friendly power Figure 11 illustrates the distribution of students’ responses about willingness to pay extra for environmental friendly power. Almost 80 % of the respondents were, to some degree, willing to pay more for renewable electricity, and only about 20 % were not willing to pay more. It can be concluded that Chinese students are in general willing to pay extra for electricity if it was guaranteed renewable. Considering that in the last 20 years, the Chinese society has developed its economy in some part by the expense of the environment, it is staggering that the majority of Chinese students are willing to make the kind of private opposite choice. The result is even more apparent when compared to a similar Norwegian survey. “Den
70.00% 60.00%
Percentage
50.00%
government
40.00%
industry
30.00% general public 20.00% other environmental protecon organisaons
10.00% 0.00% 0
1
2 Selection(0-4)
3
4
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Fig. 11 Willingness to pay extra (percentage)
Are you willing to pay extra for environmental friendly electricity? 21.57%
78.43%
willing to not willing to
deregulerte forbruker” from Norway by Henrik Karlstrøm (2010:12) asked the same question among 1,500 participants of the general public (not exclusively students). In the Norwegian survey, almost 65 % of the participants were willing to pay more for electricity if it was guaranteed renewable, 15 % lower than the almost 80 % of the college students in Shanghai (Fig. 12). It is not saying that Norway citizens refuse to accept renewable energy. The existing way of electricity production should be taken into consideration. In Norway, most of the electric energy is already renewable hydro power, while most of the electric energy in China is produced by coal power. Considering the Chinese students’ sense of urgency for environmental problems such as urban air pollution, and coal power as a pollutionintensive energy supply, it is therefore no wonder that Chinese students are more willing to pay for cleaner electricity. Relevant data shows that consumers were willing to choose higher-priced environmental-friendly products (Irland 1993), especially when the product quality was also guaranteed (Rao
Percentage
Fig. 12 Urgency rating of environmental issues (average scores)
and Bergen 1992). Considering China is still viewed as a developing country and the limited private resources of the general public, it is further interesting to see if the economic background of the students affects their views on this matter. Figure 13 illustrates the willingness to pay more for renewable electricity by family-income category. As Fig. 13 illustrates, students from families earning more than 6,000 Yuan per month have a tendency to be more willing to pay for renewable electricity. Obviously, people are influenced by their growing-up conditions. The better their family conditions, the more they will focus on other problems than economic pressure. The influence of development standard of students’ hometown had a lot of similarity. According to Fig. 14, students from first-class city and second-class city were more willing to pay extra, accounted to almost 70 % of those willing to pay extra for environmental-friendly power. Lots of students in Shanghai China are aware of that new technology can be used widely only by means of financial support. Economy can
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
SJTU
Norway (2010)
Dont know/dont want to answer
No
Yes
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2014) 21:13672–13683
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Fig. 13 Willingness to pay extra for environmental-friendly power (family income comparison)
Family Income Influence 100% 90% 80%
Percentage
70% 60%
>6000
50%
3000-6000
40%
