Environmental Perspective among Indians Using New Ecological Paradigm

Climate change, global warming, deforestation, depletion of ecological reserves are some of the challenges that human race hold in the future. India, being one of the most populous countries, with diversified ecological resources is at cross roads. It is utilizing environmental resources for massive development trajectory on one hand and being a casualty of the environmental problems that arise hence forth. It must be understood that the scientific solutions to the environmental problems cannot be discounted without a study on human values, beliefs, and attitudes. The present study aims at studying the model of environmental attitudes using New Ecological paradigm (NEP) developed by Dunlap,Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones (2000) which measures wider range of facets of an ecological views namely, reality of limits of growth, anti-anthropocentrism, fragility of nature's balance, rejection of exemptionalism, and possibility of ecocrisis, among Indian masses. The data on NEP scale of 263 individuals aged between 18 to 83 was investigated. The comparison between the males (N=117) and females (N=146) showed that there exists differences between the two in the dimension of anti anthropocentrism. The results of the study and further implications have been discussed.