ABSTRACT
The imperfect correspondence between objectively measured levels of environmental deterioration and societal awareness and concern over such deterioration has frequently been noted. In past decades, for example, environmental pollution sometimes reached severe levels without generating much public concern, while more recently societal attention to problems such as air pollution has varied considerably even when measured levels of pollution changed very little. In pointing to and highlighting this incongruence between physical conditions and societal response, social scientists have provided insights into the socially constructed nature of environmental problems (Albrecht and Mauss 1975; Yearly 1991). Sociologists in particular have emphasized the role of environmental activists and the media in generating societal awareness of the problem of environmental degradation (Mazur and Lee 1993) and the role of competing interests in subsequently providing contrasting explanations of the origins of and prescriptions for the solutions of such problems (Dietz, Stem, and Rycroft 1989).
