Informed Environmental Actors Knowing and Acting in Time and Space

Abstract

This paper addresses the human aspect of the persistent and worsening
societal dilemma worldwide: the ecological unsustainability of current paradigms of action as a means for providing answers to complex questions in the relationship between knowledge and action in informed environmental actors.
A study of the relationship between environmental knowledge, attitude and
practices for current and former students (alumni) of a major Thai University yielded results that regression between knowledge and practice took place over time for alumni whereas for current students this was not noted. The difference can be explained in terms of relative distance from source for knowledge, focus and motivation. At the same time as knowledge and practice were linked for both groups, attitude remained
high for both and it was not a significant determining variable for either students or alumni to environmental action. Of course empirical data as a static manifestation of reality requires a cultural context so that aggregate representation of mean data might give meanings a human dimension. When the group empirical findings are put back into a social cultural frame, the paradigm within which social actors operate is a significant
enabler or inhibitor to social change in environmental terms.