Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 9
Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors
Among Jeju Islanders, South Korea
Dai-Yeun Jeong
Introduction
Industrialization has brought about material and cultural affluence and many of
the conveniences modern societies now enjoy. Such benefits have been achieved
at the expense of the environment, however, resulting in worldwide environmental
problems that may even threaten the very existence of human beings.
The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) suggested
the concept of sustainable development in 1987, describing it as: “development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future genera-
tions to meet their own needs” (WCED
1987
: 43). Sustainable development has
emerged as a critical reflection on the established concept of industrial develop-
ment, seeking a harmonization between industrialization and environmental preser-
vation. The concept of sustainable development was expanded to include the ideas
of a sustainable society in the mid-1990s (e.g., Ekins
1994
; Turner
1998
) and eco-
logical modernization in the 2000s (e.g., Gibbs
2000
; Mol and Sonnenfeld
2000
;
Hills et al.
2003
; Harper
2007
: 211-212).
The original arguments for a sustainable society and ecological modernization
maintained that sustainable development as intended by the WCED is a uni-dimen-
sional concept that includes two factors: the economy and the environment. There
are, however, many social factors that also determine economic and ecological
sustainability, including technology, human behavior, population size, land-use
planning, and energy use. Economic and ecological sustainability are not possible
if these other factors are not also managed sustainably. In other words, social factors
must also be considered for sustainable development to be entirely realized. In this
sense, the concepts of sustainable development and ecological modernization are
both multi-dimensional ones.
In the sustainable society concept, multi-dimensional components have the same
impact on the determination of sustainable development. Ecological modernization,
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