WHEN: Tuesday 11/5 at 4 p.m.

WHERE: Sugar Maple Ballroom, Davis Center, UVM

His talk will be based on his recent book “Navigating Environmental Attitudes.” It was a book used last spring in NR 2, and it speaks directly to many of the issues of environmental behavior, environmental conflict, and environmental problem-solving that ENVS and RSENR students are wrestling with.

Tom Heberlein is Professor Emeritus at UW-Madison Department of Community and Environmental Sociology. He was trained as a social psychologist and used that foundation to become one of the early “pioneers” of environmental sociology.  He is widely known for his field experiments on littering behavior, energy consumption, residential electricity conservation, crowding in outdoor recreation settings, hunter behavior, public attitudes toward wolves, and contingent valuation of non-market goods. His research primarily centers around attitude theory – concepts of attitude structure, the attitude/behavior relationship, and attitude change – and its relationship to social norms.

His Burack lecture will draw from his recent book “Navigating Environmental Attitudes,” which encapsulates a 45-year career of examining environment and human behavioral issues. Specifically, he challenges us to understand why attitudes are hard to change and why public education efforts in settings of environmental conflict don’t often work. He also provides ways that society and its decision-makers can move beyond “cognitive fix” solutions to bring about more effective environmental change.