Empirical Analysis on Structural Features and Influential Factors of Environmental Consciousness

—Taking Beijing and Hangzhou As Examples—

Abstract

Beijing and Hangzhou are two typical cities in Northern and Southern China, where have different economic bases and environmental quality. Taking Beijing and Hangzhou as examples, this paper aims to clarify the structural features and influential factors of people's environmental consciousness by quantitatively analyzing the survey data. From the similarities of environmental consciousness in two cites, it was found that Chinese are having stronger concerns toward the environment under the background of environmental degradation. However, people's high expectation on science and technology in solving environmental problems was also indicated. Comparative results of environmental consciousness in two cities showed that Beijing citizens had a lower satisfaction on environmental quality, stronger worries on environmental deterioration, and more active pro-environmental behaviors compared to Hangzhou citizens. Different environmental quality in two cities is supposed to be the main reason to cause these differences. In addition, using the elderly, and people with low income and education levels as the main targets of environmental education are suggested to promote environmental consciousness effectively. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis indicated the directions to promote pro-environmental behaviors in two cities.