Environmental Perceptions and Environmental Reality : When More is Less

There is increasing recognition of an apparent paradox with respect to certain dimensions of environmental quality. Some measures of environmental quality, with US air quality being the focus here, have clearly improved over time. However, at the same time that this improvement has occurred, surveys of individuals indicate that they believe that air quality is not improving, but rather is worsening.(1) Although the specific case of US air quality is emphasized here, the paradox is more general many people throughout the developed world believe that specific, measurable dimensions of environmental quality are deteriorating when the facts argue otherwise. The public policy implications of this will be seen, however, to be far from clear