Why should everyone care about the same environmental risk?

An article from the New York Times, Sustainability for rich and poor, has triggered some throughts from me.

The article talked about the different perceptions of the seriousness about global climate change in countries with different levels of economic development and personal well-being.

The deputy environment minster of Angola has made his point clear that the most immiment environmental concern of his country is the over-population of their capital city--Ruanda--and the ensuing infrastructural problems, such as sewage and waste. Global climate change is not on top of their list.

Well, this makes perfect sense. Countries with different stages of human and economic development will definitely define risks differently. And who has the right to decide what people should care about? Will people care about climate change when they don't even have enough food? Or do they even need to be concerned?

Dake and Wildavsky have published a series of studies, which highlight the influence of cultures and worldviews on what constitutes risks. Specifically, they suggest that people in the egalitarian, individualist, and hierarchist societies will define risks very differently (see "Theories of risk perception: Who fears what and why?").

However, what we see here is more than culture. The economic structure and human development (i.e., to what extent can people fulfill their basic needs of life?) also play a significant role in shaping attitudes toward environmental issues. This example not only strengthens the importance of taking into account country level variables, but also gives researchers good reasons to go beyond cultural factors when studying policy and public opinions of environment-related issues.