Irrational processes in man‐environment interactions: implications for environmental studies

Irrational processes play an important, but often unacknowledged, role in man‐environment interactions. The fixed beliefs, intense emotions and pervasive defensiveness that constitute human irrationality are hardly amenable to logic, common sense and intellectual debate. A different set of skills are needed, quite unlike those of use in dealing with the more impersonal world. The incidence of such skills appears to be quite low due, it seems, to the combined effects of personal dispositions to avoid the irrational and inappropriate forms of education. This deficiency is not unique to the environmental disciplines but unfortunate in light of their claims to a broad perspective. It is argued that professional competence in the environmental area requires some capability in dealing with both natural and human irrationality. If this is to be achieved, a different emphasis is needed in environmental education, one that involves a concern for “process,” both intellectual and irrational.