Social practices of environmental consciousness: Regional aspect

The article analyzes the environmental consciousness of the region's population as a special property of reflecting the social nature of a person, expressed through personal concern about the state of the environment, through the acquisition of environmental information and practical activities to preserve and restore the natural environment. Particular attention in the article is given to theoretical approaches to the consideration of the phenomenon of ecological consciousness. Human consciousness as a "specifi c property of organized complexity" is considered in the works of Teilhard de Chardin, V. I. Vernadsky, I. R. Prigogine. In the philosophical direction (R. S. Karpinskaya, I. K. Liseev, N. N. Moiseev), a co-evolutionary approach is used, which refl ects the unity of human, society and the nature that undergoes changes. The study of environmental consciousness with the help of a rational sociological approach involves the use of statistical methods for researching a particular region. Understanding the ecological consciousness as the three-element system "man – society – nature" enables us to compose a model of ecological consciousness in the form of three components: world perception, information, activity. In the course of the author's sociological study, it was found that a signifi cant number of the of the Saratov region residents (88%) are personally concerned about environmental problems. At the same time, the population is informed both about global environmental problems and about the environmental situation in the region. However, residents of the region towns do not consider themselves suffi ciently informed about the environmental problems of their place of residence. Most of the respondents (71%) take an active part in the implementation of environmental activities, for example, 67.5% participated in community work days to clean up the territory; 22.8% – participated in tree planting campaigns; 49.1% try not to use plastic bags and bottles, if possible, etc. The conclusion made is that the environmental consciousness of the population in the Saratov region fully corresponds to the compiled model, due to the fact that the population feels personal responsibility for the state of the environment, is aware of the environmental principles that enable conscious environmental activities of the nature protection to be performed.

Ecology, consciousness, activity, environment, region