Objective. This article serves as a pilot study of three central aspects of sociological research concerning the impact of local agriculture on local communities: food equity, social integration, and natural human capital. Methods. Four CSA farmers, four partners in a direct‐market organic farm, and four community garden site coordinators working in the Intervale, a local agriculture project in Burlington, Vermont, were interviewed in person for this research. Additionally, the author collected observational data in the Intervale, at two local farmers' markets, and as a member of a local community garden. Result. Different modes of local agricultural production have distinctive effects on the local population with regard to equitable access to healthy food, social inclusion, and experiential knowledge of the natural world. Conclusions. Given class‐based disparities in local agricultural participation, local food projects should consider promoting programs designed for broader social inclusion, including subsidized farmer‐to‐family coupons.

We examine varying levels of perceived environmental risks among nine U.S. race and ethnic group categories using the 2010 General Social Survey. Three interrelated questions motivate our analysis. First, how does the environmental risk perception of air pollution, water pollution, agricultural chemicals, climate change and nuclear power generation vary among specific categories of race and ethnicity? Second, to what degree are higher levels of perceived risk among immigrant-origin groups subject to change as a result of cultural assimilation over generations? And third, to what degree are race and ethnic differences in environmental risk perception a reflection of other possibly more significant factors such as education, income, gender and conservative political views? Though we find some evidence for attitude assimilation among generations of Mexican-origin people, the dominant pattern is greater perceived risks among non-whites than whites across generations in the U.S. Additionally, not only did race and ethnic groups show greater concern for the threats posed by climate change and nuclear power generation than whites, they also expressed more concern about these two topics than they did for more localized issues such as air pollution emanating from industry and transportation. Despite our statistical controls for socioeconomic status, race and ethnic categories remained strong independent predictors of perceived environmental threats.

Objective The social capital literature suggests generalized trust should work to motivate individuals to engage in environmentally beneficial behavior as it is associated with altruistic outcomes, moderation, and self‐sacrifice. The environmental justice literature, however, suggests certain populations are understandably more skeptical about who they can trust with respect to environmental threats in their communities, thus undermining the hypothesis that greater trust results in positive environmental outcomes. We seek to test the relative direct and indirect influences of generalized trust and knowledge of environmental issues on individuals’ willingness to make sacrifices for the environment. Methods Based on established theory in the social capital, environmental concern, and environmental justice literature, this study conducts structural equation modeling using data from the 2010 General Social Survey. Results This analysis finds support for both social capital and environmental justice arguments. However, the positive direct effect of generalized trust on a willingness to sacrifice outweighs its indirect negative effect via perceived environmental threats by a factor of four to one, suggesting generalized trust is a net catalyst for environmental action. Knowledge of issues is positively associated with both perceived environmental risks and a willingness to sacrifice. Conclusion Generalized trust is an important motivator for self‐sacrifice in the realm of environmental behavior. We should nonetheless be skeptical of efforts to promote it that ignore the unequal distribution of environmental threats in the population.

We analyze data from the 2010 General Social Survey to illuminate the relationship of social capital with pro-environmental behavior, a willingness to make sacrifices for the environment, and participation in organized environmental activism. Three kinds of social capital are examined: relational social capital, generalized trust, and community social capital. Specifically, we find that time spent with neighbors was positively correlated with both environmental lifestyle and willingness to sacrifice variables, whereas time spent with relatives was negatively correlated. Generalized trust was positively correlated with willingness to sacrifice variables, as well. Social evening spent with friends was associated with a single outcome variable: having attended an environmental issue demonstration. These findings are consistent with previous research concerning the influence of community-level dynamics on behavior, and suggest that social capital may be an important, though as of yet not well explored, mechanism for understanding shifts toward pro-environmental behavior.

This study, based on a random‐digit‐dialing telephone survey of adults in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, uses ordinary least squares regression to examine a relatively neglected element in the sociological literature on environmental concern, namely, the influence of an individual's social capital on the formation of environmental attitudes. We argue that it is those individuals with a greater diversity of social connections who are most likely to be influenced by ecological perspectives grounded in conservation and environmental protection. Controlling for other theoretically relevant variables, we regress an index of environmental concern that gives special emphasis to environmental‐economic trade‐offs on our measures of relational and community social capital. While confirming much of the earlier work in this area, our model provides evidence that connections to other people play an important role in determining individual concern for the environment. Specifically, the number of respondents' “weak ties”—that is, not their closest relationships—and the average occupational status of respondents' social ties, in general, were both positively correlated with environmental concern. Additionally, one of our three measures of community social capital, the number of visits from friends over the past month, was statistically significant and negatively correlated with environmental concern.