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Nuclear energy has long been assumed to elicit automatic, negative reactions. However, little research has investigated implicit associations with nuclear energy. To assess implicit and explicit attitudes toward nuclear energy, 704 U.S. consumer panelists completed a multicategory Implicit Association Test (IAT) and an Internet survey. Results showed that participants held negative implicit attitudes toward nuclear energy (vs. wind and natural gas) and positive implicit attitudes toward nuclear energy (vs. coal). Strong opponents of nuclear policy implicitly preferred natural gas over nuclear and implicitly disliked nuclear as much as coal. Strong supporters of nuclear policy implicitly preferred nuclear over coal, and showed no implicit preference for gas over nuclear. Implicit attitudes toward nuclear energy (vs. gas and wind) were related to policy support when controlling for explicit attitudes and demographics. Understanding both implicit and explicit nuclear attitudes is important for decision makers as the United States charts its energy future.

Twenty-five years ago, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so contaminated that it caught fire, air pollution in some cities was thick enough to taste, and environmental laws focused on the obvious enemy: large American factories with belching smokestacks and pipes gushing wastes. Federal legislation has succeeded in providing cleaner air and water, but we now confront a different set of environmental problems-less visible and more subtle. This important book offers thought-provoking ideas on how America can respond to changing public health and ecological risks and create sound environmental policy for the future.The innovative thinkers of the Next Generation Project of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy-experts from business, government, nongovernmental organizations, and academia-propose reforms that balance environmental efforts with other public needs and issues. They call for new foundations for environmental law and policy, adoption of a more diverse set of policy tools and strategies (economic incentives, ecolabels), and new connections between critical sectors (agriculture, energy, transportation, service providers) and environmental policy. Future progress must involve not only officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental protection departments, say the authors, but also decision-makers as diverse as mayors, farmers, energy company executives, and delivery route planners. To be effective, next-generation policy-making will view environmental challenges comprehensively, connect academic theory with practical policy, and bridge the gaps that have caused recent policy debates to break down in rancor. This book begins the process of accomplishing these challenging goals