Pro-environmental attitudes of users and non-users of fuelwood in a rural area of Greece

Bioenergy is today considered to be a renewable energy source that can be used, on a short and long-term basis, to replace fossil fuel and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Fuelwood is an important source of biomass and plays a significant role in addressing the energy requirements, particularly of the third world.

Concern for the environment has been a dominant social theme over the last decades, and public awareness regarding environmental risks is today greater than ever before. The present study aims to investigate the association between environmental attitudes and the use of biomass energy (bioenergy), especially fuelwood. To achieve this objective, firstly, a measure derived from the survey responses is used to classify individuals according to their evaluation of a number of selected items and secondly, the relation between individual pro-environmental measurements and the use of fuelwood is examined. Thirdly, the introduction of other factors into the analysis, such as income, age, gender and educational level serves to provide further evidence.