Environmental attitudes in times of a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly had severe impacts on health care and economies everywhere in the world. This disaster, however, provided us with a unique opportunity: the privilege to watch nature healing due to the restriction measures applied on a global scale. Even though the positive environmental effects proved temporary, could this period serve as an example of what sustainable human behavior is? Has this disaster brought people closer to understanding the effects of their choices? Do people realize the connection between natural processes and the pandemic? Can people actually learn and adapt to a new normal? The present study aims to test the hypothesis that individual environmental beliefs and COVID-19 perceptions influence environmental attitudes and behavior. For this purpose, an on-line questionnaire survey was conducted, within the academic community of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, investigating the relationship between the effect of the pandemic on individual environmental behavior and attitudes. The results of this study hope to contribute to the efforts of the global community to effectively answer these questions, in order to gain a clear view on how to respond to future climate and other environmental challenges, which are, in a broader sense, pandemics as well.