Environmental literacy citizen capacity – UGC NET Question

Environmental literacy goes beyond simple awareness to include knowledge of key concepts,critical thinking skills and dispositions to participate and act. It prepares individuals to interpret environmental information,assess trade offs and engage in decisions. The stem explicitly mentions understanding,critical evaluation and participation,which together define literacy in this context. Thus environmental literacy is the correct term.

Option A:
Awareness means being conscious of an issue,which is necessary but does not guarantee critical evaluation and informed participation.

Option B:
Activism focuses on organised action; one can act without necessarily having the analytical understanding and evaluation skills emphasised in the stem.

Option C:
Literacy captures the combined capacity to understand,critically evaluate and participate meaningfully—exactly what the stem describes.

Option D:
Marketing is about promoting products or messages and is unrelated to citizen capacity for understanding and decision participation.