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112 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Problems for society
threatening the existing patterns of social organization and social thought.
Problems of society
people must resolve the problems for society.
Environmental problems
challenges sustainability of society
the most significant erosive force on the planet.?
Humans
The focus of environmental sociology:
The context of community: including people, animals, and nature.
-Social inequality: a product and a producer of environmental problems
-Ecology: natural community.
Realist
material conditions of life
Constructionist
ideological origins of environmental problems, such as definition of problems
Materialist questions: example
The impact of consumption, technology, development in environmental problems.
Idealist questions: example
The influence of culture, values in environmental problems
Ecological dialogue
-A constant conversation between material and ideal dimensions of environmental problems.
-The interaction shapes and changes practice.
Environmental problems:
Global Warming
Green house effectcarbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels may trap heat.
-Dependence on fossil fuel.
Consequences of global warming
1. global climate changes
2. overall increase in temperature: plague in India.
3. risen sea level: more hospitable to pests, fatalities and property loss
4. decreased coral reef
5. increased wildfires.
Environmental problems: the two ozone problems
-Growing Ozone Hole: ozone is a vital layer in the upper atmosphere that may protect life on the earth’s surface from the effects of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation
-CFCs (ozone-damaging chlorine) may react with the ozone layer and break it down.
Ozone at ground level: photochemical smog
-nitrogen oxide compounds from the fossil fuel combustion, cars and factories discharge reacts with volatile organic compounds to produce ozone
-urban life: example. Mexico City
-Ozone can burn the lung tissue of animals and the leaf tissue of plants.
Consequences: of photochemical smog
1. premature death: over 100,000 Americans die prematurely each year
2. Impact on daily life: walking and bicycling can be harmful in urban areas because of smog.
3. decrease in crop production and damages to forests
Environmental problems: Particulates
-Particulates (forming a whitish smog) can penetrate deeply into lung tissue.
-It consists of:
1. poor fuel combustion in cars, trucks, power plants, wood stoves, and outdoor burning.
2. ‘secondary’ particulates: tiny pieces of sulfates, nitrates, and VOCs formed in the atmosphere following the burning of fossil fuels.
3. Ammonium and ammonium compounds: emissions from livestock and fertilizers.
Consequences: of particulates
over 160,000 premature deaths each year in the United States.
Environmental problems: Acid Rain
-Sulfur dioxide and NOx combining with water in the atmosphere to acidify rain.
-Consequences:
-direct damage to plant tissues
-leaching nutrient from soil
-the acidification of lake waters
-defoliation: 22%-25%
Environmental problems: threats to water
-soil erosion exceeds replacement rates on a third of the land.
-overirrigation can salinize soils and waterlog poorly drained soils.
-consequences:
-lack of water
-salty water that is prone to bacterial blooms and fish kills
-depleted ground water
Environmental problems: threats to land
-the use of pesticide
-the expansion of roads and suburbs, particularly in the wealthy nations
-increased resistance of pests to pesticides
-declining response of crops to fertilizers increases, loss of genetic diversity, desertification due to overgrazing, and pesticide residues in food.
Environmental justice:
Basic Patterns
-Those with the least power get the most pollution
-The impact of toxic waste is usually local.
-The Basel convention in 1989 was to control international toxic shipment.
-The North American Free Trade Agreement
-Lax environmental regulation in poorer countries
The rich consume and pollute more.
Income Gap: 30 times at a global level, 7 times or less within a country, 9 times in the U.S., and 4 times in Japan.
-Consumption Gap: people in rich countries consume 3 times as much grain, fish, and fresh water, 6 times as much meat, 10 times as much energy, 10 times the timber, and 14 times the paper compared to poor countries.
Pollution Gap
per capita emissions of carbon dioxide in rich countries are 12 times higher than in poor countries
Gap in Health:
-the poor are more likely to live in hazardous environments, such as steep slopes and low lying areas.
-gap in life span: 78.1 years in wealthy countries vs. 50.4 years in poor countries.
Social Disparity in the U.S.:
-3.5 million are homeless, 11 percent of the people live in conditions of food insecurity.
-Hispanic and African Americans are twice as more likely to be in conditions of food insecurity than white Americans.
The rights and beauty of habitat:
-the rate of loss of species has greatly increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
-loss of diversity poses threats to sustainability:
-a declining genetic resource base for the development of new crops, drugs, and chemicals.
-destabilizes ecosystems
-A lack of sense of being connected to the land and to each other through land.
The cosial constituon of environmental problems:
-social constitution of daily life
-sidelining of environmental concern
-determinant factors:
-social organization of our material conditions
-the ideology of the people
-practice
Chapter 2: Focus
-Ideas about nature are socially constructed
-People’s experience: time: the history, space: urban areas vs. rural areas, or northern world vs. southern world, and face: the interaction with people surrounding you.
Social factors on social construction of nature:
globalization, and modernization.
-Two-way relationship between society and the environment.
Micro level concept
process of constructing ideas
Different Social Construction of ideas about nature:
-Human exemptionalist paradigm: that people are apart from nature
-People are in control of nature
-Consumption: capitalism, advertisement
-Treadmill logic: keeping up in competition, where everyone wants the new product even if it’s just slightly better than the older model.
-Technological somnambulism: unquestioningly accepting new technology
Impact of high technology on people’s experience:
-Disembedding: social relations are lifted out of their contexts.
-Restructured time and space from the internet
Distanciation
social relations with people who are distant from us. The internet is built on trust when you are talking to people far away from you, you don’t know for sure who you are talking to, it is built on trust
Materialist vs. Idealist
-material consequences of consumption. Buying a new car every few years for example. It is overconsumption.
-We have a relationship with the local environment
Chapter 8: The Human Nature of Nature
-The Contradictions of nature:
-Moral holism: people are part of the culture
-Moral separatism: anything humans make is not due to nature.
The contradictions of contemporary environmentalism:
Humans are part of the nature
-To some extent, excessive pollution produced by humans are not due to the nature.
Nature as a social contruction:
-Focus
-Naturalizing Capitalism:
-Darwin’s natural selection
-Social selection is natural
-Political Legitimization
Nature and scientific racism: biased scientific research
-Morton’s Craniometry: he measured the skulls of different races to conclude that some races were more intelligent than others. It was very biased research.
-Huntington’s environmental determinism
Environment as a social construction
-Focus
-Social factors that condition ideas of nature and changes of nature
-Constructing the Ozone Hole: political purposes
Social construction of wilderness:
-Images of Wilderness
-Wilderness is a state of mind
-Common image: no people
-Cultural variation
-Removal of local people: environmental exclusion
-Social injustice: power differences. The people don’t have the power to resist when they are removed.
Social Consequences: introduction of the middle-class lifestyle
Low pay jobs for the local people: example. Hotels and jobs
The dialogue of nature and ideology
Acts and Actants
-Universalism
-Solipsism
-Material side of life
-Social inconvenience of nature
The Rise of Transnational corporations:
-By the Bill of Rights, a private corporation has the same rights and protections as persons, such as the right to free speech.
-A private corporation also has its right to privacy
Characteristics of Corporations
-Product advertisement that promotes consumption
-TNCs exceed most governments in size and power.
-Absentee ownership: 70% of world trade controlled by 500 corporations
Corporate Welfare
-Direct subsidies and tax breaks: 4 times as much as welfare to the poor.
-Public infrastructure: we lack good public transportation systems.
-Education
Privatizing public institutions, such as corrections facilities
-Consequence:
the public is left out of the decision making arena
Corporate Global Media:
-Global media facilitates business interests.
-Global Media provides an informational and ideological environment that supports political, and free market agenda.
-Cost reduction: Reuters and the Associated Press. When there isn’t a diversity of media outlets there is efficiency, but at the cost of different view points and objectivity.
-“Free flow of information”
Core Elements of the global media ideology:
-Strong belief in privatization
-Absence of any state business regulations
-Biased news reports that reinforce the corporate values.
Size, ownership, and profit orientation
-Six major owners of the global media: AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, NewsCorp, Bertelsmann, General Electric.
-Vertical integration over a total process.
Consequence of owners of global media
-lack of the media coverage of environmental problems.
The role of advertising:
-Competition for advertising: “Infotainment”, “advertorials”
-Selected topics of news: such as shock value, sex, violence, celebrities, reality-TV programs.



-A decrease of in-depth, field-based reporting.

-Routine and authoritative news sources do not provide widespread debate.

-Systematic attacking the media that violates the corporate agenda

-TNCs funds environmental organizations in order to understand the key critiques.
Corporate Media power in the wireless future:
-The impact of the radio frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum
-The issue of trust.
Bell, Chapter 9: The Rationality of Risk
-Rational risk assessment
-Risk vs. Risky
-Risk is more about the eminent perception of danger. And Risky would be things like environmental problems because they are more scientific and you don’t see it everyday.
Logic of rational risk assessment perspective:
-Low cost
-High benefit
-Outcome oriented behavior
Critiques of rational risk assessment perspective:
-Incommensurability
Perceptions of choices are conditioned by time, information, and understanding
-Uncertainty in information
-Biased information and a lack of trust toward the information
The culture of risk
What is risky?
-Threats to solidarity of the institutions or groups: sexual subdivision of labor, group identity.
-Weak cohesion in the society: ex. Witches in Salem
Cultures may condition people’s perceptions of risks?
What is apparent?
-Social contexts
-Norms
Information
-Vertical and horizontal knowledge gaps
-Vertical knowledge gaps include numbers and science, but horizontal knowledge gaps involve bringing the average person to understand that knowledge
Rational risk assessment as cultural practice
-Language: number, calculation, statistics
The Sociology of Disasters
-Normal Accidents
-Interactions in a system: linear or complex; loosely coupled or tightly coupled.
-Qualitative approach of the understanding of normal accidents
Risk and democracy
Risk and democracy
Bell, Chapter 6: The Ideology of Environmental Domination
Focus
-The influence of Christianity, individualism and patriarchy on the ideology of environmental domination
-Social inequality has its ideological roots, in addition to material ones
-Over reliance on Western Experience
Christianity and environmental domination
-Moral parallels of Protestantism and capitalism: Max Weber
-Calvinism:
-Predestination
-Work ethics, asceticism, rationalization
Iron Cage
human life based on rules and rationality
Moral parallels of Christianity, Science and Technology: Lynn White
-Moldboard: Powered machine
Christianity Doctrine:
-Genesis: human beings govern the earth
-“…let them have dominion over the fish of the sea…”
Critique: the greener side of Christianity
-The Old Testament is also used by Jews and Muslims
-Local variation
Christianity may be at odds with science
-the clone issue
Stem Cell Research:
-Genesis “…be fruitful and multiply upon the earth…”
-Interpretation of the Genesis:
-Contemporary readers of the Bible:
-More inclusiveness of the beneficiaries, “between me and the earth”
-Responsibility rather than dominance
Non-Western Philosophies
Taoism: “Wu wei”, the third Century BC
-“Acting without deliberate effort”
-Working with nature, rather than against it
Individualism, the body and ecology: Mikhail Bakhtin
-Bodies are the main medium humans by which humans are connected to he environment.
-Carnivalesque body:
-humans are part of nature.
-Ecological body: interactive and exchangeable; input from nature, output to nature.
Separation from nature and others as a symbol of social hierarchy
-Money and status
-Ex. Spacious houses, means of transportation, cleanliness
Relationships between ecological self and ecological community
-The relationships could be fatal
-Carnival was not a daily event
Bodily individuality should be respected.
-Hippie culture, women’s movement: being open about the body.
Gender and Environmental Domination
Focus: the relationships between male dominance and dominance over nature
-Language about nature: female characteristics
-Example. Broken virgin land, virgin forest, lay of the land, raping the land, conquest of nature.
The ecology of patriarchy
-Females are more nature
-reproduction, nurturing, in the private sphere
-Males are associated with production, in the public sphere, rationality, occupations.
Ecofeminism
-the basis of domination: race, ethnicity, sex class, age
-Language: savagery, primitive
-Moral implication: sexual licentiousness, violence
Political use of language: mother nature
-“mom will pick up after us”
Critique of patriarchal dualisms:
-environmental oppression of men
-Gray areas: interdependence, difference without hierarchies
Critique of Ecofeminism:
-Celebrating females’ association with nature
-the fault of patriarchy
The actors in the patriarchy
-in need of better social categories that recognize differences without making a hierarchy
Bell, Chapter 6. The ideology of Environmental Concern
-A dialogue of:
Natural conscience
-the democracy development
-material basis of the environment
Ancient Beginnings
-Rome: “Natural Conscience”
-Greece: “The Good” was the final cause of physics, followed the nature
China: Taoists, “the way”; “wu wei”
aight
The Moral basis of Contemporary Environmental Concern
-Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862
-Suspicion of the power behind knowledge
-Natural me (authentic self) vs. social me
-Natural others:
environmental movements
Contemporary Environmental Concern
-The persistence of environmental concerns
-Worldwide environmental concerns
-National variations: higher concern in the Americas, Europe, and Asia
The lowest concern in the US among the industrial countries
-In the U.S., overall increase in environmental concerns with ups (1960s, 1980s) and downs (1970s)
Contemporary environmental concern
-Social status and environmental concern
-Changes over time:
-Middle class service professionals had more concern (a 1979 survey)
-Little influence of social status on levels of environmental concern (a 1990 survey)
-In the U.S., people with lower socioeconomic status had more concerns (a 2000 survey)
White male effect:
less concern with environmental problems
Individualists
-Hierarchy: Hierarchical individualist (least concern): white-men effect.
-Equalitarian: Egalitarian Individualist
Solidarist
-Hierarchy: Hierarchical solidarist
-Equalitarian: Equalitarian solidarist (most concern)
Environmentalism of the poor
-Social Justice
3 Theories of Contemporary Environmental Concern
-Postmodernism:
-Values: freedom, self-expression, and quality of life
Critique of postmodernism:
-Environmentalism of the poor: material based
-The wealthy have the least concern
Paradigm Shift:
-Worldwide increase in environmental concern
-Shift from human exemptionalism paradigm to new environmental paradigm
Environmental beliefs and environmental values
-ex. The earth has limited resources
-ex. The government should play an active role in protecting the environment
Ecological Modernization:
-Emancipation of ecological rationality
Ecological Modernization: Green policy, daily practices
-Example. Obama’s green policy (energy policy): Ensure 10% of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25% by 2025.
Political Modernization:
-Seeking changes in science: radical reformism in science
The democratic basis of contemporary environmental concern
-Democratic sensibilities: history
-Democratic institutions: the free press, democratic rights to assemble, speech.
Gould and Lewis, Chapter 3. Theories in Environmental Sociology (Luis C. Barbosa)
-New-Marxist Political economy theories: conflict, not limited to differences in classes for analysis
-Ecological Marxism: exploitation of the environment.
Treadmill of Production: Mass production
-World-system theory:
-Causes of underdevelopment
-Countries in the semi-periphery stage are more likely to have the degrading environment.
Neoliberal theories: Adam Smith (1723-1790): Fee market
-Ecological Modernization theory
-Postmodern theory: risk analysis
4. What are the characteristics of “risk society”?
Salem witch trials. Normal accident and linear or complex coupling. Almost impossible to never have an accident or disaster. Like a post modern society.
What is natural conscience and natural me?
People should have moral with nature. Social me is how people perceive in society, natural me is my authentic self.
What are the relationships between postmodernism and environmental concerns?
Post-modern –
Environmental concerns-
The Material:
How consumption, the economy, technology, development, population, and the health of our bodies shape our environmental conditions.
The Ideal
How culture ideology, moral values, risk, and social experience influence the way we think about and act toward the environment.
The Practical
How we can bring about a more ecological society, taking both the material and ideal into account.