Sociology (9690) | Human impacts on environment

Welcome to People and the Environment: Human Impacts!

Hello Sociologists! This chapter is fascinating because it connects our everyday social lives directly to the biggest challenges facing the planet—the environment. We're moving away from looking just at people, and now we examine the complex relationship between society and the natural world.

Don't worry if terms like 'Gaia hypothesis' sound complicated; we will break them down. The key takeaway here is understanding that human societies do not just exist in the environment, but actively shape it, often with significant consequences.

I. Core Sociological Views on People and the Natural World

Sociology doesn't just study pollution; it studies how we think about nature. These thoughts, or "views," determine how we treat the environment.

1. The Exploitative View (Nature as a Resource)

This is the most dominant view in many industrial societies. It sees nature purely in terms of its usefulness for humans.

Key Idea: Nature exists primarily for exploitation for human use.

• Analogy: Viewing the forest not as an ecosystem, but simply as 'lumber' or 'land for development'.
• This view drives practices like large-scale extraction, mining, and deforestation without considering long-term ecological damage.

2. Romanticism (Nature as Sacred)

In contrast to the exploitative view, romanticism emphasizes the beauty, wildness, and moral value of nature.

• It values nature for its own sake, often inspiring movements to protect pristine wilderness.
• Example: The creation of national parks and protected areas often stems from this romantic ideal.

3. The Gaia Hypothesis

This is a holistic, scientific, and philosophical view.

• The theory suggests that the Earth (Gaia) is a single, complex, self-regulating system where living organisms and the physical environment interact to maintain conditions suitable for life.
• Simple definition: The Earth acts like one giant, living organism. If one part (like the atmosphere or the oceans) is damaged, the whole system tries to correct itself, but often with catastrophic results for the inhabitants.

4. Giving Standing to Nature

This is an emerging legal and ethical concept.

• It means granting natural entities (like rivers, forests, or specific ecosystems) legal rights, similar to those held by humans or corporations.
• Example: If a river has 'standing', you can sue polluters on the river's behalf, protecting it from exploitation.

5. Media Representations

The media plays a huge role in shaping our ideas about the environment.

• The news often focuses on dramatic crises (floods, wildfires) which creates public awareness, but sometimes misses the long-term, slow processes of environmental change.
• The way environmental issues are framed (e.g., as a 'moral duty' or an 'economic drag') influences public and political action.

II. Historical Context and Time Scales

1. Future Generations and 'The Long Now'

Most political and economic decisions focus on short-term gains (the next election, the next quarter’s profit). Sociologists and environmentalists argue we must adopt 'the long now'.

• 'The long now': Thinking about the consequences of our actions for people living hundreds, or even thousands, of years in the future.
• This is central to the concept of sustainability—meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

2. The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange refers to the massive transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World (Europe and Asia) in the 15th and 16th centuries.

• Impact: This exchange fundamentally changed global landscapes, agriculture, and food systems forever.
• Example: Introducing potatoes to Europe and introducing horses and new diseases (like smallpox) to the Americas changed global demographics and diets.

III. Changing Landscapes and Resource Use

Human activity transforms the physical world, often resulting in permanent landscape changes.

1. Landscape Transformation

• Deforestation: Clearing forests for agriculture, timber, or urbanization (a key driver of climate change and biodiversity loss).
• Desertification: Land degradation in dry areas, often caused by poor farming practices, overgrazing, or drought.
• Extraction/Mining: Large-scale removal of minerals and fossil fuels, which physically rearranges landscapes and contaminates local environments.
• Oceans: Humans impact oceans through pollution (plastics), overfishing, and deep-sea mining.

2. The Role of Plants and Agriculture

Humans have domesticated and altered plants for millennia (a process called artificial selection).

• We have changed plants for essential uses like food (e.g., modern corn looks nothing like its ancestor) and medicine.
• Effects of Agriculture: Modern agriculture, relying on monocropping (growing one crop) and heavy fertilizers, has significant environmental effects, including soil degradation and water pollution from runoff.

Key Takeaway: Our landscapes are not static; they are cultural and economic products shaped by thousands of years of human intervention, especially industrialization.

IV. Human Movement, Consumption, and Sustainability

How we move and what we buy are huge drivers of environmental impact.

1. Effects of Human Movement

• Mass Transport and Commuting: Reliance on cars, buses, and air travel burns fossil fuels, contributing significantly to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Tourism and Over-tourism: Tourism brings economic benefits, but over-tourism occurs when the volume of visitors damages the environment, infrastructure, and cultural sites (Example: excessive cruise ship pollution near sensitive marine areas).

2. Consumption, Energy, and Sustainability

Consumption is the act of purchasing and using goods. In capitalist societies, there is pressure for conspicuous consumption (buying things to show off status), which demands constant resource extraction.

• Energy Sources: Our societal reliance on non-renewable energy (coal, oil, gas) is the primary driver of the climate crisis. Moving towards renewable energy is essential for sustainability.
• Sustainability: In a sociological sense, sustainability requires not just technological fixes, but deep changes in social organization, consumption habits, and economic priorities.

V. Sociological Perspectives on Environmental Issues

Sociologists approach the climate crisis not just as a scientific fact, but as a phenomenon shaped by social forces.

1. The Social Construction of Climate Change

This view, championed by sociologists like Hannigan, argues that environmental problems are not simply 'out there'; they are issues only once societies define them as such.

• The 'problem' requires scientists, media, and politicians to frame it in a way that generates concern and mobilizes action.
• If a society decides that plastic waste is "normal" and not a problem, then socially, it ceases to be an issue, regardless of the scientific data.

2. Realist Views

The Realist view takes the scientific evidence seriously. It argues that environmental threats like pollution and biodiversity loss are objective, measurable, and exist regardless of whether we define them as a problem.

• Realists argue that sociology needs to contribute solutions to these real physical dangers, not just study the language surrounding them.

3. Green Marxism

This perspective applies Marxist ideas to the environment.

• Core Argument: The environmental crisis is a crisis of capitalism. The capitalist system requires infinite growth and profit, which necessitates the endless exploitation of natural resources and people.
• Green Marxists argue that to solve the environmental crisis, we must fundamentally change the economic structure, moving away from profit-driven growth.

VI. The Climate Crisis, Pollution, and Environmental Justice

The outcomes of environmental damage are rarely distributed equally.

1. Specific Environmental Crises and Waste

• The Climate Crisis: Refers to the long-term changes in temperature and weather patterns, largely driven by human greenhouse gas emissions.
• Air, Land, and Water Pollution: Toxic chemicals, industrial waste, and agricultural runoff contaminate our essential resources.
• Plastics and E-waste: Non-biodegradable waste that accumulates globally.
• Space Junk: Even the space around Earth is affected—millions of pieces of orbital debris pose collision risks.
• Reduced Access to Clean Water: Due to pollution and climate change-induced droughts, clean water access is becoming a major global inequality issue.

2. Environmental Justice (Bullard)

Sociologists, especially those following the work of Robert Bullard, focus on how environmental problems intersect with social inequality.

• Environmental Justice: The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws and policies.
• Inequalities in Effects: Poor communities and ethnic minorities often live near polluting factories, waste dumps, or mining sites (known as "NIMBY" - Not In My Back Yard, meaning the rich push the pollution somewhere else). These groups suffer disproportionately from health issues caused by pollution.
• Inequalities in Access to Sustainability: Poorer communities often cannot afford sustainable choices (like solar panels, electric cars, or organic food), meaning acting sustainably is often a privilege reserved for the affluent.