SOC 111 Environmental Sociology Review Guide Midterm I

Catton and Dunlap's new ecological paradigm

"Humans are one of many interdependent species in the global ecosystem and part of a large web of nature, that humans depend on a finite biophysical environment, and that humans cannot stand above ecological laws."

Historically much of sociology ignores nature (True or False Statement)

(True) This lack of focused from sociology and nature has to do with the fact that sociology has been historically being serpearte from nature due to social systems and ecosystems being understood and being analyzed separately. Western ideology/tradition has been thought to be seperate domains. it's also a subtopic/subfield under sociology. it was not really considered a real topic.

Definition of a social movement

- A collective with mutual awareness in sustained interaction with economic and political elites seeking to forward or halt social change. Usually made up of groups outside of power that uses noninstitutional strategies

Air Quality in Fresno

- According to the American Lung Association's 2022 State of the Air rankings, The San Joaquin Valley maintains the three highest air pollution regions in the nation out of over 200 metropolitan regions examined, which include Bakersfield, Fresno, Madera-Hanford, and Visalia - Fresno ranked as the highest for short-term particle pollution and second highest for year-round particle pollution.

Cultural Issues and Population/Birth Control

- Arguing we should have fewer children seen as 'people hating' - Population control is seen as demographic competition' among different groups. - Population control techniques conflict with some religious values. - Population issues fundamentally related to sexual activities - controversial. - Population issues are necessarily gender issues - threatening social power dynamics. - Population control threatens the central source of identity - family, and children.

What are theories used for?

- Draw connections b/w what is happening that might otherwise remain hidden or invisible - A structure that is intended to capture or model something about the world - They are important because they assist us in making visible the invisible relations, structures, and processes shaping every day life and the organization of socioenvironmental relations

Mounting Problems that created need for environmental sociology

- Energy Crisis of the early 1970s - Santa Barbara oil spill (1969) - Toxic waste being discovered in the residential neighborhood of Love Canal (1978), and the accidental at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island (1979)

Six Levels of Social Movement-Type Activity

- Everyday Forms of Resistance - Local Grassroots Movements - Transnational Movements - Waves of Protests - Revolutionary Movements

Postmaterialism

- It is the shift or transformation of the concern about economic and physical security to a greater emphasis on freedom, self expression, and quality of life

History of Corn Production in USA

- Major approach in investment in new production technologies, frequently involving more electronic and mechanical equipment, within existing workplace - Corn became essential industry crop in the United States after 1945. Gradually, corn production has become essentially plantation operation, with growing size of landholding and replacement of the labor of plating, harvesting, and storing the grain with mechanized equipment. However, as corn production was industrialized, rural labor forces were eliminated, communities contracted, and local enterprise collapse because if a lack of wage income and comsumer spending.

Risk Society Theory

- Modern societies are based on high levels of technology -High levels of risk (Nuclear power, toxic chemicals, industrial accidents) - Trust in institutions weakens

differences in population pyramids by age distribution in graphs of select countries

- Nigeria (Developing country) has an age of distribution of significantly younger. The vast majority of the population is young while there is a small population of old people. - China (Developing country with some tendencies of a developed country) has a population middle age people with a slightly bigger younger population than old age. - Italy (developed country) has a higher population middle-old-to-old age. While having a smaller population of younger people.

What were the main factors making one more likely to join an air pollution or climate meeting

- Past civic participation in activities typically coordinated by labor unions - Being associated with a community-based organization

Major environmental organizations the 1960s?

- The Rural Sociological Society's Natural Resources Research Group (mid-1960s) - Environmental Defense Fund (1967) - Friends of the Earth (1969)

Demographic Transition Model

- This model would occur when low growth rates were achieved through controlled fertility and low death rates are achieved through modern societies, birth sanitation. - According to this model, in premodern societies, birth and death rates were both high; but population growth remained small because the deaths more or less cancelled out the births.

Malthusian argument about population growth

- Thomas Malthus asserted that without restrain human population growth would eventually exceed the production of food of food, resulting in a massive crash in population. - He posited that human population growth increased exponentially.

World System Theory

- Views process of development as inherently unequal -Differences in political and economic power means wealth tends to flow to core regions from peripheral ones, over time, development makes differences and gap even worse - Basically wealthy countries benefit from other countries and exploit those countries' citizens.

Deep Ecology

-Harmony with nature - Species Equality -Self- actualization over consumption - Awareness of natural resource limits -Environment Appropriate Technologies, Recycling - Bioregionalism ( suggests that political, cultural, and economic systems are more sustainable and just if they are organized around naturally defined areas)

Ecofeminism

-This theory explores how socioenvironmental relations are shaped not just by capitalism but patriarchy as well - They intersect in that both are seen as property and seen as free labor by non human nature and women, which makes profit

Properties of a social movement

1. Collective or joint action 2. Chane-orientated goals or claims 3. Some use of non-institutional actions 4. Some degree of organization 5. Some degree of temporal continuity

First Earth Day

1970

First United Nations Conference on the Environment

1972

Current global Human population

8 billion

Who came up with the "treadmill of production" concept?

Allan Schnaiberg

Modernization

An attempted to explain global inequality as a result of different levels of economic and cultural progress rather than a set of innate, inherited, or moral characteristics.

Women and Development, how is women's status related to fertility rates

As women are in more developed countries women's fertility rates are low.

Role of Children in rural regions of the developing world

Children will move to urban areas in the look for a better opportunities outside their area.

Who was surveyed?

City of Fresno registered voters

Crisis of overproduction and underproduction

Crisis of Over-Production - Stem from "contradiction" in the structure of the economy that producers never resolve, despite the current success Crisis Under-Production - Stems from "contradiction" where producers find themselves undermining the same social and environmental relations that make their production possible

Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice is 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, regulations, and policies.

Environmental sociology as interaction of social and ecosystems

Environmental sociologists study how social institutions interact with the environment and ask how industrial capitalism and modern state bureaucracies affect social and environmental inequalities and vice versa.

What decade does environmental sociology become a field or subdiscipline within sociology?

Environmental sociology has been an officially recognized subfield within sociology only since around 1976.

Jobs versus the environment

Even though the number of workers negatively affected is very small, the "jobs versus the environment" isse commands a great deal of public attention, and it can have a significant impact on environmental policy. It has been a talking point for politicians to hijack and round up votes.

Table 8-1 page 138

Every continent in the world has had an increase change of population and population growth of over 100% since 1950; with Africa having the highest change of rate of 473%.

Treadmill of Production

Explains how the relations b/w capitalism, the state, labor, and the environment produces environmental degradation as a normal part of its operations with little hope for correction w/o structural transformation

Free trade and alliances between Environmentalists and Labor Unions

Free trade allows polluting businesses to seek locations where there is little or no environmental regulations, this decreasing production costs and increasing profits. However environmentalists and labor unions have come together and made alliances to keep jobs in their country as will prioritizing safety and health.

Table 8-4 page 148 on climate change

Haiti is ranked 1 when it comes to vulnerability to climate change with a score of 0.58.

History of Environmental Problems and events that led to environmental sociology

History · Mounting Environmental Problems · Growing Environmental Movement · Government Actions · Institutionalization in Sociology Associations Problems · Climate Change · Energy USE · Distribution of pollution and environmental harms · Loss Biodiversity · Sustainability Economic growth has also being an influence on events that led to environmental sociology

Population Density

Indicates the average number of people who live in a specified area unit, usually square mile or square kilometer.

Ecological Modernization

It's a theory that recognizes that environmental problems are starting to reshape the institutions and everyday social practices of modernity - Argues that both the state and the market can work together to protect the environment

Why were labor unions important in the study?

Labor union membership showed the greatest willingness to attend a local meeting to address climate change or air pollution, with half of those belonging to a labor union reporting a positive response.

Local Development and the Growth Machine, Growth Coalition, Use and Exchange Values

Local development and the growth machine - "Local growth coalitions" are local alliances that band together to advocate economic growth which in results of the community organisations create "growth machine" which encourages almost any kind of economic development for currency. Exchange-value is the quantitative aspect of value, as opposed to "use-value" which is the qualitative aspect of value, and constitutes the substratum of the price of a commodity.

What are Love Canal, 3 Mile Island, Santa Barbara Oil Spill (When, What, Where?)

Love Canal - When: 1978 - What: Toxic waste being discovered in the residential neighborhood of Love Canal - Where: Neighborhood in Niagara Falls (Love Canal), New York 3 MIle Island: - When: 1979 - What: meltdown of nuclear power plant - Where: Dauphin County, Pennsylvania Santa Barbara Oil Spill - When: 1969 - What: Oil spill - Where: Santa Barbara, California

What is Outsourcing?

Moving the production of goods and services to another country to take advantage of cheap labor or other savings.

Examples of local environmental conflicts related to pro-growth and anti-growth forces

Negative Externalities - Cost is not included in economic decision-making and is generally borne by those who did not make the decision Labor unions as an example.

Green Revolution

Refers to a series of technological innovations to the production of food crops that were designed to increase productivity; more food could support more people.

Framing

Refers to the language that actors use to present issues

How society and average citizens are connected to economic growth?

Society and average citizens are connected to economic growth by its consumption and production based on their population growth. As population increases so its economic growth for its need to produce and consume; the treadmill of production and consumption.

Structural Adjustment and Debt Trap

Structural adjustment policy of IMF and World Banks has made poverty of poor countries worse - Refers to a comprehensive program of radical "free market" changes -- Reducing public services, liberalizing trade, emphasizing export crops - Results: -- Huge cuts in basic social services, and increases in prices for subsidized foodstuffs, leaving the poor even worse off. -- Exporting of raw materials means buying finished products at even higher prices, local workers paid low wages, others benefit from high profits of sales of cheap products.

Underdevelopment

Structure of the world economy - Treadmill-driven tendency to seek new markets and places for investment has sent the capital of wealthy nations overseas - Investment is most often a loan, not a gift - Huge profit gained by those that make loans - Poor nations only increase their debt

Table 8-2 page 141

The United States has the highest ecological footprint with an 8.1 hectares per person.

How to apply environmental theories to the iPhone

The analysis of the iPhone can illuminate the similarities and differences through which environmental sociologists study and explain socioenvironmental relations. While environmental sociologists seek to to answer fundamental question about why socioenvironmental problems and inequalities exist, what produces them, and what needs to change to address them, not all theories all theories approach these questions in the same way.

Political Opportunities and Threats

The changing power of movement organizations relative to other actors and institutions shaping politics.

Demography

The discipline in the social sciences that studies the characteristics of human populations, including how they change.

What is Environmental Sociology?

The study of how social systems interact with ecosystems.

Ecological Marxism

The theory links the socially destructive tendencies of capitalism with the ecologically destructive tendencies of capitalism, emphasizing how they are interconnected -capitalist production mode is the root of social injustice and ecological crisis, only way to solve this is to change capitalist production mode.

Just Transition Theory

Theory emphasizes that a healthy economy and a clean environment can and should co-exist

Social Science methods used by environmental sociologists

· Surveys ·Government/Archival/Secondary sources · Field research/Observation · Case Study · Interviews

The local timber industry over time as described locally

Timber industry is the primary economic engine in your area. Tourism has been growing, and wilderness enthusiasts who come to town have also helped to bolster the economy through their spending on lodging, supplies, and services. Those tourist jobs are not paid well however due to the increasing demand of tourism you began to notice lots of mills have being shutting down and lots of workers being laid off. Of such events, you and fellow mill workers began to worry about the high unemployment in your area and job situation. Because of tourism lots of environmentalists begin to try and protect the environment and a rare species, yet for you and your fellow workers this means these people are taking away your job/work, some foreigners taking away your job. Not only that your bosses are also telling you that these people are the reason so may workers are getting laid off and your paycheck is not getting sent on time.

World System and Modernization Theories

World System Theory - View the process of development as inherently unequal -- Divides world into cire and peripheral regions - Differences in political and economic power mean wealth tends to flow to core regions from peripheral ones - Over time. The development makes differences and gaps even worse Modernization Theories - The extension of modern agriculture known as the the "green revolution" and emphasis on birth control to maintain population growth low.