Unit 1.pdf

SOC 191. Special Topics ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Defining Environmental Sociology What paradigms are Historical background Why study...

SOC 191. Special Topics ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Defining Environmental Sociology What paradigms are Historical background Why study What is Environmental used in studying of Environmental Environmental Sociology? Environmental Sociology Sociology? Sociology? 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  What is Environmental Sociology? Sociology is a science that studies society, social structures, and social systems by putting things into context, challenging the status quo, and making the world a better place. It is essentially about three important tasks: see, judge, act. Environment is the biophysical surroundings that interact with human societies. - biophysical – interaction between the biotic and abioitic components 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  What is Environmental Sociology? Environmental Sociology is grounded on the analysis of the intricate relationship between society, nature, and the environment; a field that studies the social processes that bind and separate people as members of associations, groups, and institution and the actions they take on surrounding persisting environmental issues.  studies how social systems interact with ecosystems with the aim to develop, apply and communicate insights unique to the sociological imagination. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  What is Environmental Sociology? Environmental Sociology Two (2) distinct areas centrally addressed in the existing literature on environmental sociology: 1. Causes of environmental destruction 2. Rise of environmental consciousness and movements. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  What is Environmental Sociology? Environmental Sociologist brings the sociological lens and apply the sociological imagination to the ways in which social systems generate and respond to ecological changes.  examine the cycle of social systems constantly organizing Environmental and changing in response to Social system changes the natural world and how the changes they caused in the natural world force them to further respond and change. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Historical background of Environmental Sociology Highlights of the organizational development and institutionalization of Environmental Sociology: 1962 – publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 1964 – Rural Sociological Society (RSS) formed the “Sociological Aspects of Forestry Research Committee,” later renamed as "Research Committee on Sociological Aspects of Natural Resource Development,” a committee that focused on the problems associated with the use of water, forest, and other natural resources. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Historical background of Environmental Sociology Highlights of the organizational development and institutionalization of Environmental Sociology: 1972 – 1973 - Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) created a group on environmental problems. End of 1973 - Council of the American Sociological Association authorized the formation of a committee that developed guidelines for sociological contributions to environmental impact statements. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Historical background of Environmental Sociology Highlights of the organizational development and institutionalization of Environmental Sociology: Early 1974 - the "Ad Hoc Committee on Environmental Sociology'' provided impetus for the emergence of the ASA section on Environmental Sociology. 1976 – Environmental Sociology was recognized as a subfield of Sociology and was institutionalized only as one of the topical sections of the American Sociological Association. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Historical background of Environmental Sociology Highlights of the organizational development and institutionalization of Environmental Sociology: Late 1970s – William Catton and Ridley Dunlap, early environmental sociologists, claimed that all sociological theories were anthropocentric, hence referring such sociological worldview as “Human Exemptionalism Paradigm (HEP),” then argued for a contrasting worldview as critique to the HEP to which they referred to as the “New Ecological Paradigm (NEP).” 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Paradigms in Environmental Sociology Human Exemptionalism Paradigm (HEP) - anthropocentric – human society as the center of the world, controlling and using the environment without regard for the natural-based limits to social growth since they are exempted from environmental forces via cultural change. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Paradigms in Environmental Sociology Human Exemptionalism Paradigm (HEP) assumptions accepted theoretically: 1. Humans are unique among the earth's creatures, for they have culture. 2. Culture can vary almost infinitely and can change much more rapidly than biological traits. 3. Since many human differences are socially induced rather than inborn, they can be socially altered, and in convenient differences can be eliminated. 4. Cultural accumulation means that progress can continue without limit, making all social problems ultimately soluble. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Paradigms in Environmental Sociology Main idea: To “see” the modern societies as being exempt from ecological constraints. Major Criticism on HEP: Created a large consensual view that modern industrial societies could be understood without any consideration of the biophysical base, and therefore the environmental phenomena were irrelevant to the field of Sociology. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Paradigms in Environmental Sociology New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) – less anthropocentric and more ecocentric, where humans are just among the many independent species in the global environment inhabiting the earth and are ecologically interdependent as with other species. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025  Paradigms in Environmental Sociology New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) assumptions about the nature of social reality in contrast to the HEP: 1. Human beings are but one species among the many that are interdependently involved in the biotic communities that shape our social life. 2. Intricate linkages of cause and effect and feedback in the web of nature produce many unintended consequences from purposive human action. 3. The world is finite, so there are physical and biological limits constraining economic growth, social progress, and other societal phenomena. 1st Semester, AY 2024-2025