Environmental Sociology Flashcards
The variety of species in an ecosystem
Biodiversity
Assumes that humans are inherently different from other living beings (was made by sociologist Frederick Buttel)
Exemptionalist perspective
Focused on how people in rural areas, many living on farms and working in the agricultural sector, were directly connected to the environment and relied on natural resources
Rural sociology
Largely looks at the social organization of urban communities
Human ecology
Required federal agencies to consider the environmental effects of all policies and legislation
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
Called for a new paradigm for thinking about the society-environment relationship
William Catton and Riley Dunlap
Prioritizes economic growth, prosperity, and individualism
Human exemptionalist paradigm
This perspective considers potential limits to economic growth and encourages developing a stable economy that is balanced with nature
New Environmental Paradigm (New Ecological Paradigm)
Society affects the quality of the natural environment, and environmental change (degradation and protection) also has a clear effect on the quality and scope of society
Conjoint constitution
People working individually or collectively through community groups and social movements
Civil society
Suggests that any society driven by economic expansion is stuck in a conflict with nature.
Treadmill of production theory
Those with mature trees that have been relatively undisturbed by human activity
Old growth forests
The focus of this view is on the interchange of matter and energy between human societies and the larger environment, describing it as a form of metabolism (just as the human body converts what you eat and drink into energy)
Metabolic rift perspective
Necessity for continual economic growth
Growth imperative
The exchange of resources and material between society and the environment
Social metabolism
Focuses on unequal resource exchanges and ecological interdependencies within the global economy
Ecologically unequal exchange theory
Governments will begin to include environmental protection “as a basic state responsibility.”
Environmental state