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
Non-profit groups that work independently of governments
Nongovernmental organizations
Argues that the dynamic nature of capitalism allows economic growth and related technologies to be directed toward environmental reforms.
Ecological modernization theory
Looks to global institutional structures to shape social change and bring about environmental protection.
World society theory
Focuses on development as a process through which environmental protection becomes more common.
Reflexive modernization
Involves a universalization of risk, spreading it across the globe and throughout society, which leads to a breakdown in the general functions of society.
Risk society
Proposed policies in line with a just transition to address climate change and racial inequalities
Green New Deal
Proposes that the society-environment relationship is a dynamic system determined by how governments, the market, and civil society interact and how much they prioritize environmental issues by regulating environmental “bads” and protecting environmental “goods.”
Anthro-shift
Actual and perceived exposure to environmental dangers and natural disasters
Risk
Warming of the Earth and increases in extreme weather events
Climate change
Focus on the scale of environmental damage: how much carbon, collectively, are we adding to the atmosphere each year?
Total emissions
The amount of emissions per person
Per capita emissions
A resource available to everyone
Commons
Widely used to quantify relative levels of carbon efficiency, since we can compare how much carbon each nation emits to create the same amount of economic value.
Emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Production (GDP)
A global climate effort that was negotiated in 2015 and committed all countries to take steps to address climate change
The Paris Agreement
When fertile land becomes a desert
Desertification
Intentionally promoting scientific misinformation about climate change
Climate denial
Groups of ideologically similar policy actors who amplify and distort climate misinformation.
Echo chambers
Highlights the ways that many common pool resources – those available to everyone, like air or water – are being polluted due to self-interest, or what some scholars have called the “free-rider problem.”
Tragedy of the commons
Inequalities in the production of environmental harms
Disproportionality
Discusses hyperpolluters that contribute to climate change
Don Grant
Pollution across a range of industries and sectors that are disproportionately responsible for environmental harms
Hyperpolluters
Scientific consensus of amount of global warming societies can adapt to
1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit)
The original event, held in 1970, turned out 20 million Americans to protest environmental pollution and celebrate the planet, and the anniversary event was expected to engage people across the U.S. and around the world in teach-ins, climate strikes, and concerts.
Earth Day
Focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental harms and environmental goods by race and class
Environmental justice movement
Those that experience environmental pollution and harm first and most severely
Frontline communities
Participated in the first-ever climate strike. Inspired by the national school walkout against gun violence in the U.S. that was organized after the Parkland School Shooting in Florida, the 15-year-old decided to spend her Fridays sitting with a handwritten sign in front of the Swedish parliament.
Greta Thunberg
The group coordinating this tactic of skipping school on Fridays to protest inaction on climate change
Fridays for Future
