Chapter 13:Environmental Problems

“The world will no longer be divided by the ideologies of ‘left’ and ‘right,’ but by those who accept ecological limits and those who don’t.”

—Wolfgang Sachs

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Structural-Functionalist Perspective

• Structural functionalism focuses on how changes in one aspect of the social system affect other aspects of society.

• By 2020, an estimated 50 million people globally will be environmental refugees—individuals who have migrated because they can no longer secure a livelihood as a result of environmental problems.

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Structural-Functionalist Perspective

• The structural-functionalist perspective raises our awareness of latent dysfunctions; negative consequences of social actions that are unintended and not widely recognized.

• For example, the more than 840,000 dams worldwide provide water to irrigate farmlands and supply some of the world’s electricity.

• Yet dam building has had unintended negative consequences for the environment.

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Conflict Perspective

• The conflict perspective focuses on how wealth, power, and the pursuit of profit underlie many environmental problems.

• To maximize sales, manufacturers design products intended to become obsolete. As a result of this planned obsolescence, consumers continually throw away used products and purchase replacements. Industry profits at the expense of the environment, which must sustain the constant production and absorb ever-increasing amounts of waste.

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Conflict Perspective

• Industries also use their power and wealth to influence politicians’ environmental and energy policies as well as the public’s beliefs about environmental issues. – In 2009, oil and gas industries spent $175 million on

lobbying—nearly eight times what pro-environmental groups spent.

• The conflict perspective is also concerned with environmental injustice (also known as environmental racism)—the tendency for marginalized populations and communities to disproportionately experience adversity due to environmental problems.

• Focuses on how meanings, labels, and definitions learned through interaction and through the media affect environmental problems.

• Large corporations and industries commonly use marketing and public relations strategies to construct favorable meanings of their corporation or industry.

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

• Greenwashing: Refers to the way environmentally and socially damaging companies portray their corporate image and products as being “environmentally friendly” or socially responsible.

• Although greenwashing involves manipulation of public perception to maximize profits, many corporations make genuine and legitimate efforts to improve their operations, packaging, or overall sense of corporate responsibility toward the environment.

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

• Pinkwashing: the practice of using the color pink and pink ribbons and other marketing strategies that suggest a company is helping to fight breast cancer, even when the company may be using chemicals linked to cancer.

Sociological Theories of Environmental Problems Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

• Environmental problems such as climate change and destruction of the ozone layer extend far beyond their source to affect the entire planet.

– For example, toxic chemicals (such as

polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs]) from the Southern Hemisphere have been found in the Arctic.

The Global Context: Globalization and the EnvironmentPermeability of International Borders

Environmental Problems: An OverviewGlobal Warming and Climate Change

• Global warming refers to the increasing average global air temperature, caused mainly by the accumulation of various gases (greenhouse gases) that collect in the atmosphere.

• Causes of Global Warming: The prevailing scientific view is that Greenhouse Gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide, accumulate in the atmosphere and act like the glass in a greenhouse, holding heat from the sun close to the earth.

Environmental Problems: An OverviewGlobal Warming and Climate Change

• The effects of global warming and climate change also include the following:

Environmental Problems: An OverviewGlobal Warming and Climate Change

• Effects of Global Warming and Climate Change Climate change kills an estimated 30,000 people per year, mostly in the developing world (Global Humanitarian Forum 2009).

• The majority of these deaths are attributed to crop failure leading to malnutrition and water problems such as flooding and drought.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0

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• Freshwater resources are being consumed by agriculture, by industry, and for domestic use.

• More than 1 billion people lack access to clean water

• The demand for new land, fuel, and raw materials resulted in deforestation, the conversion of forest land to nonforest land.

• Desertification is the degradation of semiarid land, which results in the expansion of desert land that is unusable for agriculture.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Depletion of Natural Resources:

• Transportation vehicles, fuel combustion, industrial processes (such as burning coal and processing minerals from mining), and solid waste disposal have contributed to the growing levels of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, nitrogen dioxide, mercury, dioxins, and lead.

• Air pollution, which is linked to heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, kills about 3 million people a year.

• In the United States, about half of the population lives in areas where they are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Air Pollution

• Indoor Air Pollution– Exposure to this indoor smoke increases risk

of pneumonia, chronic respiratory disease, asthma, cataracts, tuberculosis, and lung cancer, and is responsible for up to 1.6 million deaths a year (World Health Organization 2010).

– Exposure is particularly high among women and children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth or stove.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Air Pollution

• Destruction of the Ozone Layer – The ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere protects

life on earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. – Yet the ozone layer has been weakened by the use of

certain chemicals, particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in refrigerators, air conditioners, spray cans, and other applications.

– The depletion of the ozone layer allows hazardous levels of ultraviolet rays to reach the earth’s surface and is linked to a variety of problems.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Air Pollution

Environmental Problems: An Overview Air Pollution

• Acid Rain– Air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and

nitrogen oxide, mix with precipitation to form acid rain. Polluted rain, snow, and fog contaminate crops, forests, lakes, and rivers.

– For example: As a result of the effects of acid rain, all the fish have died in a third of the lakes in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Land Pollution

• About 30 percent of the world’s surface is land, which provides soil to grow the food we eat.

• Increasingly, humans are polluting the land with nuclear waste, solid waste, and pesticides.

• In 2011, 1,287 hazardous waste sites (also called Superfund sites) were on the National Priority List.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Land Pollution

• Solid Waste: In 1960, each U.S. citizen generated 2.7 pounds of garbage on average every day. – This figure increased to 3.7 pounds in 1980, and to

4.3 pounds in 2009. – This figure does not include mining, agricultural, and

industrial waste; demolition and construction wastes; junked autos; or obsolete equipment wastes.

– Just over half of this waste is dumped in landfills; the rest is recycled or composted.

– E-waste: Discarded electrical appliances and electronic equipment.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Land Pollution

Environmental Problems: An Overview Water Pollution

• Our water is being polluted by a number of harmful substances, including pesticides, vehicle exhaust, acid rain, oil spills, sewage, and industrial, military, and agricultural.

• In the United States, one indicator of water pollution is the thousands of fish advisories issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that warn against the consumption of certain fish caught in local waters because of contamination with pollutants such as mercury and dioxin waste.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Water Pollution

• Water pollution also affects the health and survival of fish and other marine life. In the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie, there are areas known as “dead zones” that—due to pollution runoff from agricultural uses of fertilizer—have oxygen levels so low they cannot support life.

• In recent years, there has been increasing public concern about the effects of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”—a process used in natural gas production that involves injecting at high pressure a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into deep underground wells to break apart shale rock and release gas.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Chemicals, Carcinogens, and Health Problems

• About 3 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into the environment each year.

• Chemicals in the environment enter our bodies via the food and water we consume, the air we breathe, and the substances with which we come in contact.

• The 12th Report on Carcinogens lists 240 chemical substances that are “known to be human carcinogens” or “reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens,” meaning that they are linked to cancer.

Many personal care products contain chemicals with known or suspected adverse health effects.

Environmental Problems: An Overview Chemicals, Carcinogens, and Health Problems

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

Environmental Activism

• With more than 6,500 national and 20,000 local environmental organizations with a combined membership of between 20 million and 30 million, the U.S. environmental movement may be the largest single social movement in the United States.

• Environmental organizations exert pressure on government and private industry to initiate or intensify actions related to environmental protection.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

Environmental Activism

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

Environmental Activism

• Religious Environmentalism: From a religious perspective, environmental degradation can be viewed as sacrilegious, sinful, and an offense against God.

• Radical Environmentalism: The radical environmental movement is a grassroots movement of individuals and groups that employs unconventional and often illegal means of protecting wildlife or the environment. Radical environmentalists believe in what is known as deep ecology: the view that maintaining the earth’s natural systems should take precedence over human needs, that nature has a value independent of human existence, and that humans have no right to dominate the earth and its living inhabitants.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

Environmental Activism

• Ecoterrorism is defined as any crime intended to protect wildlife or the environment that is violent, puts life at risk, or results in damages of $10,000 or more (Denson 2000).

• Many environmentalists question whether “terrorist” is an appropriate label and argue that the real terrorists are corporations that plunder the earth.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

Environmental Activism

• The Role of Corporations in the Environmental Movement:– Corporations are major contributors to

environmental problems and often fight against environmental efforts that threaten their profits.

– Rather than hope that industry voluntarily engages in eco-friendly practices, corporate attorney Robert Hinkley suggested that corporate law be changed to mandate socially responsible behavior.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental ProblemsEnvironmental Education

• One goal of environmental organizations and activists is to educate the public about environmental issues and the seriousness of environmental problems.

• Being informed about environmental issues is important because people who have higher levels of environmental knowledge tend to engage in higher levels of pro-environment behavior.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

“Green” Energy

• Increasing the use of green energy; energy that is renewable and nonpolluting—can help alleviate environmental problems associated with fossil fuels. Also known as clean energy, green energy sources include solar power, wind power, biofuel, and hydrogen.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

“Green” Energy

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

“Green” Energy

• Solar and Wind Energy: Solar power involves converting sunlight to electricity through the use of photovoltaic cells. More than half of solar photovoltaic cells are installed in Germany; the United States has only 6 percent.

Strategies for Action: Responding to Environmental Problems

Government Policies, Programs, and Regulations

Clip Time!

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM