Society and the environment : pragmatic solutions to ecological issues

Summary: "Society and the Environment examines today's environmental controversies within a socio-organizational context. After outlining the contours of "pragmatic environmentalism," Carolan explores the material world: air, water, biodiversity, and trash. He considers the pressures that exist where ecology and society collide, such as population growth and its associated increased demands for food and energy. Carolan also investigates how various ecological issues, such as climate change, are affecting our very own personal health. Finally, he drills into the social/structural dynamics--including political economy and the international legal system--that create ongoing momentum for environmental ills. This interdisciplinary text features a three-part structure in each chapter that covers "fast facts" about the issue at hand, examines its wide-ranging implications, and offers balanced consideration of possible real-world solutions. Bolstering that analysis, a variety of boxes highlight relevant case studies as well as the value judgments which lurk everywhere in talk about environmental phenomena. New to this edition are "Movement Matters" boxes, which showcase grassroots movements that have affected legislation. Discussion questions and key terms enhance the text's usefulness, making Society and the Environment the perfect learning tool for courses on environmental sociology"--

Record details

ISBN: 9780813350004
ISBN: 081335000X
ISBN: 9780813350455
Physical Description: print
xxiv, 340 pages ; 26 cm
Edition: Second edition.
Publisher: Boulder, CO : Westview Press, [2017]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Introduction: Individuals, Societies, and Pragmatic Environmentalism -- Individualism: Too Much and Not Enough -- Contribution of the Social Sciences -- Material Things Have Momentum -- Messy Relationship Between Behaviors and Attitudes -- Journey Ahead -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- E-Connection 1.1. Some of Those Deep Sociological Drivers -- ch. 2 Greenhouse Gases: Warmer Isn't Better -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Urban Areas -- Food Security -- Children, Women, and the Elderly -- Climate Change Refugees -- Solutions -- Environmental Movements Matter -- Seventeen Pragmatic Behavioral Changes -- Stabilization Triangle and Wedges -- Green Building -- Geoengineering -- Carbon Markets and Offsets -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- E-Connection 2.1. The US Public's Knowledge of Climate Change -- Ethical Question 2.1. The Most Threatened Are the Least Responsible -- E-Connection 2.2. Climate Change Linked to Food-Related Vulnerabilities for Certain Populations -- Case Study 2.1. Climate Change and the Wine Industry -- E-Connection 2.3. Testimony from Satou Diouf, Gadiag Village, Senegal -- Case Study 2.2. Climate Refugees from Indonesia and Bangladesh -- Movement Matters 2.1. Beyond Coal and Its Unusual Bedfellows -- E-Connection 2.4. Examples of Geoengineering, Mitigation, and Adaptation -- E-Connection 2.5. Biochar -- ch. 3 Waste: Our Sinks Are Almost Sunk -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Energy Waste and the Life-Cycle Analysis -- Recycling -- Food Waste -- Waste and Public Health -- E-Waste -- Solutions -- MSW Management Alternatives from Around the World -- Extended Producer Responsibility -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- Case Study 3.1. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- Ethical Question 3.1. What Ought to Be Most Valued? -- Case Study 3.2. The Close Loop Fund and Recent Recycling Trends -- E-Connection 3.1. The Recycling Loophole -- Ethical Question 3.2. Public Health and Value Judgments -- E-Connection 3.2. E-Waste and Public Health -- Movement Matters 3.1. The Real Junk Food Project -- ch. 4 Biodiversity: Society Wouldn't Exist Without It -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Changing Definitions of Biodiversity -- Biodiversity: The Fuel Driving Ecosystem Services -- Biocultural Diversity -- Biopiracy -- Solutions -- Community Conservation -- Agrobiodiversity Conservation -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- E-Connection 4.1. Thinking About Ecosystem Services Conceptually -- Ethical Question 4.1. Sophie's Choice: What If We Can't Save Them All? -- E-Connection 4.2. The Tragedy of the Commodity -- Ethical Question 4.2. The Power of Conservation Maps -- E-Connection 4.3. The Irreplaceable Bee -- Ethical Question 4.3. Sustainability: For Whom and Toward What End? -- E-Connection 4.4. Socioecological Benefits Known to Arise from Community Conservation -- Case Study 4.1. Participatory Forest Management in Kenya -- Movement Matters 4.1. Open Source Seed -- Case Study 4.2. The Seed Bank That Makes Memories -- ch. 5 Water: There's No Substitute -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Bottled Water -- Privatizing Water -- Agriculture -- Climate Change -- Surface Water -- Groundwater -- Hydrologic Extremes -- Water Quality -- Water Demand -- Solutions -- Water as a Human Right at the Right Value -- Water Governance -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- Case Study 5.1. China's Water Woes -- E-Connection 5.1. The IMF and the World Bank -- E-Connection 5.2. US Bureau of Reclamation -- Case Study 5.2. Neoliberalism and Water Privatization: The Case of India -- Case Study 5.3. Desalinization in California -- Movement Matters 5.1. Grassroots Organizations Take on Nestle Waters Canada -- Case Study 5.4. Micro-Watershed Councils in Mexico and Guatemala -- ch. 6 Population: A Problem of Quantity or Quality? -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Greenhouse Gases -- Urban Sprawl -- Food -- Feeding a Growing Nonhuman Animal Population -- Feeding a Growing Automobile Population -- Solutions -- Socioeconomic Development -- Future Role of Cities -- Case for a Population Explosion -- "Up Rather Than Out": If It Works for Cities, Can It Work for Farms? -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- E-Connection 6.1. From IPAT to STIRPAT -- Ethical Question 6.1. Do Countries Have a Right to Their Fair Share of CO2 Emissions? -- Case Study 6.1. Japan: A Rapidly Shrinking Country -- Case Study 6.2. Socioeconomic Development in Kerala, India -- Ethical Question 6.2. Whose Behaviors Should Change? -- Case Study 6.3. Family Planning in Ethiopia -- Case Study 6.4. Urban Density: A Tale of Two Cities (Within the Same City) -- ch. 7 Transportation: Beyond Air Pollution -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Pollution and Public Health -- Habitat and Biodiversity -- Community -- Solutions -- Dense, Livable, Intermodal Cities -- From Street Hierarchy to Interconnectivity -- Disincentivizing the Car -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- E-Connection 7.1. Effective Speed -- Case Study 7.1. China's Pollution Problem -- E-Connection 7.2. Social Capital -- E-Connection 7.3. Community Severance -- Case Study 7.2. The Rise of Bike-Share Programs -- Ethical Question 7.1. Value Judgments Embedded in Transportation Policy -- E-Connection 7.4. High-Occupancy Vehicle Lanes -- Case Study 7.3. "Daylighting" the Cheonggyecheon Stream in South Korea -- Case Study 7.4. Breaking Through the Street Hierarchy -- E-Connection 7.5. Have Cars Reached Their Peak? -- Movement Matters 7.1. The Rise of Public Transit Movements -- Case Study 7.5. The London Congestion Charge -- ch. 8 Food: From Farm to Fork -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Environmental Impacts -- Community Impacts -- Malnutrition and the Green Revolution -- "Treadmills" of Agriculture -- Solutions -- Agroecology -- La Via Campesina and Other Peasant-Based Movements -- Urban Gardens -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- Case Study 8.1. Mobile Bay Jubilee -- E-Connection 8.1. Fish In Fish Out (FIFO) Ratio -- E-Connection 8.2. Negative Impacts of Industrialized Farms -- E-Connection 8.3. Yes! We Have No Bananas -- E-Connection 8.4. Agroecology: Growing More Than Food and Fiber -- Case Study 8.2. Landless Workers' Movement (MST) -- Movement Matters 8.1. Food Sovereignty Movement Scores Victory in Ecuador -- ch. 9 Energy Production: Our Sunny Prospects -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- "Clean" Coal -- Hydraulic Fracturing (aka Fracking) -- Nuclear Power -- Solutions -- Efficiency and Curtailment -- Renewables -- Incentivizing Renewables and Household Efficiency -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- Case Study 9.1. Three Gorges Dam -- Case Study 9.2. Experimenting with Carbon Capture in West Virginia -- E-Connection 9.1. Mountaintop Removal Mining -- E-Connection 9.2. Floating on a Cloud... of Fossil Fuel Emissions -- E-Connection 9.3. More Cheap Fracking Plastic -- Movement Matters 9.1. The Fight Over Local Control -- Case Study 9.3. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster as "Normal Accident" -- E-Connection 9.4. Windmills and Bird Fatalities -- E-Connection 9.5. Social Norms and Behavior -- ch. 10 Political Economy: Making Markets Fair and Sustainable -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Growth Imperative -- Treadmill of Production -- Internal Contradictions -- Metabolic Rift -- Another Contradiction of Capitalism -- Globalization of Environmental Goods and Bads -- Critiquing the Environmental Kuznets Curve -- World-Systems Framework -- Solutions -- Total Cost Accounting -- Fair Versus Free Trade -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- Case Study 10.1. Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: Jevons Paradox or Rebound Effect? -- E-Connection 10.1. Treadmill/Metabolic Rift: Declining Global Fish Stocks -- E-Connection 10.2. Capital Shaping Humans in Its Image: A Third Contradiction? -- E-Connection 10.3. Forest Transition Theory -- E-Connection 10.4. "Apolitical Ecologies" and Foucauldian Governance -- E-Connection 10.5. Fair Trade -- Movement Matters 10.1. Italy's Gruppi di Aquisto Soledale (GAS): Solidarity Purchasing Groups -- ch. 11 Governance: Biases and Blind Spots -- Fast Facts -- Implications -- Welfare Economics and Cost-Benefit Analyses -- Tyranny of the Present: Discounting -- Self-Interested Straw Person -- Solutions -- From Tragedy to Drama -- Absolute Sustainability -- Precautionary Principle -- Important Concepts -- Discussion Questions -- Suggested Additional Readings -- Relevant Internet Links -- Suggested Videos -- Ethical Question 11.1. Unpacking "Science" -- E-Connection 11.1. Discounting and Forest Management --