Sociology Unit 2

Naturework

 how we constantly work to transform “nature” into culture, filtering it through the screen of social meanings that we have learned

Karl Marx

One of the most important classical theorists to environmental sociology. work focused in the economic exploitation of everyday workers by those at the top of the economic hierarchy

Key Components of the treadmill theory

Technology, Labor, Environmental Withdrawals (Natural Resources) , Environmental Additions

Implications of the treadmill of production 

• Environmental degradation tends to get worse as time goes on

• Environmental degradation tends to get worse if the economy or a specific company is highly profitable

• Commodification of labor effects environmental 

Ecological Modernization

,

• There is nothing inherent in the capitalist cyst that generates environmental degradation

• Technology will create solutions

• Consumers decisions matter

• Reflexivity (Ecological Modernization)

• Companies in a capitalist system will take into account the environmental costs (Not in the best interest to have a polluted planet) 

• Government can and will regulate companies for the public good

First Step (Treadmill Theory)

Environmental Withdrawals(Like natural resources)

Second Step (Treadmill theory)

Production (Like manufacturing Products) (Cherry Coke)

Third Step (Treadmill Theory)

Environmental Additions (like pollution) (Smoke from a factory)

Fourth Step (Treadmill Theory)

Profits (Money being made)

5th Step (Treadmill Theory)

Invest Profits in Technology (To increase productivity) (Improving the robotics in a manufacturing facility… Mines)

6th Step (Treadmill Theory)

Decrease labor cost (Fewer or more inexpensive workers)

Final Step (Treadmill Theory)

REPEAT (ENVIRONMENTAL COST GROWS AS THE TREAMILL SPEEDS UP)

• Post-Materialist hypothesis

• Idea that you will care more about social issues - including the environment - if you have basic needs taken care of 

• Education matters- the more you know about it the more you’ll do about it

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), French Sociologist

Culture is an arena in which society can be stratified or unequal

Economic Capital

Money

Culture Capital

Calling Attention to the subtle and preservative ways in which language, knowledge, and cultural style shape interactions, it improves our understanding of the processes through which social-background effects are translated into unequal school performance and subsequent career chances

Ideal Environmentalists

• "Doesn't think twice about composting and recycling their waste, would shudder at the thought of using a disposable plastic water bottle, and seems to effortlessly buy green consumer products”

• Moral Judgment of tigers less environmentally friendly behavior

• Often associated with class and politics

• Aspirational Environmentalists

• “The aspirational environmentalist admires the idea of environmentalists ' commitment to go green consumption and see them as embodying the best relationship with the environment. Yet they know their shopping habits aren’t fully reflective of the ideal and comparing themselves incites a sense of guilt”

• Links to politics and class

• Accepting of Hierarchy and can police the hierarchy

• Resistant Environmentalists

• “ Don't engage in green consumption, but accept the logic of the hierarchy. They are aware of an association between social status and green consumption, but they feel too distant from these practices (and perhaps even from high status more generally to articulate the ideal environmentalists' practices of buying organic, gardening, and cycling, but these lifestyle markers feel deeply unfamiliar and out-of-reach.”

• Less Guilt 

• Tends to blame corporations 

• Recognize that people may be looking down on them

“Anti-” Environmentalists

• “What united people in the stratum is their opposition to ideal environmentalism , not the environment. The __ environmentalists view the hierarchy of environmentalism with disdain. They perceive the ideal environmentalists to be hypocritical and self-righteous and resent that they enjoy the cultural privilege that comes with having a lifestyle that reflects the best relationship with the environment.”

• They acknowledge but resist the hierarchy.

Unequal Ecological Exchange Theory

• Unequal economic relations between countries means that there are unequal environmental relations between countries

• These relationship pattern on more privileged countries in the Global North compared to less privileged countries in the global south

Disasters

Disasters are social

Hazards

• Refers to physical things

• Earthquake, Covid, Physical earth that moves, Oil spilling into the gulf

Exposure

Humans / living beings are exposed to the hazards

Vulnerability

• a set of conditions indicative of the potential for loss: loss of life, of physical and mental well-being, of the ability to function, of the functionality of physical systems such as buildings and infrastructure, of livelihoods and personal assets such as wealth and savings, and of environmental diversity and sustainability" 

Hazardous of place

• Some areas are more prone than other areas

Built-environment vulnerability

• All buildings and infrastructures

Social vulnerability

• “The social origins and aspects of the differential potential of individuals and communities to experience short- and longer-term losses as a consequence of disasters”

• Temporal,spatial and situational

• Post-disaster recovery is primarily related to pre-disaster (vulnerability

(1) Disaster Resilience

•  resilience involves resistance or absorptive capacity; a resilient person, household, organization, community, or built-environment system is one that can experience a major stressor or shock well, even if part of its functioning has been reduced.”

(2) Disaster Resilience

 involves the ability to cope and adapt when disasters strike and to move on to recover.

Social Infrastructure 

the people, places and institutions that foster cohesion and support.

• Comparing two neighborhoods (Example of Social Infrastructure)

• Demographically similar but very different death rates

• Auburn Gresham: 3 per 100k residents

• Englewood: 33 per 100k residents

• Why?

• Auburn Gresham had greater social infrastructure, like

• More social connections

• More community orgs and centers

• Greater Walkability

• Lower crime

• Greater collective efficacy

• Englewood had less social infrastructure

(1) Critiques of Resillence

Can focus on individuals at the expense of communities.

(2) Critiques of Resilience

Focuses in informal actors at the expense of formal actors (like government)

(3) Critiques of Resillience

Whose resilience? Uneven resilience trajectories

Everyday Adaptation

We define everyday adaptation as the small incremental changes made in our daily lives to accommodate the shifting ecologies in which we live.

• Adaptation Labor

Adaptation for natural resource- dependent communities occurs through changes in the structure of livelihoods because lives are so deeply structured around work

• Value Adaptation

refers to shifts in what individuals value and prioritize when deciding how to adapt their lives in response to ecological changes

• Four Logics of Everyday Adaptation

1. Lifecycle Stability: preserving ways of life

• Four Logics of Everyday Adaptation

2. Socio-ecological Reactivity: Accepting Climate Change

• Four Logics of Everyday Adaptation

3. Livelihood Flexibility: Changing work to suit the moment

• Four Logics of Everyday Adaptation

4. Community Capacity: Thinking Collectively, Not individually

• Climate Migration

1. There is (Probably) no such thing as someone who migrates only for climate reasons. It is always embedded in wider social dynamics

2. one of the most severe outcomes – impacts on livelihoods, well-being, health, and much more can come before migration.