module 14: population and environmental sociology

first note: climate change is real and scary. 97% of climate scientists agree with this. it’s not even worth arguing with ppl that don’t believe in climate change.

plastic in the ocean: our oceans are filling up with plastic

  • if we don’t change, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean than 2050

  • right now each of us eats a credit cards worth of micro-plastic every week

overfishing: we’re fishing faster than fish can make babies

  • personal fishing is okay

  • corporations mass hunting fish is the problem. their nets can be as long as 7 miles and have to be controlled by drones. they have satallite to hunt schools of fish. ships are floating factories. they scoop up EVERYTHING

  • biological sustainable fish stock - a bunch of specific fish in a area. in 1974 90% of fish stocks were sustainable. today only 60% are sustainable.

running out of sand: we can only use a certain types of sand to make glass and concrete

  • sand is such a valuable research that there are sand mafia

  • sand is the 2nd most consumed resource after water

running out of soil:

  • we’ll be at cautastrophic soil loss in 60 years

  • soil has to be created??? created by animal poop or when plants and animals die

  • when you cut down trees and plants, soil isn’t held in place anymore. flood, wind, and other stuff makes soild go away and leaves bedrock

  • thankfully, there are ways to make food without soil. it’s planted in water in an indoor farm

running out of rare earth minerals:

  • used in electronics

  • out of rare earth minerals in the year 2050

  • even now some companies are mining trash dumps

running out of fresh water:

  • none of us can live without fresh water

  • we do have the ability to take salt out of water but right now only super rich countries can do it

  • ex: cape town was the first major global city to run out of water in 2017

why do ppl ruin the envrionment? it’s human nature. it’s not an excuse! we know that it isn’t due to ___ factor because we can look at countries without them and still have a destroyed environment. we reproduce, run out of food, starve, die, and start again.

textbook:

fracking: used to recover gas and oil which is very profitable but not good for the environment

demography: study of populations

fertility rate: measure of children born

mortality rate: measure of ppl dying

population composition: demogrpahic profile of a population

sex ration: number of men for every 100 women

population pyramid: popultion distribution by sex and age

malthusian therory: 3 factors that control human population that exceeds earth’s carrying capactity. he calls these positive checks bc they increase mortality rates. preventitive checks control population by reducing fertitlity rates.

carrying capacity: how many people can live in a given area considering the amount of available resources.

positive checks: war, famine, disease

preventitive checks: celibacy and birth control

however, humans didnt repeat the cycle bc of tech, medicine, and ontraception

zero population growth: number of people entering a population through birth or immigration is equal to the number of people leaving it via death or emigration

cornucopian theory: human ingenuity can resolve any environmental or social issues that develop

democratic transition theory: future population growth will develop along a predictable four-stage model

  1. mortality rates are high and life expectancy is short

  2. birth rates are high while infance mortality and the death rates drop. life expectancy increases

  3. only occurs in a industrialized society. birth rates decline while life expectancy increases. death rates continue to decrease

  4. postindustrial era of society. birth and death rates are low, ppl are healthier, and population stabilizes. overall population may even decline

urbanization: study of the social, political, and economic relationships in cities

suburbs: communities surrounding cities

exurbs: communities existing outside the ring of suburbs that have wealthier families that have resources to lengthen their commute.

all three combline a metropolis

white flight: migration of economically secure white people from racially mixed urban areas and towards the suburbs.

gentrification: members of the middle and upper classes enter and renovate city areas that have been historically less affluent while the poor urban underclass are forced by resulting price pressures to leave those neighborhoods for increasingly decaying portions of the city

55% of world’s ppl live in urban areas

human ecology: functionalist field of study that looks at the relationship between people and their built and natural physical environments

concentric zone model:

environmental sociology: studies the way humans interact with their envrionment

environmental racism: way in which minority neighborhoods are burdened with a disproportionate number of hazards, including toxic waste facilities, garbage dumps, and other sources of environmental pollution and foul odors that lower the quality of life and health