SOC101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 24: Environmental Sociology, Human Ecology, Ecological Collapse
15 Dec 2013
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Document Summary
Economic prosperity after world wwii helped deflect the attention of youth from material and social concerns to the uneven distribution of political and economic power. New awareness made environmental protection a cause. Civil rights cause and anti-war causes provided background for its activism and framework for a successful movement. Development of environmental sociology aided by human ecology developed through the chicago school of sociology. Legacy of human ecology provided a theoretical perspective that can be resumed at the moment when the environmental movement crystallized a broadly based sociological interest in the environment. Conflict caused by competing social groups for scarce resources that may be considered as common property, etc. Economic expansion results in the environment: pollution, waste, destruction of non-renewable resources v. economic and social provisions while providing prosperities that communities need to deal with environmental issues. Scarcity related to the overuse of natural resources until their exhaustion, waste, or destruction by contamination or misuse.
