SOCI 100 Chapter Notes -Rationality, Liberation Society, Food Security
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SOCI 100 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Major focus of the sociology of the environment: conflict between environmentalists and their opponents in industry and science. Support for environmentalism has remained constant for nearly two decades, with a majority of people generally supportive of environmental values and a young, well educated, urban, liberal group leading the movement for environmental change. In order to mobilize the reluctant majority: organizers must develop and spread interpretations of events that play up the possibility of environmental crises. The goals of conserving resources, reducing pollution and restricting population increase are especially difficult to achieve in the third world. At the community level, willingness to act on environmental problems rises as trust in authority figures declines. Environmental problems are often contested on the basis of acceptable risk. The definition of what is acceptable risk is strongly influenced by the distribution of power in society, with more powerful individuals and groups better able to determine what is and what is not risky.
