One important issue to keep in mind when evaluating a theory is back-ground information and context. Issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation can affect the composition of a theory and its acceptance. For example, discrimination in academic life meant sociological theories dealing with women and minorities were generally disregarded until the 1960s. Furthermore, the background of the theorist matters. For example, the first sociological theories dealing with African American communities were written by whites and depicted African American communities as pathological versions of the white community. They were written at a time when few African Americans found jobs in academia. Even though socio-logical works written by African Americans such as William E. B. DuBois (1868-1963) and Oliver Cox (1901-1974) existed, they were relegated to marginal status. Another issue to keep in mind is timing or time period. Sociologists do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of the social matrix of their time; that is, they are affected by history and the social institutions that surround them. As these change, arising issues lead sociologists to reflect and theorize about their world. As described below, environmental sociology itself is a product of a very specific period of time. Whole courses are taught in sociological theory. T

Karl Marx (1818-1883) argued that changes in the substructure of society (the economic base) lead to changes in the superstructure of society (its culture, politics, religion, etc.). He also argued that there are links between ideology and political life and between these and religion.

There is no technological imperative that says we must have power or weapons from nuclear fission or fusion, or t hat we must create and loose upon the earth organisms that will devour our oil spills. We could reach for, and grasp, solar power or safe coal-fired plants. and lhe safe ship designs and industry controls tlhat would virtually eliminate oil spills. No catastrophic potential flows from these.

High-risk systems have a double penalty: because normal accidents stem from the mysterious interaction of fail-ures. those closest to the system, the operators, have to be able to take independent and sometimes quite creative action. But because these sys-tems are so tightly coupled, control of operators must be centralized because there is little time to check everything out and be aware of what another part of the system is doing.

mulliple,fa,lures.

systems that have high catastrophic potential, such as nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons systems, recombinant DNA production, or even ships carrying highly toxic or explosive cargoes.

I. Protecting the biosphere 2. Practicing sustainable use of natural resources 3. Reducing, recycling, and safely disposing waste 4. Using energy wisely 5. Reducing risky practices 6. Selling only products that are safe 7. Fully compensating for any harm caused to people and the environment 8. Disclosing any damaging incidents

vestors, however. They are also interested in profit for themselves. Owners and management usually decide to put as much profit as they can in their own pockets, after paying their debts, paying for needed reinvestment in the business, and paying employees enough to keep them coming to work. Thus it is a virtually universal pattern, although by no means economically necessary, that employers get paid more than employees.

This generalization of the market has the important consequence of promoting political interest in economic growth. If everyone is to have more wealth at the end of the year than at the beginning of the year, the economy must grow. This is simple math. Most politicians therefore see economic growth as a potential way to maximize the number of people who have been made wealthier-and thus, they hope, to maximize votes. Consequently, virtually all modern governments seek to maximize economic growth.

THE NEEDS OF MONEY

Hurwitz, in other words, did not bring to Pacific Lumber some vast fund of knowledge about the woods, nor any great new ideas _for cutting costs. He brought to Pacific Lumber a massive debt,

articular expertise in the timber indus­try. Hurwitz's first big move had come in 1973, when he took over McCulloch Oil. Selling off many assets, he soon acquired the Sim­plicity Pattern Company; there, according to the Houston Chroni­cle, he sold off the company's famous dress-pattern line.

And Pacific Lumber seemed too good to be true in other ways as well. Wages were high; workers could rent cheap and tidy homes in the company-owned town of Scotia; every PL child got an $8,000 college scholarship.

American Indian Buddhist Christian Confucian Ancient Greek Hindu Islamic Jewish Taoist Source: Durning ( 1992) Teaching and Source "Miserable as we seem in thy eyes, we consider ourselves ... much happier than thou, in this that we are very content with the little that we have." (Micmac chief) "Whoever in this world overcomes his selfish cravings, his sorrows fall away from him, like drops of water from a lotus flower:' (Dhammapada, 336) "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God:' (Matthew 19:23-24) "Excess and deficiency are equally at fault." (Confucius, Xl.15) "Nothing in Excess:' (Inscribed at Oracle of Delphi) "T hat person who lives completely free from desires, without longing ... attains peace:' (Bhagavad-Gita, 11.71) "Poverty is my pride:' (Muhammad) "Give me neither poverty nor riches:• (Proverbs 30:8) "He who knows he has enough is rich." (Tao Te Ching) Yet still we try. We can all be like the Collinses, but although consumption may be an act of community, there is more to it than that. So we try to be like Bill Gates instead. Meanwhile, Bill Gates has gotten even richer. The result is no end to our wants and little improvement in our satisfaction, despite increased consumption of goods. This whole process of moving materially ahead without making any real gain in satisfaction can be termed the treadmill of consumption. 54 (I'll discuss a parallel treadmill, the treadmill of production, in the next chapter.)

Meanwhile, the cycle of competitive and communal consumption accelerates. As one tries to keep up with the Joneses, the Joneses are trying to keep up with the neighbor on the other side, and up the line to Liberace,

nw Leisure Class

CONSUMPTION, MODERN STYLE

xhibit 2.1 Maslow's hierarchy of needs. "basic needs" "higher needs" (ideal needs) Aesthetic Knowledge and Understanding Self Actualization Esteem Belongingness and Love \safety Physiological "lower needs" (material needs)

One common answer to the question of why we consume so much more than we need is that people are greedy. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi "The world has enough for everybody's need, but not enough for everybody'~ greed."2 There is much wisdom in Gandhi's aphorism. Better sharing of the world's resources would go a long way toward resolving the three central issues of environmentalism, and this is a theme that subsequent chapters will continually return to. But Gandhi was also implying something else,

The existing notion that environ-mental problems are scientific conundrums that can ultimately be resolved through the application of technicized expert knowledge ignores the incontrovertible real-ity that these issues are situated at the intersection of inseparable social and technoscientific systems. Moreover, efforts to innovate toward more sustainable systems of provision-what some scholars have begun to refer to as transition management-will require a high degree of coordination among markets,

. Unable to close ranks in support of Al Gore dur-ing the 2000 presidential campaign, a few thousand anonymous Floridians walked into their respective polling stations, defiantly cast their ballots for Ralph Nader, and ultimately dashed the vice president's prospects for victory. When the history of post-l 970s environmentalism is written, it will likely be this event that will mark the end of the era.

Although the United States was not alone in this regard, the voluntary provisions of the Framework Con-vention on Climate Change signed in Rio in 1992 proved to he utterly ineffective and initial endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 was an unprecedented Pyr-rhic victory. The Senate repudiated the treaty and the White House evinced no inclination to expend its dwindling supply of political capital to make the case for ratification. For all of the high drama in which leading environmental

t should not be surprising that environ-mentalism has fallen out of favor with the public. It is actually possible to trace the movement's slide into death back to the early 1990s. The leading environmental organizations define their own effectiveness, at least in part, in terms of ability to pass federal legislation. Using this metric. the last major victory came with passage of the 1990 round of Clean Air Act amendments. This bill had been percolating for more than a decade and it was no small

. Central to their strategy is the New Apollo Project, a 2-year-old initiative to launch a broad coalition to champion a national renewable energy development program.

Environmentalists and other liberals have convinced themselves that, in politics, it's the issues that matter, and that the public is with us on such issues as the environment, jobs, and healthcare. So how can we be winning on the issues and losing politically?

The problem is not external to us; it's us. It's a human problem having to do with how we organize our society. This old way of thinking isn't anyone's fault, but it is all of our responsibility to change."

What do we worry about when we worry about global warming? Is it the food shortages that will result from reduced agricultural production? If so, shouldn't our focus be on increasing food production? Is it the potential collapse of the Gulf Stream, which could freeze upper North America and northern Europe and trigger, as a recent Pentagon scenario suggests, world war? Is it the refugee crisis that will be caused when Caribbean nations are flooded? If so, shouldn't our focus be on building bigger sea walls and disaster preparedness?

Most environmentalists don't think of the environment as a mental construct at all -they think of it as a real thing to be protected and defended

"To preserve people's jobs in this country, we must accept higher levels of pollution in the future" increased from 17 percent in 1996 to 26 percent in 2000. The number of Americans who agreed that "most of the people actively involved in environmental groups are extremists, not reasonable people" leapt from 32 percent to 41 percent over the same period.

Environmentalists are in a culture war, whether we like it or not. It's a war over our core values as Americans and over our vision for the future, and it won't be won by appealing to the rational consideration of our collective self-interest.

not one of America's environmental leaders is articulating a vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. Instead they are promoting technical policy fixes such as pollution controls and higher vehicle-mileage standards - proposals that provide neither the popular inspiration nor the political alliances necessary to deal with the problem.

Over the last fifteen years, environmental foundations and organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in combating global warming. We have strikingly little to show for it.

Although publishers, editors, and television and radio network and station executives often slight the environmental story, either failing to cover it or giving it inadequate space or time, environmental news, reported by a growing number of talented and energetic reporters attracted to the stories, has become a part of journalism at all levels. Environmentalists themselves are becoming increasingly skillful at using the electronk media to put out their message and move cititcns to action.

"apocalyptic" environmentalists, who warn about the destruction humans are bring-ing on themselves and the planet

oth the radical and the conserv.1tive wings of the movement have moved further to the extremes.

me divided mto three camps: mainstream, radical, and conserva-tive. Members of mainstream groups are ba.,ically "pragmatists" seek-ing incremental reforms and trying to work marginally to reduce po llu-tion, con serve energy, and protect nature by making basic c hanges in the nature o f the political and economic systems. The mainstream groups work with government and the political parries and "while often battling with business and industry

Some deep fault lines separate sectors of the environmental move-ment, none of them deeper than the argument-specious in my view-over a human-centered versus a nature-centered environmentalism.

Approximate Late nineteenth Mid-twentieth Beginnings century century Primary Conservation of Protection of Goals natural resources environmental quality Dominant Natural resources Environmental Ideology should be used quality should be efficiently for the protected for a high good of all society quality of life Worldview \ Anthropocentric Anthropocentric Nature of Geographically Geographically Issues bounded (typically dispersed (often rural), specific, urban); delayed, unambiguous subtle, and indirect effects; potentially harmful to human health Example Over-logging of a Urban air and water specific forest area pollution Cost of Relatively small, Often substantial Solution localized Tactics Lobbying Lobbying, litigation, citizen participation Opposition/ Natural-resource Corporations, Culprits industries; local economic growth, economic interests mo dern life styles (loggers, hunters) Ecologism Late twentieth century Maintenance of ecological sustainability Ecosystems should be protected for the benefit of all species Ecocentric Extremely diverse; systemic and synergistic effects; potentially irreversible and harmful to all life on Earth Global environmental change Potentially infinite Lobbying, litigation, electoral action, direct action, life-style change Status quo; excess human production, consumption, and population

The continuing loss of the earth's forest cover is both a cause and an anticipated effect of climate change. Now, human activity 1s smppmg forests from rhc land at unsustainable rate~ in many part<; of rhe world. In juc;t the first five years of the l 990s, the earth's forested area declined by more than 11 percent, with most of the loss in the tropical countries.1

In the rich countries, the chief threat to the environment and to our future comes noc so much from the numbers of people as from the amount we consume and throw away and the tools and processes we use to produce what we comume.

A "medium-fcmltty scenario" prep.ired hy the United Nations, which assumes char global fertility will stabih1.e at slight!)' more than two thildrcn pe, woman, projects that the global population will reach 9.4 billion by 2050 and I 0.8 b1ll1on hy 2 150. If fertility rate'> remain at 1990-J 995 lcvds, world population would re:ich an unthinkable 296 billion people by 21 50.~

In many areas of existence, our species has improved its status in ways unimaginable in past ages. We have conquered many dreaded diseases and ~ubstantially extended the span during which mo~t of us can expect to remain alive and healthy. We have eased our labor while dramatically expanding our production of food, clothing, and shelter along with a cornucopia of other goods and amenities.

We have a limited supply of coal, and only a limited supply. Whether it is to last for a hundred or a hundred and fifty or a thousand years, the coal is limited in amount, unless through geolog.c ical changes which we shall not live to see, there will never be any more of it than there is now. But coal is in a sense the vital essence

I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immedi~te use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports ....

I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, com-mencing at my own door, without going by any house, without cross-ing a road except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the woodside. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no inhabitant.