Chapters 15 and 16
The Environment and
Social Movements
1
Overview

Environmental Sociology (Chapter 15)

The Environment as a Social Problem
 Consumption


In-Class Exercise
The Environmental Movement


and Waste
Environmental Attitudes
Social Change (Chapter16)

Social Movements

Video Presentation: “Diet for a New America”
2
Environmental Sociology

The environment


Social ecology


Natural and human-made
worlds
The Environment as a
Social Problem

Study of human impact
on natural world
Environmental
sociology


Focus on social causes
and consequences of
problems
Consumption: Resource
Depletion



Renewable and nonrenewable
resources
Declining biodiversity
Waste: Pollution

Water, air, land, (outer
space)
 Greenhouse
gases and global
climate change
3
Declining biodiversity:
the Rainforest
Waste/Pollution
In-Class Exercise:
Friend of the
Environment
7
The Environmental Movement

Social movement
Early (Conservation Era) Environmental Movement
(1890-1900s)
 National Park system
 Environmental interest groups
 Modern Environmental Movement (1960s)
 Carson’s “Silent Spring”
 Santa Barbara oil spill 1969
 Mainstream Environmentalism (1970-80s)
 Earth Day
 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

8
Santa Barbara
and the Modern
Environmental Movement
9
Santa Barbara Oil Spill

Union Oil platform


6 miles out from Summerland
January 29, 1969
11 days
 100,000 barrels of crude oil
 800 square miles of ocean
 35 miles of coastline

10
Social Movements

Group organized to promote or resist social
change

Activism



Who takes part?
Progressive


Activity intended to bring about social change
Promotes forward-thinking social change
Regressive

Resists social change

Maintain status quo or re-establish previous form of
society
19
 Organizing

a Social Movement
The importance of resource mobilization:
 Recruitment
 Fundraising
 Media
 Role
coverage
of Mass Media
Leaders use propaganda to manipulate media
and influence public opinion

20

Video Presentation: “Diet for a New America”
 Linking groups concerned with a variety of
social issues:
Health
 Population Growth
 Hunger
 Animal Rights
 The Environment


Example of resource mobilization:



Media coverage (propaganda)
Recruitment
Fundraising
21
Environmental Attitudes

New Ecological Paradigm


Challenge “anthropocentrism” and “human
exceptionalism”
Grassroots Environmentalism
NIMBY
 Green Party
 Ecoterrorism


Environmental Justice


Environmental racism
Sustainability:

Economic growth with environmental protection
22
Next …
Technology and
Social Change
23