Environmental structures

Lecture #6

University of Hong Kong SOCI1004, Dr. Ioana Sendroiu

 Plan for today
[Readings for this week: ASE Immigration and urbanization; Flammable ch 5]

> Perspectives on the relationship between society and the

environment
> Climate change
> Possibilities for agency in the face of climate change
> Environmental justice
How are social structures different from
environmental structures?
 Perspectives on the relationship
between society and the environment
 Roots of Environmental Sociology

• Emerged during a period of

environmental crisis
• Oil spills, water pollution, massive
air pollution
• Environmental movement
emerged to pressure U.S.
government to respond
• Sociologists started to ask
questions about these issues Cuyahoga River on ire due to pollutants in the water
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 Perspectives on society and the environment

• Critical perspectives • Optimistic perspectives

• Treadmill of production • Ecological modernization
• Metabolic rift • Re lexive modernization
• Ecologically unequal exchange • World society
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 Critical perspectives

• Tend to be critical of idea that economic development can continue in a way that
protects the environment
• Expect that environmental interventions by governments won’t be very e ective
• Believe social movements will have limited success pushing for environmental
protections
• Includes:
• Treadmill of production
• Metabolic rift (ex: cod ishing)
• Ecologically unequal exchange
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Critical perspectives, case study
 Optimistic perspectives

• Focus on environmental protection and regulation

• Assume an environmental state emerges
• Relatively optimistic view of the future of the society-environment relationship
• Includes:
• Ecological modernization
• Re lexive modernization
• World society
• The environmental state
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Perspectives on society and the environment
Similarities and di erences

• Critical perspectives • Optimistic perspectives

• Focus on environmental • Focus on environmental

degradation and crisis protection and regulation

• Economy leads social change • Coalitions form

• More development o ers solutions
• System change is best solution
• Economic development can exist
• Relatively pessimistic about
alongside improvements in the
economy and environment –
environment
sees them in con lict
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 Anthro-shift

• Driven by risk-pivots
• Multidirectional: things can get better or worse
Climate change
Measuring emissions
Carbon monitoring
The effects of COVID-19 on carbon emissions

Yellow = economic growth; black line = carbon emissions

 Addressing climate change

• Scienti ic consensus: should keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius

• Will still see major climate changes that a ect society
• But beyond that, level of warming will be devastating
• Pathways:
• Greatly reduce carbon emissions – move away from fossil fuels
• Develop technology to remove carbon from atmosphere
• Some combination of these two
• We’re not currently on track to stay below 1.5 degrees of warming
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International climate protection rankings
Disproportionality and
hyperpolluters

• Inequalities in producing
environmental harms and
access to environmental goods
• A small group of facilities often
produce the lion’s share of an
industry’s toxic emissions
Possibilities for agency in the
face of climate change
 Planetary improvement
Jesse Goldstein

• A study of clean tech entrepreneurship

• “They o ered what I would come to recognize as a typical cleantech arc;
begin with incremental gains (in this case monthly savings on energy bills
and waste disposal fees), progress to incremental environmental savings
(reduced CO2 emissions), and present these incremental gains as the
initial steps toward a major environmental transformation (reduced
dependence on fossil fuels) that will ultimately help save the planet”
(Goldstein 2018: 2).
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 Multiple interests/audiences
Goldstein 2018

• Attracting investors; having a successful, pro itable business

• “have to prove that its primary focus is on making incremental gains in already
established markets” (2018: 2)
• BUT “There are important ways in which people involved in the green or clean
economy earnestly believe in what they are doing.” (2018: 5)
• Core contradiction: “while the professionals I met were excited about creating and
commercializing “disruptive” technologies that might radically transform our lives,
when it came to actually inding (and funding) commercially viable projects,
considerations of anything disruptive quickly gave way to assessments of which
technologies demonstrated potential to provide incremental gains in already
established markets.” (2018: 9)
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 “a new, green spirit of capitalism, one that
mobilizes a seemingly radical, anti-systemic
critique of capitalism in order to provide
moral legitimacy and affective force for
proposals that make the modern industrial
economy less environmentally destructive
— still capitalism, just a better, greener
version.”
Goldstein 2018: 10
 Making an impact
Goldstein 2018

• Impact-as-capital <—> impact-beyond-capital

• Can’t de ine impact except in the negative
• “The impactfulness of cleantech entrepreneurialism is about changing the
world— how, and in what ways is not always clear, though there is a clear
sense of what sorts of industries and endeavors will not change the world.”
(2018: 45-6)
• Focus (often exclusively) on big business (to solve a planetary problem…)
• Elaborate themselves as BUSINESSPEOPLE
• “‘Doing well by doing good,’ but the doing good comes irst.” (2018: 62)
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 Goldstein’s conclusions/suggestions

• “The new green spirit of capitalism”

• BUT “entrepreneurialism, writ large, not be categorically dismissed by
critics of capitalism, but can instead seen as shorthand for forms of
creative labor that can and should be reclaimed and redirected.” (2018: 6)
• “This is not to suggest that we should categorically reject clean technologies
just because they are currently mobilized to provide incremental gains to the
status quo, but that we do need to question whether we can a ord—
collectively, socially, environmentally— to place so much focus on
developing solutions that are predicated upon the perseverance of the very
problems that need to be solved in the irst place.” (2018: 14)
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https://frontierclimate.com/
 The big question becomes:
Two competing takes on how to deal with climate
change. Which is better motivating?
Environmental justice
 Environmentalism

• Local:
• Focuses on Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) issues and locally unwanted land uses; e.g.,
where to put a land ill or toxic waste dump
• National:
• Focus on advocacy for environmental policies and funding; e.g., push to protect
endangered species
• Global:
• Increase in international NGOS and advocacy networks
• Focus on environmental issues that cross national boundaries; e.g., climate change
agreements
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 Environmental justice

• US Environmental Protection Agency de inition:

• “Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement
of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with
respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all
communities and persons across this Nation. It will be achieved when
everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and
health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to
have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.”
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• Environmental harms are
disproportionately located in
communities of color and low-
income areas
• Need an example? Just think of
the book you’ve been reading this
whole semester…
 YOUR SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION #6
Keep a 24-hour personal risk journal of the risks you expose yourself to and e orts
you made to reduce your risks. Write down everything you expose yourself to
through food, drinks, environment, hygiene products (look them up at
www.ewg.org/skindeep), and situations, and then track, to the best of your ability,
how you could reduce those risks.
—> Summarize your data by grouping it into categories as much as you can. Would
you describe each risk as situational (created by the situation), behavioral (caused
by your personal behavior), environmental (caused by the environment that is
outside of your control) or something else? Include any e ort you took to reduce
each risk.
—> Re lect on your personal risk journal and how it relates to the chapter. How
aware were you of these risks before you thought about them for this assignment?
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