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Some premises (from Schnaiberg and Gould):
- 'Societal functioning requires us to maintain some features of environmental systems'
- In order to preserve these features, environmental functioning requires us to restrict some of our social uses of these systems
- What parts of these systems need to be maintained?
- How are these decisions made?
Humans' use of the environment
- Living space
- Stock of resources (not all of which can directly benefit humans)
- Waste
Laws of thermodynamics
- Conservation of energy (it can't be created, can't be destroyed)--'matter cycles through the envioronment'
- Entropy (it just gets transformed, usually from more to less useful forms)--energy cycles through the environment as well--humans' use of it leads to its degradation (often in the form of heat)
- one result--ecological 'disruption'
Some terms, concepts
Ecosystem 'additions' and 'withdrawals'
Think of it like a bank account. Usually, the 'withdrawals' represent resources, and the potential for depletion (from unsustainable use). The 'additions' are usually in the form of various kinds of pollution.
Ecological disorganization
Sustainable development
'The ability of humanity to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.' Sustainability isn't just about the environment, but ecological sustainability is defnitely a necessary condition if future generations are to expect any restraint and resources foregone from present ones.
The Industrial revolution
- Driving forces? ('techological capacity to obscure the ecological limits of human activities,' p. 24); mass productin and consumption;
- Enabling forces? (economic systems; energy sources; water; factory production; immigration)
- Ecolological impacts? (back to the three basic functions of the environment, and serious overlap)
- Similarities
- Use of water, energy are crucial
- Surplus energy leads to changes in population, organization, environment, technology
- How different from other periods of growth?
- Technology's ability to obscure ecological feedback
- Mass production--creates economic 'goods' and environmental 'bads' (not just depletion, but compounds that are in the soil, water and air for long periods of time, and end up accumulating at every level of the food chain)
- Mass production and factories (go together like, well, peas and beans?)
- Synthetic chemicals (especially after the petro-era begins)
- Cultural beliefs in industrial age--the earth as limitless (in its ability to produce resources and absorb waste)
- Early wretched excesses of industrialism
- Changes--demographic transition, public health improvements (and population growth ...)
- Recognition of problems--but not for 150 years or so
- 1960s-70s--influential books: Silent Spring, Population Bomb, Closing Circle, Limits to Growth
- changes in universities (taking on more 'controversial' subjects, largely via pressure from dissatisfied students)
- social movements (nuclear test ban, environmental regulation, etc.)
- Ozone depletion
- The limits to growth debate (is human activity causing environmental problems that are regional or global in scope?)
Treadmill of production
Okay, follow the logic of Schnaiberg and Gould here. This helps explain how so many of us are in a sense caught up in a system that sweeps us along, with not as many available exits as we might like.
- Wealth accumulates, accelerates (when people make money, they then invest it, and that investment is usually employed to make someone else money, and so on)
- Employment depends on job creation
- Capital substitution (automation, for instance, replacing workers with technology)--machines aren't always cheaper than workers, but they may work more efficiently, may not get sick as often, and don't go on strike.
- As wealth is distributed unevenly, greater burden on 'welfare state' (and as far as that generation of wealth, low-wage low-security jobs are benefiting someone, though usually not those who have them).
- Effects on environment (more 'withdrawals,' 'additions')? Ecological disruption, disorganization (somewhere)
- Ecological disorganization can lead to socioeconomic disorganization (what would that look like?)
- In essence, we're talking about an economic 'growth machine,' pushed forward by social, economic and political forces--what political candidate would get elected on a 'slow down growth' platform--difficult to stop (hence the treadmill concept) or even change direction. Perhaps not quite like a glacier, but imagine stopping a glacier, a river of ice hundreds or thousands of meters thick. Easier to melt . . . (but even that takes lots of energy, either in the earth's natural cycles, or humans producing greenhouse gases)
- Role of government? To mediate relationships between economic and political elites, workers
- Money influences government, policy, elections.
- Those with the most money and influence have greater access to persuade and shape public opinion, public policy. Commercial media, often heavily dependent on advertisers and ratings increases, may serve these powerful interests, but in the name of democracy and holding leaders accountable (someone has to convince the public that the status quo is in its interest)
- Otherwise, why so little space is devoted to environmental issues in election campaigns? So much environmental damage suffered by the public is profitable to private interests. Many of these costs can be externalized (and in fact, the damage is often the result of externalities)
- This process affects all firms, whether they're involved in extraction of raw materials, wholesale or retail consumption, or even information technology (anywhere along that resource process), waste disposal, etc.
- Pressures on firms (from whom? Executives? Boards of directors? Shareholders? Consumers?) to externalize costs--the firm 'wins,' but when the externalities are negative, third parties lose--that's usually the public--not only in terms of environmental risks and hazards, but using public tax revenue to pay for the clean-ups. This could be the siting of a toxic waste dump, effluents from a pulp mill, 'thermal pollution' from a nuclear power generation facility, hog waste dumped into huge lagoons, the cost of shipping goods halfway around the world, or using chemicals to substitute good land stewardship, etc. There are 'additions' and 'withdrawals,' that is pollution and resource depletion, that result.
Allan Schnaiberg and Kenneth Gould. 1994. Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict. NY: St. Martin's.
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