Notes of FOSSS. The notes include all content given in lectures, including screenshots of PowerPoint slides. In addition to this, summaries of articles and book chapters are included.
The social constitution of environmental problems
Every environmental problem is socially constructed
• We live in human communities in which some actions are seen as 'normal' and make sense while other do not
• Our lives are guided/shaped by the possibilities our social situation presents to us and by our vision of ourselves,
the future and what those possibilities are
• Human communities are organized in certain ways, they are based on certain ideas of who we are and on
functioning daily practices
→ human communities constitute the circumstances in which people (as individuals or members of social groups) live
their life and make environmentally significant decisions (even when they are not consciously considering the
environmental consequences of their actions)
Important implication: change towards sustainability must be thought of as a reconstruction of our social world in order
to make sustainability the normal outcome of the lives of our human communities
A framework for analysing the social constitution of environmental problems:
1. The environment is socially constructed
a. Some societies see humans and nature as separate entities, while others view them as interconnected
b. Social construction of the environment matters
i. Influences the way the environment becomes part of our human communities
ii. Human communities that share different ideas of the environment are organized in different ways
→ determines the different possibilities and constraints in the way human action interacts with the environment
2. Environmental problems are caused by society
a. Anthropologic age = humans and human actions are now a major force of environmental change
b. So environmental problems are caused by society, but not by everybody in the same way or to the same
extend
→ not useful to talk about 'humanity' when talking about environmental problems
3. Environmental problems are socially constructed
a. No environmental problem exists per se. every environmental problem is constructed (framed, given
meaning and placed into causal relations and a context)
b. The way in which an environmental problem is constructed matters for the way society responds to that
problem (or fails to do so)
4. Costs and benefits of environmental problems are unevenly distributed within society
a. Not everybody experiences a given environmental problem in the same way there are always people who
gain or lose more
b. The type and magnitude of responses are influenced by:
i. Different emotional connections
ii. Experiences of impact (social/economic/health)
iii. Different degrees of salience of an environmental problem
FOSSS Page 2
, 5. Solutions to environmental problems are identified within society
a. No solution is neutral as every solution reflects the interests, beliefs, worldviews, etc. of some
individuals/collectives/organizations more than those of others
b. Every solution will reflect power relations within a society
Example:
Technology and the market are often presented as inevitable and neutral. However, choosing the market as a
mechanism to govern sustainability, or certain technologies, reveals ideas, values, interests, power relations and the
possibilities and constraints that different social collectives conceive
Conclusion:
The social constitution of environmental problems includes the way in which the environment and environmental
problems are constructed, problems are caused by society, costs are borne differently by different social groups or
collectives and solutions are identified within society.
FOSSS Page 3
, Preparation lecture 1
15 November 2020 10:54
Environmental problems are problems…
• For society - problems that threaten our existing patterns of social organisation and social
thought
• Of society - problems that challenge us to change those patterns
Environmental sociology = the study of community in the largest possible sense
Materialists argue that environmental problems cannot be understood apart from the material
threats posed by the way we have organizes society, including the organization of
ecological relations
Idealists focus on the ideological origins of environmental problems including their definitions
as problems
→ mutual constitutive relationship
The material and the ideal dimensions of the environment depend and interact with each other and
together constitute the practical conditions of our lives.
The three central environmental issues are:
1. Sustainability
2. Justice
3. The beauty of ecology
It is urgent & important to:
• consider the sustainability conundrum as a long-term, society-driven one
• to place societal dynamics at the core of how we, as a global society, came to this point
• How ongoing dynamics are driving us towards a tipping point
→ requires major changes in how we think about sustainability
Main driver in the history of the sustainability conundrum:
1. the co-evolution of human cognition
2. societal organization
3. society's engagement with the environment.
Change 1: harnessing of fossil fuels in the run-up to the Industrial Revolution
• Gave birth to the technology-dominated world of today
• Society became more focussed on the well-being of the economy (laying the basis for the
current market based on acquiring wealth)
Change 2: new political order after the Second World War
• Growth in wealth & consumption became important
• Consumerism became an essential feature of the modern developed world
Change 3: current Information technology Revolution
• Concerns the foundations of our human societal organizations
Next step: acknowledging that the real sustainability challenge is societal, not environmental
• Societies define what they consider their environments, what they see as the main challenges
in the environment and what kind of solutions they can try and offer
• Shift: placing society at the centre of the sustainability debate
The ICT revolution is adding a major, accelerating, dynamic in the mix: the loss of the distinction
between signal and noise.
FOSSS Page 4
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