SOCIAL PROBLEMS Lecture 8: June 24 Quest:

 Plan your time:  Study for Test 2: 12pm June 19 (tomorrow)  Write Essay 2: 12pm June 23 (Monday)  Make progress on Project: 12pm June 26  This week’s topics: Immigration, Environment, War & Terrorism  Today: Environment  Local vs. global problems  Views on environmental problems & solutions  Pathology vs. Disorganization vs. Structure

 Vocab  Resource depletion  Biodiversity  Climate change  NIMBY  Concepts  Limits to Growth  Environmental racism  Treadmill of production  Tragedy of the commons

 Resource depletion  Pollution  Land  Water  Air  Loss of biodiversity  Climate change

 Limits of growth:  While technological advances can make production more efficient (use less resources) humans will always need to consume food, water, energy, and other materials for shelter, clothing, etc.  Thus population growth is ultimately limited by the amount of natural resources provided by the earth, and the rate at which we consume them.

You might have heard we’re approaching an era of “peak oil,” encouraging us to develop other energy sources like solar.

 How does your lifestyle contribute to resource depletion?  Handout: calculate your eco-footprint…  How do you compare:

 Ground pollution: landfills, industrial contamination (chemical manufacturing, etc.)

 Human sewage (esp. around urban areas, esp. in rapidly urbanizing 3 rd world), farm wastes (animal wastes, pesticides, fertilizers), industrial wastes & spills

 Air pollution: burning of fossil fuels for power, vehicle exhausts, factory emissions

Acid rain is a clear example of the interrelated nature of pollution: Air pollution released by factory production dissolves into rainwater. Falling rainwater transfers these acidic chemicals into ground pollution and water pollution.

 Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life. This can refer to genetic variation, species variation, or ecosystem variation within an area, biome, or planet.  Why is this important?  Biodiversity has many useful functions:  New medicines  Crop variety  Ecosystem resilience  Even tourism

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 Taking a social pathology, social disorganization, or social structure view of environmental problems all suggest different sources of blame, different solutions:  Pathology: bad people cause problems  Solution: file lawsuits, impose fines to fix problems  Disorganization: ignorant groups cause problems  Solution: teach groups how to prevent or fix problems  Structure: rules of social structures cause problems  Solution: social change to fix problems

 Focus was on local problems with clearly-defined corporate and government culprits (aka “bad guys”).  Typical actors: NIMBY’s:  “Not In My Back Yard!” movements: aimed to prevent or relocate polluters.  Common themes:  Environmental racism…  Threat to children…  Solutions aimed at moving, suing, or bankrupting the bad guy corporations.  of-fracking of-fracking

 As we thought about bigger problems we blamed bigger targets:  Americans ignorant about their individual eco-footprints  Poor people and their political representatives in developing countries  Corporations and whole industries short- sighted or greedy about use/abuse of the earth

 Problem is the culture of whatever group that’s blamed.  Group: Americans/Culture: wastefulness!  Solutions: School programs, media campaigns, government programs, laws  Group: foreign countries/Culture: crazy for progress!  Solutions: Presidential visits & treaties, UNEP, Int’l conferences  Group: corporations/Culture: greedy for profits!  Solutions: Consumer pressure, govt. regulations

 The new bad guy is not any person, it’s the logic of capitalism.  Treadmill of production: profits require selling more stuff = making more stuff = depleting & polluting

 Tragedy of the commons: nobody wants to be 1 st to go green (costs $$, no rewards)

 Harder to fix, we really just try to educate so far.  Sounds like disorganization! But it’s not because… 1. the goal is to educate everyone, not a group or groups. 2. The goal of education is to change the rules, not to teach disorganized groups how to follow them.