SOC 201 Lecture Notes - Environmental Sociology, Resource Depletion, Social Ecology
Document Summary
Ecosystem: community of living organisms (plants, animals, and microbes) in conjunction with nonliving components (such as air, water, and mineral soil), interacting as a system. Social ecology: the study of human populations and their impact on the natural world. Just as a society may help protect us from nature, society also allows us to impact nature. For example, we impact nature by cutting trees to make those homes and burning fuels in furnaces and cars that help protect us from nature. Environmental sociology: sub-discipline of sociology that studies the interaction between society and the natural world, including the social causes and consequences of environmental problems. The area emerged in the 1960-the 1970s when sociologists began to view environmental problems as social problems. Poorer countries are also more affected by (a) the export of hazardous wastes from wealthy countries, and (b) exploitation of poor country"s resources.
