Environmental Sociology 5 (5/6): Ecological Modernization, Continued: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society
Channel: TheBioregionalState
Date: 2011-10-08

WHO: I am Dr. Mark D. Whitaker (Ph.D., Sociology; University of Wisconsin-Madison), from a university known for its concentration of environmental sociologists. My interests are environmental sociology, comparative history, the organizational causes of environmental degradation, and sustainability strategies.

WHAT: This is a free seven part video lecture series on Environmental Sociology.

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Outline of this Session
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(1/6) review: views summarized so far in the five theoretical views of environmental sociology. 

(2/6) continued in our section on EcoMarxism vs. Ecological Modernization/Risk Society, with Beck as a mix of both; discussion of only one slide, a summary of Ulrich Beck and his views on Risk Society in 11 points; Beck's theoretical view is an overlapping of ecomarxism, ecological modernization, and social construction of the environment; thus Beck's views are more than an example of Ecological Modernization, they are another macrotheoretical historical view in environmental sociology with Beck's historical outlook on social/material experienced risk in the past, present, and future 

(3/6) Beck, continued; Beck's view of the best future as "reflexive modernization" (the social world better reflecting the ecology) in modernization, corporations, and other social institutions; origins of Beck's research and writing; start of discussion of the Risk Society Thesis

(4/6) Risk Society Thesis, continued; social invisibility of real risk (this is Beck's connection of an ecomarxism view ('real material risks' have social effects) and the social construction of risk (however these 'real risks' only known through social construction or material reality because of the social invisibility of novel material risks); the theory of a three-epoch global history in "Risk Society" summarized (for critique left out of the talk: [1] see Mythen (pause the film later when I skip over that slide in the next section); [2] see work by myself in Ecological Revolution; or [3] see Sing Chew's Recurring Dark Ages; Chew and I both disagree with Beck that his idea of a socially constructed risk as only a recent phenomenon is false)

(5/6) Case Study of Beck's Risk Society, Fallout maps of Chernobyl (as both Material and Social) and as an ongoing catastrophe, with pictures

(6/6) Fallout from Chernobyl, continued; summary of Chernobyl from 2011: 30 points with an update on health there after 30 years