Environmental Sociology 2 (2/4): 5 Different Blames for Environmental Degradation
Channel: TheBioregionalState
Date: 2011-09-10

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.

WHERE and WHEN: It was taped at Kookmin University, in Seoul, Korea, during Spring 2011.

WHY: First, I make this available to popularize environmental sociology, since the topic is a rare subject of research and hardly known to the general public. There are seldom videos providing free information on this, so here is one: enjoy a free college class in introductory environmental sociology. I hope you find the content informative or even inspirational to understanding our social world as innately environmental, and our environmental world as innately social. Second, I made this video available for my students to download and review lecture information at their own (English speaking) pace, and third, I encourage them or anyone else to share the information with others.

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What is Environmental Sociology?

In past 35 years, environmental sociology developed at least five major theoretical viewpoints, research topics, & analytic frames:

- Neo-Malthusianism
- New Environmental Paradigm
- Eco-Marxism
- Risk Society/Ecological Modernization
- Social Construction of the Environment

I review the five major methodological traditions in environmental sociology across seven lectures--with specific authors in each section discussed. This first lecture introduces all five perspectives. After this introduction, whole sessions are dedicated first to macrotheories and then to these different perspectives in more detail.

The last two lectures are a mix of other courses I taught in Spring 2001. They serve as examples of the New Environmental Paradigm tradition. In the very last lecture (already uploaded first), my books are reviewed as an example of how to appreciate the New Environmental Paradigm where 'hybidity' of the real world is important to research. Hybridity means the combined social, biological, and physical interconnections of any topic instead of a belief that we can discuss the social world as a social-only topic, or biology as a biology-only topic, or the physical world as a physical-only topic. Examples of hybrid topics discussed are the long term politics of environmental degradation in world history or my solutions in green constitutional engineering. Other examples are environmental racism and environmental inequalities in general.

My books on these subjects so far are Toward a Bioregional State [2005] and Ecological Revolution [2009]. Search at amazon.com for more information on these titles. Search http://biostate.blogspot.com or http://commodityecology.blogspot.com as I created these websites to explore our hybrid world and for solutions to environmental degradation. The latter website organizes the many sustainable technologies and materials we already have for sustainability now, in 92 different categories. Sustainability really is already here, "just waiting to be organized" (a quote from one of my books).

I'm in the process of uploading and splitting the other lectures, so be patient please.