So many sociologists study the environment that their collective study makes up a subfield in sociology. Environmental sociology is the study of the interaction between human behavior and the natural and physical environment. Environmental sociology assumes “that humans are part of the environment and that the environment and society can only be fully understood in relation to each other” (McCarthy & King 2009:1).

Environmental sociology “has provided important insights” (Nagel, Dietz, & Broadbent 2010: 13) into such areas as: public opinion about the environment; the influence of values on people’s environmental behavior; carrying capacity, or the maximum amount of life that can be sustained within a given area. An underlying tenet in the field of environmental sociology is that people are responsible for the world’s environmental problems. Therefore, we have both the ability and the responsibility to address them.

9.3.1 Global Climate Change

One of the most pressing issues we face is the rate of global climate change, the long-term shifts in temperatures due to human activity and in particular, the release of greenhouse gasses into the environment. In addition to affecting the ecology of the earth’s polar regions and ocean levels throughout the planet, climate change threatens to produce a host of other problems, including increased disease transmitted via food and water, malnutrition resulting from decreased agricultural production and drought, and a higher incidence of hurricanes and other weather disasters.

Take a look at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA’s) page on global sea levels. You can also find animated data on other climate related topics there. What have NASA’s sea level satellites revealed about global sea level changes over the last 30 years?

Figure 9.19. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA’s) page on global sea levels reads: “… scientists estimate that every 1 inch of sea level rise translates into 8.5 feet of beachfront lost along the average coast. It also means that high tides and storm surges can rise even higher, bringing more coastal flooding… the rise over 30 years is about ten times bigger than the natural exchange of water between ocean and land in a year. The human-caused rise in global sea level is now ten times bigger than the natural cycles.

Climate change is a deeply controversial subject, despite decades of scientific research and a high degree of scientific consensus that supports its existence. All these problems have been producing, and will continue to produce, higher mortality rates across the planet.

So why is there a controversy? Until relatively recently, the United States was very divided on the existence of climate change as an immediate threat, as well as whether or not human activity causes or contributes to it. But now it appears that the U.S. has joined the ranks of many countries where citizens are concerned about climate change; the nation is divided on what to do about it.

Research conducted in 2020 and 2021 indicated that at least 60 percent of Americans believe climate change is a real and immediate threat (UNDP 2021 and Global Strategy Group 2021). Citizens are also more supportive of clean energy and taking part in international efforts, such as the Paris Climate Accord, which is intended to engage countries in actions to limit the activity that leads to climate change.

What’s changed these opinions? It may be that younger people are more represented in these polls, and they tend to support climate change initiatives more consistently. It may be that the continued severity of weather and the costly and widespread impact is more difficult to ignore than it was previously. And part of the changing opinions might be driven by the prevalence of green and renewable energy sources, from wind power to solar power to electric cars, which are more evident to people across the country (figures 9.18 and 9.19). However, deep divides remain.

Figures 9.20 and 9.21: Women test a solar cooker in India—2009; Nigg Energy Park with wind turbine “jackets” (foundations) for the Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm in Scotland.

The addition of clean energy producers, such as offshore wind farms, typically meet stiff local opposition. And any punitive or price-raising methods of controlling emissions are unlikely to be welcome by U.S. citizens. Finally, global agreements like the Paris Accord will have limited impact because they are not strictly enforceable.

World systems analysis suggests that while, historically, core nations (like the United States and Western Europe) were the greatest source of greenhouse gases, they have now evolved into postindustrial societies. Industrialized semi-peripheral and peripheral nations are releasing increasing quantities of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. The core nations, now post-industrial and less dependent on greenhouse-gas-causing industries, wish to enact strict protocols regarding the causes of global warming, but the semi-peripheral and peripheral nations rightly point out that they only want the same economic chance to evolve their economies.

Since they were unduly affected by the progress of core nations, if the core nations now insist on “green” policies, they should pay offsets or subsidies of some kind. There are no easy answers to this conflict. It may well not be “fair” that the core nations benefited from ignorance during their industrial boom.

9.3.2 Environmental and Natural Disasters

One effect of climate change is more extreme weather. Over the past 50 years climate change has prompted an increase in extreme weather and has caused a surge in natural disasters (United Nations 2021). There are increasingly more record-breaking weather phenomena, from the number of Category 4 hurricanes to the amount of snowfall in a given winter. In addition to the lives lost, and people displaced, these extremes can cause immeasurable damage to crops and property.

In January 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti and killed more than 250,000 people, or about 2.5% of that nation’s population. A month later, an even stronger earthquake hit Chile, causing massive damage to the nation’s infrastructure. The effects of these natural disasters on the economy and society of each of these two countries will certainly also be felt for many years to come.

Changes in the natural environment also lead to changes in a society itself. We see the clearest evidence of this when a major accident or natural disaster strikes. Three disasters illustrate this phenomenon well. In April 2010, an oil rig operated by BP, an international oil and energy company, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, creating what many observers called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history; its effects on the ocean, marine animals, and the economies of states and cities affected by the oil spill will be felt for decades to come.

Figures 9.23 and 9.24: Aerial view of oil being burned from the Deepwater Horizon/British Petroleum (BP) incident in the Gulf of Mexico, May, 2010. The burns were part of an effort to reduce the amount of oil in the water and were part of a joint federal, state and BP effort to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on the mobile offshore drilling unit; An oiled gannet is cleaned at the Theodore Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Theodore, Alabama, June, 2010. The center in Theodore was one of four wildlife rehabilitation centers established in support of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill response.

9.3.3 Environmental Health

Environmental sociology intersects with the study of environmental health. Environmental health is concerned with preventing disease, death and disability by reducing exposure to adverse environmental conditions and promoting behavioral change. It focuses on the direct and indirect causes of diseases and injuries, and taps resources inside and outside the health care system to help improve health outcomes. Figure 9.22 gives a snapshot of health and safety issues and their environmental determinants, or the factors that contribute to them.

Figure 9.25. Typical Environmental Health Issues: Determinants and Health Consequences.

9.3.4 Emerging Diseases

Emerging and re-emerging diseases are infectious diseases of humans whose occurrence has substantially increased or threatens to increase in the near future. COVID-19 is our era’s most obvious and globally devastating example. Other examples of emerging and re-emerging diseases include Ebola virus, West Nile virus, Zika virus, sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), H1N1 influenza; swine and avian influenza, and HIV. The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history (with over 28,000 cases and 11,302 deaths), affecting multiple countries in West Africa. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread with ferocious speed, and has infected more than 60 million people worldwide.

A variety of environmental factors may contribute to re-emergence of a particular disease, including temperature, moisture, human food or animal feed sources, etc. Disease re-emergence may be caused by the coincidence of several of these environmental and/or social factors to allow optimal conditions for transmission of the disease. It seems likely that a wide variety of infectious diseases have affected human populations for thousands of years, emerging when the environmental, host, and agent conditions were favorable.

Expanding human populations have increased the potential for transmission of infectious disease as a result increased likelihood for humans to be in “the wrong place at the right time”. Natural disasters or political conflicts can add to potential for transmission. Global travel also increases the potential for a carrier of disease to transmit infection thousands of miles away in just a few hours.

9.3.4.1 COVID-19, biodiversity, and human action

There’s a wealth of discussion regarding how COVID-19 has affected us socially. But have you considered if the transmission of COVID-19 is related to how we interact with the environment? Scientific American outlines how human encroachment into natural areas and wildlife habitats brings us into closer contact with animals and plants that may harbor diseases, increasing the likelihood of transmission to humans:

…a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19… In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections among the well-being of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems (Vidal 2020).

We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it. (Vidal 2020)

Watch this 2-minute video, “It’s time to bail out the planet” that describes the encroachment of human activity into the natural world as a cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 9.26. “It’s time to bail out the planet [YouTube Video]”.

The producers of the video, “It’s time to bail out the planet” suggest that COVID-19 is not a random event. It is a symptom of a global economic system that is destroying the living planet and destroying wildlife. Through the lens of sociology, we can view our environmental challenges in relation to public opinion, values, behavior, carrying capacity, and inequality. As prompted by COVID-19, we can also see how environmental issues are related to humanity’s relationship with the planet.