Class 5 The natural environment and rural sustainability

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Class 5The natural environment and rural
sustainability

• Have looked at Who is in rural places
• What is in rural places may be a bigger
  difference between urban and rural places
• Different views on what its for, how it should
  be used, who should benefit, etc.
• Have changed over time
• Different groups have different views

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But First FAQ on Course Projects

• We dont care how you divide things up as long as
  you know.
• 10-12p total length (double spaced) rather than
  per item.
• You will have some class time to work on projects
• Teams of 2 may have strays added to them.
• Your task is to analyze the issue using the
  sociological perspectives identified in class,
  not to look for others sociological research on
  the topic.
• Anything else???

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Todays class

• Natural capital in rural areas
• Describe the capital concept
• Important questions
• What kinds of natural capital do rural places
  offer?
• Who is it for?
• Who decides how it should be used?
• Critique the capital concept
• Introduction to Env/Nat Res Sociology
• How do the 3 theoretical perspectives speak to
  resource/env issues
• Set the stage for more specific natural resource
  issues later in the semester

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What is natural capital?

• What is capital?
• Flora and Flora
• investment of resources to create new resources
  (an organizing principle of the book)
• Investment of resources to create profit
• Types of capital important to this class
• Human, cultural, financial, social, natural
• Natural capital store of natural assets
  (resources) that can be
• Transformed into other types of assets
• Used to create profit
• May be an important part of rural development
• Are sustainable (more on this in a minute)
• But a paradox poverty in the midst of plenty
• What are the figures
• What are the causes?
• What are the solutions?

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Examples of Natural Capital?
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Examples of natural Capital, I

• Land (and products)
• for commodity markets (e.g., agriculture or
  forestry)
• Soil fertility and drainage
• Location relative to markets
• Moisture
• Growing season
• Open space

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Examples of natural Capital, II

• Recreation and tourism (some are the same)
• Open space
• Weather/climate
• Things people want
• Clean rivers and lakes
• Hills/mountains
• Public land for recreation
• Wildlife resources
• Scenery
• Based on particular recreation activity
• Location relative to markets

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Examples of natural Capital, III

• Ecosystem services
• Fresh water
• Fresh air
• Biodiversity
• Carbon sequestration
• Renewable and non-renewable resources for
  economic development
• Food and fiber
• Energy (fossil fuels, hydro, wind)
• Who are these services for? How do we decide who
  should benefit from them?

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A note on sustainability

• The concept of capital implies sustainability
• a stock of natural assets that yields a flow of
  goods and services into the future
• Dont draw down the bank account, live on the
  principal.
• Multidimensional (economy, society,
  environment)a motherhood and apple pie concept?
• Equity concerns
• Intergenerational (for future generations)
• Intragenerational (distribution issues)
• Are urban places sustainable without rural
  places?
• How should we think about the flow of resources
  between urban and rural places?
• Much of our resource use fails all three
  dimensions of sustainability.

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• Natural capital and the environment are not the
  same thing!why not?
• Natural capital is tech dependenthow? (may need
  to combine with built capital)

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Other questions of capital

• How to make tradeoffs among alternatives (finite
  resource)
• Who controls the resource?
• What are the policy issueswhose interests does
  environmental policy favorand why?
• Is there a market? Can one be created?

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Examples of Natural Resource / Env Soc Topics for
the semester

• Well being of resource dependent communities
• Rural environments as resources for making a
  living
• High amenity growth communities
• Rural environments as a place to play
• Rural env quality and env hazards
• Rural environments as providing ecosystem
  benefits and the threats to this

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Environmental Sociology as the study of
community (Bell)

• Examines the relationship between individuals,
  society, and the physical environment as
  elements of community social structure
• Enlarge the Sociological Imagination to include
  a role for the natural environment (more on this
  in a minute)

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A critique of Mainstream sociology

• Social facts cause other social facts
  (Durkheim)it is social forces that are important
  for explaining human behavior.
• E.g., suicide as a social phenomenon cant be
  reduced to psychology (hmmmpeople who commit
  suicide must be depressed). What larger
  phenomena are causing more people to become
  depressed?
• But then tends to ignore the role that the
  physical environment plays in human behavior

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Individual behavior and social organization
causes environmental change

• Common sense we know that our behaviors affect
  the environment.
• Examples?
• But happens at multiple levels
• Individual actions
• The way our society is structured

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Environment can also cause social / human
behavior

• Less intuitively obvious
• Important elements of our societies are based at
  least in part on what natural resources are
  available examples???
• Social organization forms
• Culture / values
• Individual behaviors

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2 competing paradigms

• Human Exemptionalist Paradigm we are exempt
  from the laws of nature)
• Have special abilities that make us different
  than other critters. (such as??)
• Social / economic factors drive society
• Human technology can overcome limits
• Most sociology implicitly takes this position

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In contrast, the New Environmental Paradigm

• Assumes changes in basic values (paradigm shift)
• Suggests that
• There are ultimate limits to human expansion in
• Population
• Resource consumption
• Modern society is unsustainable face a crash
  sometime in the future (note Humphrey and Buttel
  prediction)
• Science-driven scientists show the truth,
  which will spread throughout society
• Ehrlich The Population Bomb

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Natural resource sociologyand environmental
sociology

• In common with environmental sociology how env
  conditions shape human condition
• Patterns of social structure, interaction,
  culture
• human / community well being (e.g.)
• Closely tied to rural sociology
• Problem solving focus
• Well being of rural people as well as environment
• Sustainability is a key term

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How are Resource and Environmental sociology
different?

• Political orientation
• Env strong pro-environmental tradn
• Resource fulfill human needs--nature as
  resource
• Theoretical orientation
• Env react against Soc
• Resource within Rur Soc tradition
• Scale
• Env global focus
• Resource local focus (community research)
• Social context of each (sociological imagination)

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Environmental SociologyThe Social Context

• Increasing environmental awareness of the 1960s,
  1970s
• Recognition of scarcity
• Growth of environmental sciences
• Key environmental accidents and their analysis
  as social problems
• General age of political activism borrow
  techniques from other movements
• Changing type of environmental problem
• Global, mysterious, invisible, inequitable

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Historical context of natural resource sociology

• Emerged much earlier (1930s)
• Agriculture and forestry a dominant use of the
  landscape
• Different types of environmental problems
• Local rather than global
• Observable
• Tied directly to productive capacity
• No paradigm shift (not questioning fundamentals)
• No recognition of ultimate scarcity
• Faith in technology, human capacity

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Our three theoretical perspectives, applied to
environment/resources

• Functionalist
• Conflict
• Symbolic interactionist

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A functionalist perspective on rural natural
capital

• Starting question how does natural capital help
  keep the machine of society running smoothly?
• Functions of rural areas
• Provide raw material for progress
• Are playgrounds for urbanites to refresh, renew
• Are good places to get rid of waste
• Abundant, cheap land
• Low population densitynot as many people harmed
• Rural areas as a colony of the nation.
• For the overall good (smoothly functioning
  society), inequality / env problems not so
  important

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A conflict perspective on rural natural capital

• Starting question why are the people who grow,
  chop, or dig up the things our society needs so
  poorly off?
• Rural areas
• Are relatively powerless
• Outside of the political loop decisions arent
  made there, politicians arent from there,
  under-represented in the machine of progress
• Who makes the policy decisions?
• Why are markets set up the way they are?
• Understanding the conflict between competing uses
  of land is a central question
• (cows or condos) who has the power to drive
  land use?

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A symbolic interactionist perspective on natural
capital

• Starting question what are the meanings that are
  assigned to things, how are they created, and how
  do they affect resource use
• Symbols are key
• The environment is a product of our language,
  culture, behaviors
• What is real is the meaning we assign to a
  something, rather than its essence independent of
  human definition.
• The physical attributes of the world matter less
  than our social agreements about it.
• e.g., humans define what is a resource and what
  is an env problem through culture, social
  organization and technology

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An example Timber harvest in Old Growth
National Forests

• Symbols?
• Pro Harvest
• Maintain hard working forest families and
  communities
• Dont lock up resources that are needed for
  econ dev
• (Which is more importanttrees or people?)
• Anti-Harvest
• Old growth forests are rare, precious
• Public land resources should benefit all
  Americans
• Conflict through moral exclusion
• Which side better communicates its message
• Nature of the message itselfhow does it play
• Access to media

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Summary

• Nature remains the main source of material wealth
  maintains the life-support functions of the
  ecosphere
• Rural areas comparatively rich in natural wealth
• Problems and issues with the natural capital
  concept
• Not all of nature is natural capital
• Tech
• markets
• How are benefits distributed and who should
  decide
• Are our models of natural capital sustainable?
  By what dimensions?
• Natural resource and environmental sociology as
  the study of the interaction between individuals,
  social structure, and the natural world
• Multiple theoretical perspectives can be used to
  understand this interaction.

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Next Class

• Introduction to social science methods
• How to conduct research
• How to evaluate others statements
• Reading Schaefer Ch.2