Sociology as an integrated vision of the historical and contemporary functioning of society

It is a form of analysis that considers political, economic, and social-cultural perspectives

sociology as a discipline that pays attention to inequalities in class, race, gender, global

environmental justice movement

i.e. the issue of high pollution being linked to non-white neighborhoods in portland as pointed out in Stroud's "Environmental Racism in Portland"

• so we can learn to know better

• occurred because societies did not know how their behavior would affect their environment
• occurs now even though we know more (not all), occurs at a level that can threaten large-scale regions.  for example, as presented in the "Reactions to climate change in the global north," China's hydroelectric dam in the Yangtze has the capacity to disrupt the ecosystem of a large area.  Also, technological innovations such as the tractor have increased our ability to impact the environment

Diamond's Five Point Framework

Looks at five complications about past ecological collapses

1. Environmental damage (considering fragility and resiliance)
2. Climate Change (consider how natural fluctuations catch societies off guard)
3. hostile Neighbors (collapse caused by environment, enemies, or a combination?)
4. Dependence on allies
5. Society's response to its problems (environmental or not.  cultural analysis useful here--how values determine society's way of responding to problems)
6. Water

Top down:

• large-scale society
• responses to environmental problems mandated by state, regular citizens may not even know about
• Japan--highest population density of any First world country, yet 80% of its land is forested mountains because of mandates to protect forest in response to environmental crisis during peacetime in 15th c.
• Dominican Republic--when on the verge of environmental crisis and observing Haiti's problems, dictator Balaguer made hunting and logging illegal with military enforcement.  He recognized the urgent need for maintaining the country's forest watersheds.
• disadvantage: people can't see each other's effects on environment to detect problems, distant managers, too little or too much interdependence between communities

Bottom-up

• New Guinea --independent island with little trade; sustainable agriculture for last 7000 years --crop rotation, silviculture; no political unification until European arrival 1930s; make decisions by talking for a long time so everyone's opinion is heard; population control by herbal contraceptive and abortion
• suited for smaller-sized societies who can see effects of what other members of society are doing
• share a sense of identity and common interests with other inhabitants

Characteristics of Pre-Naleolithic Societies

• hunting and gathering, movement, stone tools
• plenty of leisure time & little work time, still meet needs
• gender roles--more equality because women invented agriculture & agriculture is central to society
• perhaps less warfare because less technology, people can move away from conflict
• Shaman healers

• agriculture
• settling, domestication of animals
• introduction of Malthusian trap (population size, tech. innovation, population grows, carrying capacity, tech. innovation, population grows, carrying capacity...)
• surplus in food --goes to political, religious elite
• impressive ruins
• class/gender/race inequalities
• Metabolic Rift--nutrients become less and less localized

• population growth problem --people grow faster than food; most effective controls are war, famine, disease
• case where environmental problems cause problems between people.  that is, population pressure caused scarcity and overworking of land--instead, chopped down forests & drained marshes (huge soil erosion)
• ambiguity about ethnic division showed that it was not only about ethnicity.  it was whipped up by politicians trying to stay in power.
• structural: land and resources favored to Hutus, Rwanda's economic crisis, historical relations
• cultural: people began to believe it was their right to kill because land had too many people to support, family and ownership tensions, favoring of one ethnic group over another

• Advantage of looking at:  extreme case where few people see hope. there are 7 forests left.  political turmoil and population pressure mean that Haiti has depleted its resources
• • 1% still forested
  • Poorest country in the New World (people often without public water, sewage, electricity, medical care, schooling)
  • Highly overpopulated
  • Mostly subsistence farmers; coffee and sugar exports, a few free trade zones, small tourist areas, drugs (“narcostate”) pg. 330
  • More mountainous, less fertile than DR
  • Colony of France (sent slaves)
  • Dictator- Duvalier
  • Poverty forced dependence on “forest-derived charcoal”- depleting forests

• drought (pg. 153), warfare, cannibalism (pg. 152), environmental damage
• 3 agricultural strategies- live at high elevations, plant crops near water sources, move frequently (plans to get enough water for crops)
• Deforestation
• committed to dependent relationships (supported by outlying settlements- pg. 149)
• our information on them gained from tree rings and packrat middens

• have written records; culture not completely wiped out
• environmental damage (deforestation, erosion), climate change (drought), hostility among Mayans, conflict b/w kings (warfare, monument construction) (illustrates 4/5 of the 5 pt framework)
• huge proportion of peasants (need lots of farmers to feed elites- pg. 164)
• multiple collapses (two smaller, one Classic Collapse)
• rapid decline in kings, rest of population decreased more slowly

• Most populous country in the world
• Air pollution, biodiversity loss, croplands loss, desertification, disappearing wetlands, grasslands degradation (overgrazing), increasing human-induced disasters, invasive species, salinization, soil eroision, trash accumulation, water pollution & shortages
• Problems not only a domestic issue- affect rest of world

• Over exploiting resources through mining
• Smaller population and less complex economy than the US
• High standard of living, education, etc.
• important environment features- soils (low nutrient and increasing salt levels), availability of freshwater (water shortage, deserts), distances (far from trading partners and enemies) pg. 388
• low productivity

• The Netherlands (individuals understood that their survival as a group was dependent on a cooperative effort, in order to maintain the dikes that kept their below-sea-level areas from flooding)
• Australia

– resource depletion causes energy shifts, characteristics of resources drives shifts.

& - modern transitions not associated with resource depletion--coal was not scarce yet was still replaced with oil. 

& oil does not have better quality than coal (it is hard to extract, explodes, and had to be fiercely marketed to become used)

&

Arguments about technological/commercial innovation

& why these are not sound arguments

When resource depletion constrains human behavior, technological innovations release the constrain and allow behavior to continue unhindered

& technological innovations don't occur that often, resource depletion doesn't cause rigid enough constrain to propel large-scale energy shifts

Geopolitical rivalries fluctuate between periods of intense and moderate conflict

States intervene in energy industries through military use.  e.g. Great Britain switching its naval fleet to oil-powered

corporate competition fluctuates between periods of radical innovation and periods of predictable growth

high competition to low competition

Social dynamics can really shape energy industry--workers on strike have changed labor laws and propelled the shift from coal to oil.

Social dynamics go from periods of radical to moderate conflict/tension

States alternate between periods of relative order when a hegemonic power is able to impose stability over other states and periods of relative chaos when there is more competition between states.

Global energy shifts usually occur in periods of decline of a hegemonic power/chaos.

In order for a global energy shift to occur, social, geopolitical, and commercial dynamics need to operate together

Factors that caused the global energy shift from coal to oil in 1915-1945

Social: coal strikes led to rises in coal prices because workers were getting paid more, making coal a less attractive energy source.

Commercial: Large-scale oil companies compete for market share.  Technological innovations in getting oil, declining prices.  The use of electricity and the manufacture of cars becomes viable

Political: Great Britain's global dominance declining, WWII, British naval fleet switch to oil 

Oil shocks 

• social: reliance on foreign imports, monopolization of industry hurts local economiy and causes social unrest
• commercial: new innovations, more oil companies cause increased competition for market shares, raised prices
• political: US as a hegemon but cannot maintain stability because of it is occupied in the Vietnam War, 6 day war of 1967, Suez Canal, reduced oil supply

Oil shocks cause government to put more R&D funding into alternative energy sources

Oil shocks also prompt talk of environmental degradation caused by oil and raised awareness of need for alternative energy sources, push government to consider alternative energy in its

The production of a nonrenewable resource follows a bell-shaped curve of rising and then declining output.  If one can imagine the total volume of a resource and combine that with consumption trends, it is possible to predict when production will peak.  Once this peek occurs, all further extraction takes place at a declining rate and a higher price.

hypothesized in 1950s by Hubbert

Technological options that are dangerous: Tar Sands, Coal, Nuclear Power

Technological options that may be feasible: natural gas (though methane can be dangerous to deal with GHGs), hydro- and solar-power, fuel cells

very efficient and highly versatile--can run on many different energy inputs

resemble common batteries that rely on chemical reactions to produce electricity.  water is the only byproduct

However, Jevons paradox --increased energy availability=increased energy consumption

More reliance on Natural Gas

Invest in R & D for renewable resources and expand their market

Factors that might operate to prevent a shift to a sustainable energy system

decline in hegemonic power--more comptetition among states

developing countries relying on coal

shift to coal and tar sands instead of renewables

Factors that might stimulate a shift to a more sustainable energy system

political intervention - state support of renewable energy sources

multilateral agencies - coordinating goals of private and state institutions

declining hegemony--other states can take the lead in renewable energy

social movements - key in preventing a move toward nuclear, non-renewable energy

rising conflict in oil-producing states

• Indications that we are nearing peak oil

• peak in discovery tends to be 30-40 years before the peak in production (the peak in discovery seems to have been about 30-40 years ago)
• 54 of 65 largest producers have reached peak in production
• prices have stayed high even though production levels have not changed
• desperate behavior in obtaining oil (tar sands)

Middle East, Americas, Africa, Asia

Hegemon losing power

Political implications within nations of peak oil

 feudalism??

globalizatoin protest movement--against globalization, toward  local resiliance

end of globalism

 

economic downturn

 

 

conflicts, violent "us" vs. "them" attitudes

suburbia as unsustainable

a more efficient machine will result in an aggregate increase in energy instead of the desired decreased. 

efficiency alone will not decrease demand

for example, people may find hybrids more affordable and so drive more and use just as much or more oil

supports Hopkins argument that more social change is needed than technological

this makes the difference in all three scenarios of post-peak-oil.  local infrastructure and ability to meet needs locally.

an ecosystem's ability to roll with external shocks and attempted enforced changes

capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same structure, function, identity, feedbacks

Diversity

MOdularity

Tightness of feedbacks

only response to peak oil

1. post carbon institute

2. community solution to peak oil

3. permaculture

4. transition towns

Hopkins views as a "when," not an "if"

There has been a movement away from the local--structural and cultural. 

structural--de-centralized urban zones

cultural--valuing cheaper, outsourced, globally produced over locally made

agriculture must relocalize in developing countries as well as the west to remove ties of dependence

economically advantageous when considered with peak oil

an integrated method, design system based on ecological principles which provides the organizing framework for implementing a permanent or sustainable culture.  it integrates diverse skills and ways of living. 

answers the question of "where would our food come from?" from the transition model.  It is one of the principle foundations of the Transition movement

considers the assembly of social, economic, cultural, and technical components--beneficial relationships!!

intelligent siting (reflecting light into houses)

passive cooling

1. avoid them/us

2. create sense that something is happening

3. create a vision of an abundant future

4. design flexibility/resiliance

1. needs to be embedded in community

2. needs to work on awareness-raising

3. needs to get individuals incorporated into group action, responses

4. approach these issues with an awareness of psychological and addiciton dynamics