Environmental Sociology

York, Richard; Dunlap, Riley E.

doi:10.1002/9781444347388.ch27

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Ecological modernization theory is a fundamentally representative "green capitalist" approach to environmental sociology (Mol 2002), presuming the central features of the CWS and adopting many core elements of traditional 'modernization theory' McLaughlin 2012;Seippel 2000). Simultaneously, contemporary EMT has been subject to multiple empirical tests, prompting significant critiques of its methodological and epistemological premises (Brulle 2010;York and Dunlap 2012;York, Rosa and Dietz 2010). First, its reliance on the "case study" method has been found to be unable to isolate general large-scale patterns (such as the impact of EM processes on actual ecological outcomes).…”

Section: "Green Capitalist" Modernization Theory As Environmental Socmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Critical and explicit sociological study of our ecological relations became engrained as the sub-discipline of environmental sociology as a response to the increasingly widespread recognition of environmental problems in the early 1970s. As such, one of its central questions regards diagnosing the anthropogenic causes of our environmental ills (Jorgenson and Clark 2012;York and Dunlap 2012).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…While there is no universally accepted theory of the forces contributing to environmental change, two of the most influential traditions are (1) "green capitalist" approaches such as ecological modernization theory (whose analysis maintains the central features of the capitalist world-system), and (2) critical environmental sociology (holding capitalism necessarily responsible for our ecological ills, and thus pursuing both critical analyses and radical solutions), the latter grounded in approaches such as human ecology, political economy, and world-systems theory (Brulle 2010;Foster, Clark and York 2010;Pellow and Nyseth Brehm 2013). At the core of the development of critical environmental sociology is the human ecology perspective, emerging from the works of Catton and Dunlap (see York and Dunlap 2012), which critiqued human exemptionalism under the banner of an approach now referred to as the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP). Contemporary human ecology studies have recently used cross-national research to highlight population and affluence (measured in per capita GDP) as the central driving forces behind environmental degradation at the national level (York and Dunlap 2012), and have also developed the New Ecological Paradigm Scale, an influential measure of proenvironmental orientation (Dunlap 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…At the core of the development of critical environmental sociology is the human ecology perspective, emerging from the works of Catton and Dunlap (see York and Dunlap 2012), which critiqued human exemptionalism under the banner of an approach now referred to as the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP). Contemporary human ecology studies have recently used cross-national research to highlight population and affluence (measured in per capita GDP) as the central driving forces behind environmental degradation at the national level (York and Dunlap 2012), and have also developed the New Ecological Paradigm Scale, an influential measure of proenvironmental orientation (Dunlap 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These foundational critical traditions within environmental sociology, alongside additional perspectives such as environmental justice literature (Anguelovski 2014) and newer contributions, such as Jason W. Moore's development of the 'capitalism as world-ecology' approach (Moore 2015) or many distinct degrowth (D'Alisa, Demaria and Kallis 2014) and critical political ecology (Peet, Robbins and Watts 2011b;Robbins 2011) perspectives, are significantly complementary York and Mancus 2009). Additionally, they have together highlighted many of the quantitative and qualitative ways in which capitalism, as a growth-and-profit oriented mode of production characterized by unequal economic and ecological relations, is responsible for our ecological crises (Pellow and Nyseth Brehm 2013;York and Dunlap 2012). Nonetheless, it is exactly this thesis that is rejected by ecological modernization theorists and other advocates of "green capitalism", which presume the profit-and-growth imperatives of capitalism, while EMT in particular fails to adequately account for the negative ecological implications of the differential power between the core and non-core regions.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Hollow Ecology: Ecological Modernization Theory and the Death of Nature

Ewing¹

2017

JWSR

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The last few decades have seen the rise of 'ecological modernization theory' (EMT) as a "green capitalist" tradition extending modernization theory into environmental sociology. This article uses a synthesis of political economy, world-systems theory, and political, economic, and environmental sociology to demonstrate that the EMT presumption of growth and profit as economic priorities (alongside its neglect of core-periphery relations) produces many feedback loops which fatally undermine the viability of EMT's own political, technological, and social prescriptions, alongside creating problems for the fundamental EMT concept of 'ecological rationality.' Furthermore, this article attempts to explain why "green capitalist" approaches to environmental analysis have influence within policy and social science circles despite their inadequacies within environmental sociology. Finally, this article argues that in order to address the ecological challenges of our era, environmental sociology needs to reject "green capitalist" traditions like 'ecological modernization theory' which presuppose the desirability and maintenance of profit and growth as economic priorities (and predominantly fail to critique power imbalances between core and non-core nations), and instead return to the development of traditions willing to critique the fundamental traits of the capitalist world-system.Our planet is in ecological peril-and consequently all living species on it, including humanity, are equally endangered. To address our ecological crises with sufficient quickness and resolution, we need to shelve permanently those attitudes and prescriptions that would put our plans for ecological recovery on the wrong track. Dominant approaches to these problems within environmental sociology often fall within one of two varieties-either "green capitalist" approaches or those of critical environmental sociology. Despite a wide range of established critiques against both the capitalist world-system (CWS) and modernization theory (particularly in the environmental arena), ecological modernization theory (EMT) has emerged as one particularly influential and well-defined variant of "green capitalist" environmental sociologies, both among reformist environmental sociologists and within policy circles (Brulle 2010;Foster, Clark and York 2010). In this paper, I will both (1) critique EMT for its failure to account for the negative ecological impacts of central world-systems factors, and (2) explore why EMT's ideas (as a particular variant of "green capitalist" approaches to environmental sociology) continue to have influence in policy and scholarly circles despite the overwhelming evidence against their viability as ecological prescriptions.The critique in this article will proceed in three primary steps. First, I will situate EMT within the history of environmental sociology more broadly. Second, I will demonstrate that EMT's failure to criticize central CWS features (its profit-and-growth orientation, and the unequal power between the core and the re...

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Section: "Green Capitalist" Modernization Theory As Environmental Socmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hollow Ecology: Ecological Modernization Theory and the Death of Nature

Ewing¹

2017

JWSR

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Environment, Sociology of the

Dunlap

2016

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology

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Sociological work on environmental issues is traced through the development and evolution of the field of environmental sociology. After overcoming the larger discipline's reluctance to incorporate the physical environment into sociological analyses, sociologists have conducted a diverse and ever‐expanding range of work on environmental issues. The social construction of environmental problems was an early emphasis, leading to important insights concerning the processes by which various conditions come to be recognized and accepted as societal problems. In the 1990s, influenced by postmodernism, some sociologists adopted a strong constructivist orientation aimed at deconstructing issues such as global warming, prompting a critical reaction from scholars working from a realist perspective. The resulting debates led to a détente, but their legacy can be discerned in two current orientations toward the use of scientific indicators of ecological conditions. “Agnostics” tend to analyze environmental controversies, discourses, and science (especially climate science), while “pragmatists” employ measures such as ecological footprints, greenhouse gas emissions, and toxic waste inventories to analyze the causes and impacts of ecological deterioration. Analyzing solutions to environmental problems has become a major focus of the field, resulting in debates between optimistic proponents of ecological modernization and their more pessimistic critics from political economy and human ecology perspectives.

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Environmental Problems

Dunlap

2016

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology

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While long in existence, environmental problems became recognized as such in the 1960s, and the 1970 Earth Day in the United States and the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment transformed “environmental quality” into a major social issue both nationally and internationally. The nature of such problems and their evolution over time is analyzed by distinguishing among three functions that the environment (technically ecosystems) serve for human societies – supply depot, waste repository, and living space. Human overuse of these three functions generates problematic conditions and increasing competition between the functions. In recent decades the resulting problems have grown in geographical scale and complexity, illustrated by human‐caused global warming, and many analysts suggest that human use of the global ecosystem is now exceeding sustainable limits.

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Environmental Sociology

Cited by 13 publications

References 79 publications

Hollow Ecology: Ecological Modernization Theory and the Death of Nature

Hollow Ecology: Ecological Modernization Theory and the Death of Nature

Environment, Sociology of the

Environmental Problems

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