The Environment (PDF)

How are human societies changing the global environment?

Is sustainable development really possible?

Can environmental risks be avoided?

Is our experience of nature changing?

This book shows how questions about the environment cannot be
properly answered without taking a sociological approach. It
provides a comprehensive guide to the ways in which sociologists
have responded to the challenge of environmental issues as diverse
as global warming, ozone depletion, biodiversity loss and marine
pollution. It also covers sociological ideas such as risk,
interpretations of nature, environmental realism, ecological
modernization and globalization. Environmentalism and green
politics are also introduced. Unlike many other texts in the field,
the book takes a long-term view, locating environmental dilemmas
within the context of social development and globalization.

The Environment: A Sociological Introduction is unique in
presenting environmental issues at an introductory level that
assumes no specialist knowledge on the part of readers. The book is
written in a remarkably clear and accessible style, and uses a rich
range of empirical examples from across the globe to illustrate key
debates. A carefully assembled glossary and annotated further
reading suggestions also help to bring ideas to life.

The book will be a valuable resource for students in a range of
disciplines, including sociology, geography and the environmental
sciences, but also for anyone who wants to get to grips with
contemporary environmental debates.