SOCI 4000 Test #1 Study Questions

  1. What does the environmental sociology study?
     
  2. Why it is important to study "nature - society" relationships?
     
  3. What is "ecological dialog"? Choose an environmental problem (i.e., impact of cars or population on the environment). Analyze it using "ecological dialog" or mutual interdependence of material/ideal perspective. (see p.30-31)
     
  4. What is ecological sustainability? Why it is important to study ecological sustainability?
     
  5. What is environmental justice? Why it is important that environmental justice were achieved?
     
  6. What is the basis of claims that the nature has rights? (Set of views/values that treat humans and non-humans as members of ecological community) Why issues of rights of nature are important to us? (ethical and aesthetical considerations).
     
  7. There are two major perspectives in environmental sociology: ecological realism (ER) and social constructivism (SC). Describe:

      8. a. How ER and SC define what "nature" is?
      b. What are the central questions that researchers working in ER and SC traditions are concerned about?
      c. What are the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches?
      d. Choose any environmental problem, i.e., global warming. Describe how ER and SC were to analyze and explain it. What is the relationship between class and environmental activism? How class is correlated with concern about global warming?

  8. Explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and describe the purpose for which this concept was developed? (To explain relation between material and ideal). What is the major Maslow theory’s weakness?
     
  9. What is "treadmill of consumption" (acceleration of consumption without real gain in satisfaction leading to deterioration of the environment)?
     
  10. Veblen in his theory of the leisure class provided an answer to the question as to why we continue to consume ever growing amounts of material stuff than we need. Explain:

      11. a. What is conspicuous consumption and how conspicuous consumption is leading to deterioration of the environment?
      b . What is making us to consume conspicuously? Provide examples of conspicuous consumption, conspicuous waste, and conspicuous leisure you personally observed or participated in. What impact does the observed conspicuous consumption have on the environment?
      c. Why conspicuous consumption tends to continuously accelerate leading to the "treadmill of consumption"? (i.e., competitive nature of conspicuous consumption; positional character of goods).

  11. Explain what Hirsch means by the notion of "positional goods." Why, according to Hirsch we want something precisely because it is in a short supply? Provide an example of goods the shortages of which had been deliberately created to increase their value.
     
  12. Watchel in his theory of goods and community argued that we try to buy a feeling of community in the goods we purchase for ourselves and others. Why we want to buy feelings of a community (decline of relationships and rise of individualism)? Could you provide an example of attempts to buy a feeling of a community you observed? Why do attempts to buy the community are leading to treadmill of consumption?
     
  13. What is the relationship between increasing material consumption levels and happiness? Did rising levels of consumption in the US since the end of WWII led to growing fulfillment and satisfaction of the American people?
     
  14. What is the treadmill of production? (Mutual economic pinching that gets everyone running faster but advancing only little and always tending to increase production and to sideline the environment). Explain how the dynamics of the treadmill of production is expressed in Iowa’s hog industry and restructuring of North Carolina’s furniture industry.
     
  15. Explain what does Bell mean by the term "technological somnambulism"? (TS--uncritical acceptance and reliance on technologies that occurs through routinization of everyday life, culture and politics.) Provide an example how routinization of everyday life or culture produces TS (reliance on cars, oil, going to war for oil and not working on alternatives; means become meaning; politics-dismantling of public transportation to promote car sales; bst - technology that is used to redistribute value-added in dairy industry). What impact does TS have on environment?
     
  16. What solutions to the "treadmill of production" are proposed by Bell? (Wake up from technological somnambulism via understanding social and political construction of technological change). How can treadmill of production involved in car industry can be restricted?
     
  17. Describe Malthus’s conceptualization of the relationship between population size and the environment. What is the most crucial weakness of Malthus’ theory on population?
     
  18. Explain how culture and technology mediate relationship between population size and environment. Provide examples to illustrate your answer.
     
  19. What is the current size of world population? How many people worldwide are chronically malnourished?
     
  20. Explain the demographic transition theory. What according to demographic transition theory are two most important sets of factors that contribute to the decline of growth population?

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