Klaus Feldmann
Eco-Sociology: Inside and Outside the Cocoon
Abstract
The present article examines how American and German sociological theorists deal with the concept of nature and with environmental problems. The results of an analysis of professional sociological publications are presented. Various conceptions of sociological theorists are discussed focussing on nature and environmental problems. It is argued that the social sciences and the mass media are becoming more and more intertwined, increasingly coming to comprise "parallel systems of meaning production' (Gamson and Modgliani, 1989). The basic cultural orientations (subsystems) determine how the concept of nature is discussed. It is suggested to investigate how different conceptions of nature are used in social actions and social situations.
Barbara Adam
Time and Envrionmental Crisis: An Exploration with Special Reference to Pollution
Abstract
The present environmental crisis is gaining prominence on the socio-political and scientific agenda. There is widespread consensus about what constitutes the crisis but little agreement about its causes and potential solutions: What is a solution for one person is often considered a source of the problem by another. Focus on aspects that are normally disattended allows us to sidestep those hardening oppositions and gives us a new access to environmental issues and their analyses. While the spatial dimension has been brought to the fore in a number of disciplines, the temporal equivalent has stayed implicit. Explication of what remains invisible in conventional analyses can shed light on the familiar, agreed upon and disputed.
Marina Fischer-Kowalski and Helmut Haberl
Metabolism and Colonization. Modes of Production and the Physical Exchange between Societies and Nature
Abstract
Written by a sociologist and a biologist, the paper attempts an interdisciplinary approach to describing the basic exchange relations between human societies and their natural environments. One type of exchange relation is termed "metabolism' and related to the biological metabolism member organisms of societies require. A historical overview (part 1) demonstrates this exchange relation in terms of mass throughput per inhabitant to have grown in the course of human cultural evolution - without necessarily increasing the quality of life of those concerned - to the twentyfold it now amounts to in industrial societies (as is demonstrated empirically for Austria in part 3). A strategy of "contraction of physical metabolism' (reduction of physical growth irrespective of "economic' growth) of industrial societies is proposed as a strategic means of survival, and possible ways to this goal are discussed quantitatively. The other exchange relation termed "colonization' refers to treatments of natural environments that purposively change some components to render better exploitability (for the purpose of social metabolism), while still relying upon their basic self-regenerating qualities. It is sketched how colonization strategies developed historically, and it is demonstrated empirically that industrial societies now use about 50% of the available plant biomass (the energetic basis of all animal life) upon their territories for human purposes (part 4). Part 5 classifies different "paradigms' for judging the "harmfulness' of social interventions into the environment and outlines the logic of an information system that would enable society to generate an awareness of its own interventions into nature. On the whole the paper presents a theoretical as well as an empirical attempt to view societies as physical systems (among other physical systems on this planet) and confront sociology with the paradigmatic task to analyze the social regulation of these physical processes.
Michael Rex Redclift
Development and the Envrionment: Managing the Contradictions
Abstract
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 illustrated the enormous rift that has appeared between North and South. Not only is the agenda of the North different from that of the South, but the language, the discourse, is different. The paper, which was conceived as a contribution to the new discourse surrounding development and the environment explores the divergence between North and South in terms of the limited Northern perspective represented by "environmental managerialism'. The failure to grasp the global nature of environmental issues lies at the heart of the problem for radical scholarship. It is the central question to which, as sociologists, we should direct our energies.
Raimondo Strasoldo
The Greening of the Booth: Environmental Awareness, Movements and Policies in Italy
Abstract
The paper presents a comprehensive, if only sketchy, case-study of environmental awareness, movements and policies in Italy. For brevity's sake, no attempt is made to draw explicit international comparison or to use the case as a starting point for theoretical generalizations; although both are implicit. The history of Italian environmentalism is divided into five periods: pre-history (1900-1950), early history (1950-1967), the "ecological spring' (1968-1973), the seventies and the eighties. The growth of environmentalism in the seventies is analyzed at three levels: institutional, cultural, and political. Developments in the last decade are studied in several sectors: laws and institutions, business, professions and research, public opinion, movements, organizations and parties. A section is devoted to the anti-nuclear campaign.
Ognjen Caldarovic
Envrionmental Awareness and Energy Problems in Croatia
Abstract
The article discusses the results of sociological research on environmental awareness in Croatia. A strong anti-nuclear attitude is present, especially with respect to radioactive waste. Education is by far the strongest determining variable: those of high educational qualifications are critical in general as well as vis-a-vis specific issues, yet not necessarily critical in a negative sense.
Sabine Pohoryles-Drexel and Ronald J. Pohoryles
'Black Card' or Rational Bargaining Strategies? On the Difficulties Involved in Mastering Technology Effects by Means of Interactive Processes
Abstract
The present paper has two objectives in mind: On the one hand, it attempts to present and clarify the attitudes of the Austrian population on ecological issues. On the other hand, its second objective is to explicate, via a documentation and discourse analysis of a discussion with respect to the "social compatibility' of the location of radioactive waste disposal sites, how the notion of "social impact assessment' ought to be interpreted as a strategic game among social actors, aimed at proceeding from conflict to a rational solution.
