Page 521 - Essencials of Sociology

494 CHAPTER 15 Social Change and the Environment

The Energy Shortage and Internal Combustion Engines. If you ever read
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Activity: Riding a Bicycle to Work about an energy shortage, you can be sure that what you read is false. There is no
energy shortage, nor can there ever be. We have access to unlimited low-cost power,
which can help to raise the living standards of humans across the globe. The Sun, for
example, produces more energy than humanity could ever use. Boundless energy is
also available from the tides and the winds. In some cases, we need better technology
to harness these sources of energy; in others, we need only apply the technology we
already have.
Burning fossil fuels in internal combustion engines is the main source of pollu-
tion in the Most Industrialized Nations. Car and truck engines that burn natural
gas, a cleaner and lower-priced fossil fuel, will become common. Of the technolo-
gies being developed to use alternative sources of energy in vehicles, the most
prominent is the gas-electric hybrid. Some of these cars are expected to eventually
get several hundred miles per gallon of gasoline. The hybrid, however, is simply a
bridge until vehicles powered by fuel cells become practical. With fuel cells convert-
ing hydrogen into electricity, it will be water, not carbon monoxide, coming out of
a car’s exhaust pipe.

The Rain Forests. Of special concern are the world’s rain forests. Although these
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Audio: NPR: Amazon Rainforest forests cover just 6 percent of the Earth’s land area, they are home to one-half of
Update all the Earth’s plant and animal species (Frommer 2007). Despite knowing the rain
forests’ essential role for humanity’s welfare, we seem bent on destroying them for
the sake of timber and farms. In the process, we extinguish plant and animal species,
perhaps thousands a year. As biologists remind us, once a species is lost, it is gone
forever.
As the rain forests disappear, so do the Indian tribes who live in them. With their
extinction goes their knowledge of the environment, the topic of the Cultural Diversity
box on the next page. Like Esau who traded his birthright for a bowl of porridge, we are
exchanging our future for lumber, farms, and pastures.

The Environmental Movement

Concern about environmental problems has touched such a nerve that it has produced
a worldwide social movement. In Europe, green parties, political groups whose central
concern is the environment, have become a force for change. Germany’s green party,
for example, has won seats in the national legislature. In the United States, in contrast,
green parties have had little success.
One concern of the environmental movement in the United States is environmental
injustice, minorities and the poor being the ones who suffer the most from the effects
of pollution (Lerner 2010). Industries locate where land is cheaper, which, as you
know, is not where the wealthy live. Nor will the rich allow factories to spew pollution
near their homes. As a result, pollution is more common in low-income communities.
Sociologists have studied, formed, and joined environmental justice groups that fight to
close polluting plants and block construction of polluting industries. Like the defeat at
Lake Baikal, just mentioned, this often pits environmentalists against politicians and the
wealthy.
Like the members of last century’s civil rights movement, environmentalists are cer-
tain that they stand for what is right and just. Most activists seek quiet solutions in poli-
tics, education, and legislation. Despairing that pollution continues, that the rain forests
are still being cleared, and that species continue to become extinct, others are convinced
environmental injustice refers that the planet is doomed unless we take immediate action. This conviction motivates
to how minorities and the poor are some to choose a more radical course, to use extreme tactics to try to arouse indignation
harmed the most by environmental among the public and to force the government to act. Such activists are featured in the
pollution
Thinking Critically section on page 496.