Environmental Threat and Social Organization

Abstract

The neutral approach of the natural scientist to the study of the physical environment contrasts with the social science approach. The unit of study is the same: in both cases it is the society, but instead of value-free adapta tions (of the natural sciences), the social sciences tend to evaluate environmental relations as beneficent or dangerous to man. American society has its adaptive niche on the North American continent, but in its brief history, we note a change in attitude from the first settlers' confident belief that nature will provide for man's wants, to our present sense of the threat to social existence generated by environmental problems. This is coupled with a growing conviction that past policies of uncontrolled depletion have brought about the change from an ecology of abundance to an ecology of scarcity. In order to comprehend our present strait, compare the civilizations of olden Central Asia, where water was in scarce supply. There, however, water was not a threat, but a positive value; its scarcity was dealt with by practical legal and technical means. Thus, there is no necessary connection between scarcity and a given set of attitudes. We are passing through a climacteric at present regarding quantity and quality of water supply, and as we change our philosophy of natural resources generally, so do we change our management policies toward them in particular. We are making up our minds that what was cheap or free will now become expensive. The pills of rising costs and taxes are a bitter dosage.