Global Environmental Change and Contemporary Society

Abstract

Aiming at a progressive accumulation of knowledge complementary to recent and important works by environmental sociologists (Dunlap and Michelson, 1997; Redclift and Benton, 1994) and public agencies (CEQ, 1980; Olson, 1996), the general objective of this article is to pursue a renewed sociological understanding of contemporary society confronted by a particular process called global environmental change (GEC). Conceived within a specific integrated theoretical, empirical and applied approach, there is no place here for `inventories' (Sunderlin, 1995), nor `assessment analysis' (Buttle and Taylor, 1994) of current literature. In line with the author's own expertise (Prades, 1969, 1987, 1992, 1994), the specific objective of this article is to examine how a heuristic reading (Prades, 1990) of Weber and Durkheim provides basic theoretical insights for the study of GEC as a crucial contemporary societal-environmental problem. According to its own limits, the present text may only suggest avenues for further reflection and research. Using macro-sociological, theoretical and methodological material directly oriented towards a concrete, problem-solving approach, this article contains three parts. As an introduction, the first section suggests a preliminary definition of contemporary sociogenic (societally generated) GEC. Searching for theoretical understanding and historical meaning, the second section concentrates on the pathological nature of contemporary sociogenic GEC and subsequently identifies `particularistic anomic individualism' as a key strategical explanatory cause of such a pathological process. Finally and decisively, the third section studies how this state of affairs can be practically overcome in a functional `societal solidarity' perspective based on the impulse of `sustainable development'.