Abstract
Our planet is undergoing radical environmental and social changes. Sustainability has now been put into question by, for example, our consumption patterns, loss of biodiversity, depletion of resources, and exploitative power relations. With apparent ecological and social limits to globalization and development, current levels of consumption are known to be unsustainable, inequitable, and inaccessible to the majority of humans. Understanding and achieving sustainability is a crucial matter at a time when our planet is in peril—environmentally, economically, socially, and politically. Since its official inception in the 1970s, environmental sociology has provided a powerful lens to understanding the challenges, possibilities, and modes of sustainability. This editorial, accompanying the Special Issue on “sustainability through the Lens of Environmental Sociology”, first highlights the evolution of environmental sociology as a distinct field of inquiry, focusing on how it addresses the environmental challenges of our time. It then adumbrates the rich theoretical traditions of environmental sociology, and finally examines sustainability through the lens of environmental sociology, referring to various case studies and empirical analyses.
Highlights
Environmental Sociology as a Field of InquiryEnvironmental sociology is the study of how social and ecological systems interact with one another
Due to the complexity of the interaction, the development of separate disciplines, such as ‘sociology’ focusing on social relationships alone and ‘ecology’ based on environmental relationships without relating to society, bifurcation in intuitions and disciplinary bias, the profound relationships between society and the environment were hardly mentioned for a long period of time
Environmental sociology is a subfield in sociology despite the fact that it has roots in ecology
Summary
Environmental sociology is the study of how social and ecological systems interact with one another. Marx talked about the “humanization of nature” which he said will give humans a better understanding of nature and how we can co-exist in a way that benefits both the environment and us He even pointed out specific environmental issues and saw Sustainability 2017, 9, 474 the importance of ecological sustainability. When sociologists first started discussing environmental issues and problems in the 1970s, they applied social theories to the environmental issues; soon a distinct field of study began to emerge. They made a distinction between two parts, one of which studied the interaction between the society and the environment, and the other which dealt more with environmental issues. This is necessary if we are going to continue living on this earth and live together with other species in a harmonious manner
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