Sociology. Anthony Giddens
alt="Distribution of biotech crops in developing and industrial countries in 2017"/>
Figure 5.5 Distribution of biotech crops in developing and industrial countries in 2017
Source: ISAAA (2017).
The protests of environmentalists and consumer groups had a major impact on the fate of Monsanto, causing a serious decline in its share value. Matsuura (2004) argues that, in the early days, the biotechnology industry made two mistakes: first it tried to ignore public concerns and then, when GM is also an emotional issue, it attempted to address them through purely rational arguments. The CEO appeared on television to admit his company had made major mistakes and ‘irritated and antagonized more people than we have persuaded’. It was an extraordinary turnaround, and Monsanto was forced to drop one of its most controversial plans – the idea of using a gene called ‘the terminator’. This gene would have ensured that seeds which Monsanto sold to farmers would be sterile after one generation. Critics claimed Monsanto was trying to lure farmers into a form of ‘bioslavery’.
The issue of GM crops highlights the point that environmental issues always involve complex combinations of the natural and the social. In May 2000, the British government admitted that thousands of acres of conventional oilseed rape planted by farmers had been ‘contaminated’, as GM crops pollinated those nearby. German research published just weeks later claimed that a gene commonly used to modify oilseed rape had jumped the species barrier into bees. Such findings have been taken by environmental activists as supportive of their advocacy of a precautionary principle. This proposes that, where there is sufficient doubt about the possible risks of new technologies, it is up to producers to prove they will not cause harm before they are approved for use. Critics argue that this principle would stifle innovation and is historically naïve, as many unproven technologies have actually had major benefits that would have been lost.
Despite the concerns of environmentalists, the amount of land given over to growing GM crops globally continues to increase, particularly in developing countries, where the laws restricting GM crops are generally less strict (figure 5.5). By 2010 the total global planting area for transgenic crops reached 1 billion hectares (Peng 2011), and in 2017 some 17 million farmers in twenty-four countries were growing GM crops (ISAAA 2017).
The GM controversy is an excellent example of a ‘manufactured risk’ – that is, an apparently ‘natural’ issue which actually arises from human intervention. We will discuss ideas of risk in relation to the environment later in the chapter, but next we explore some key sociological theories that highlight society–environment relations.
THINKING CRITICALLY
How realistic is the ‘precautionary principle’ – that we should always err on the side of caution with untested new technologies? What real-world examples of unproven technologies are there which call this principle into question?
The environment in sociological theory
Natural scientists have been at the forefront of debates on environmental issues. As the examples above of pollution, genetic modification and global warming show, environmental issues are different from most sociological subjects because they involve getting to grips with natural scientific research and evidence. However, the hybrid character of environmental issues means that natural scientists can never have a monopoly on them. Our brief introduction to the problem of global warming is the most striking example of this.
The IPCC scientists acknowledge that global warming is largely the product of human activities – industrialization, urbanization and globalization processes, for example – and the experts in these areas are sociologists and other social scientists, such as political scientists, human geographers and all of those studying development and international relations (Urry 2011). If environmental problems are to be successfully understood and tackled, then social and natural scientists will have to try to understand each other rather better than they have done so far.
The rest of this section will explore some of the main sociological theories linking social development with environmental damage, along with some of the major approaches to solving global environmental problems.
Living in the global ‘risk society’
Humans have always had to face risks of one kind or another, but today’s risks are qualitatively different from those that came in earlier times. Until quite recently, human societies were threatened by external risk – dangers such as drought, earthquakes, famines and storms that spring from the natural world and are unrelated to the actions of humans. Earthquakes and related tsunamis show that external risks of this kind will continue, as planet Earth is characterized by many active, natural processes. However, we are also increasingly confronted by various types of manufactured risk that are created by the impact of our own knowledge and technology on the natural world.
Debates on genetically modified foods and global warming have presented individuals with new choices and challenges in their everyday lives. Because there are no definitive answers as to the consequences of such risks, each individual is forced to make decisions about which risks they are prepared to take. Should we use food and raw materials if their production or consumption has a negative impact on our health and the natural environment? Even seemingly simple decisions about what to eat are made in the context of conflicting information and opinions about the product’s relative merits and drawbacks.
Ulrich Beck (1992, 1999, 2009) wrote extensively about risk and globalization. As technological change progresses more rapidly, producing new forms of risk, we must constantly respond and adjust to the changes. Risks today involve a series of interrelated changes in contemporary social life: shifting employment patterns, heightened job insecurity, the declining influence of tradition and custom on self-identity, the erosion of traditional family patterns and the democratization of personal relationships. Because personal futures are much less fixed than in the past, decisions of all kinds present risks for individuals. Getting married, for example, is a more risky course today than it was when marriage was a lifelong commitment. Decisions about educational qualifications and career paths can also feel risky: it is difficult to predict what skills will be valuable in an economy that changes as rapidly as ours. ‘Classic studies’ 5.1 explores Beck’s arguments, specifically in relation to environmental risks.
Beck’s argument that there is a growing consciousness of manufactured risks, especially those related to society–environment relations, is amply illustrated by the large-scale environmental protests and campaigns of the last decade or so. For example, the rise of Extinction Rebellion and the international school climate strikes have tended to focus on global warming and biodiversity loss, both of which are linked to human activities. Although many environmental campaigns aim to shift government policy, they have also raised the question of the long-term sustainability of the high-consumption lifestyles enjoyed in the Global North. Next, we look at the consumer societies and why changing consumer behaviour may offer a way of raising awareness of and reducing human impact on the environment.
Classic studies 5.1 Ulrich Beck and the global risk society
The research problem
This chapter has explored some of the environmental consequences of industrialization and the increasingly global human footprint. Taking a long-term view, we can see that the spread of industrialization produces more widespread and potentially serious side effects in the form of environmental risks. But is modern life really more risky, or are we just more ‘risk aware’? Are we worrying unnecessarily about environmental problems? The German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1944–2015) has been the foremost sociological theorist of risk,