Environment and Society

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XI (Understanding Society), Chapter 3.

Where did your classroom chair come from?

Look at the chair you are sitting on. It may be wood from a tree in a forest or plantation, held with iron nails, glue and varnish. Getting it to you needed electricity, diesel, traders, transport and telecommunications, and each of those uses more natural resources. Loggers, carpenters, managers, transporters and school buyers all had a hand in it. Trace every flow and you find that nearly everything around you begins in nature, and that the path from nature to you runs through society. That is the idea behind the whole chapter: the environment is not a backdrop to social life, it is tied into it at every step.

Ecology: the web that includes us

Ecology is the web of physical and biological systems and processes of which humans are one element. Mountains, rivers, plains and oceans, and the plants and animals they support, are part of it. A desert's plants and animals are adapted to scarce rain, sandy or rocky soil and extreme temperatures, and the same conditions limit how people can live there. Hydrology, the science of water and its flows, is part of what shapes a place.

But ecology has been modified by people for a long time. What looks like a natural feature of the environment, such as dryness or flood proneness, is often produced by human action. Deforestation in the upper catchment of a river can make it more flood prone, and global warming is a widespread human impact on nature. Often we cannot cleanly separate the natural from the human factors.

Social environments: a two way street

Some ecological elements are obviously human made. A farm with soil and water conservation works, cultivated plants, domesticated animals and fertilisers is a human transformation of nature, and so is the concrete, brick, glass and tar of a city. Social environments emerge from the interaction between biophysical ecology and human interventions, and the process runs both ways: nature shapes society, and society shapes nature.

The cotton chain. The effects of the Industrial Revolution in Britain were felt across the world. Demand for cotton in the mills of Lancashire turned large areas of southern North America and the Caribbean into plantations. Young West Africans were forcibly transported to America as slave labour, and the depopulation of West Africa caused its agricultural economy to decline, with fields reverting to fallow wasteland. Back in Britain, coal smoke from the mills fouled the air, and displaced farmers and labourers came to the cities and lived in poor conditions. One industry left ecological footprints on several continents.

Pause and predict: a state builds a large dam on a river. Is that an example of nature shaping society, or society shaping nature?

Check your answer: Society shaping nature. A human intervention alters the river's flow and ecology. But the changed river then reshapes society, because villages, farms and livelihoods adjust to it. The process always runs both ways, which is why the exam says "two way".

Social organisation, values and knowledge

The way a society is organised decides how it relates to the environment.

Property relations. They determine how and by whom natural resources can be used. If forests belong to the government, it can decide whether to lease them to timber companies or let villagers collect forest produce. Private ownership of land and water affects who gets access and on what terms.

Division of labour. It affects who experiences scarcity. In rural India, gathering fuel and fetching water are generally women's tasks, but women do not control these resources, so they feel scarcity more acutely. Landless labourers also stand differently from landowners.

Values and norms. Different values produce different relationships with nature.

Knowledge systems. Even the theories we use are shaped by the social conditions in which they arise. In the "nature versus nurture" debate, you can ask: are people poor because they are innately less talented, or because they are born into disadvantage? Ideas that some groups are naturally less able were challenged as equality ideas spread during the political revolutions of the eighteenth century. Colonialism generated a large body of knowledge about the environment, and disciplines like geology, botany, zoology, forestry and hydraulic engineering were created and institutionalised to manage natural resources for the colonial rulers.

Risk societies: using what we cannot fully control

Managing the environment is hard. Not enough is known about biophysical processes to predict and control them, and human relations with the environment are ever more complex. As industrialisation spread, resource extraction expanded and accelerated. Complex industrial technologies need sophisticated management systems that are fragile and open to error. The textbook's phrase is that we live in risk societies, using technologies and products we do not fully grasp. Its examples: the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the industrial accident at Bhopal and Mad Cow disease in Europe.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: a risk society is one that depends on complex technologies whose dangers it does not fully understand, as in Chernobyl, Bhopal and Mad Cow disease. In reality: the phrase "risk society" is a concept developed by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck, who argued that modern societies increasingly produce risks of their own making. Why it matters: the chapter uses the term in a concrete way with examples, so answer from the examples, and recognise Beck's name if it appears as an option.

The Bhopal case. On the night of 3 December 1984, a toxic gas spread through Bhopal, killing about 4,000 people and leaving about 200,000 permanently disabled. The gas was methyl isocyanate (MIC), accidentally released by a pesticide factory in the city. The textbook's discussion box asks which social institutions and organisations play a role in industrial accidents like this, and what steps can prevent them. The lesson for the exam is that an industrial accident has social causes as well as technical ones: decisions about siting and safety, how warnings are handled, and how well staff and equipment are maintained.

Major environmental problems and risks

The textbook groups the main hazards into five types. NTA often asks which item is not in the list.

On air pollution, the WHO reported that in 2012 around 7 million people died as a result of exposure, one in eight of all deaths. The textbook gives 3.3 million deaths linked to indoor and 2.6 million to outdoor air pollution. These two groups overlap, because many people are exposed to both, so they should not simply be added together. Village women who cook on wood fires are at serious risk because they do the cooking.

Pause and predict: a student says, "indoor air pollution is a city problem, because cities have factories and traffic." What is missing?

Check your answer: Indoor pollution from cooking fires is serious in rural homes, especially for women, who do the cooking in poorly ventilated spaces with poor fuel. The textbook treats it as a major source of risk, not a minor one.

Why environmental problems are social problems

This is the heart of the chapter. How environmental problems affect different groups depends on social inequality. Status and power decide how far people can protect themselves from an environmental crisis. Sometimes the "solutions" of the better placed worsen the gap. In Kutch, Gujarat, where water is scarce, richer farmers dug deep bore wells to irrigate cash crops. When the rains fail, the earthen wells of poorer villagers dry up and they may lack even drinking water.

Environmental concerns can look universal. Cutting air pollution or protecting biodiversity seems to be in the public interest. But a sociological look shows that how public priorities are set and pursued may not benefit everyone. Securing "the public interest" may serve powerful groups or hurt the poor and politically weak. Debates over large dams and protected areas show that the environment as a public interest is a contested arena.

Social ecology. This school argues that social relations, especially the organisation of property and production, shape how people see and use the environment. A Forest Department aiming at maximum revenue from supplying bamboo to the paper industry will see a forest very differently from an artisan who cuts bamboo for baskets. Their different interests and ideologies produce environmental conflict. The chapter quotes Murray Bookchin, political philosopher and founder of the Institute for Social Ecology: nearly all present ecological problems arise from deep seated social problems, so they cannot be understood or resolved without dealing with problems within society. Economic, ethnic, cultural and gender conflicts lie at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations, apart from those caused by natural catastrophes.

Two views. For the exam: environmental protection is described as being in everyone's interest, and the sociological answer is that its costs and benefits fall unequally on different groups. Another reading: the textbook's own examples support both halves. A measure such as protecting a forest or building a dam can be argued to serve the public, while those who lose land or resources can see it as a loss imposed on them. A good answer gives the common claim and then asks "whose interest, and who pays?"

Sustainable development and the Global Goals

The relation between ecology and economy is complex, and the textbook states that unless there is a balance between them, the future of humanity will be bleak. The standard definition comes from the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (1987): development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It holds two key ideas: needs, especially the essential needs of the world's poor, which get overriding priority, and limitations imposed by technology and social organisation on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

The chapter then brings in the Global Goals: 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets, arrived at by the 193 member states of the United Nations together with global civil society. It recalls the saying, associated with Ban Ki-moon, that there is no Plan B because there is no Planet B.

Two views. For the exam: sustainable development is a balance of present needs and future generations' needs, in Brundtland's words. Another reading: the chapter also quotes Sunita Narain, who argues that growth driven by ever rising consumption leaves poorer people marginalised, since anyone who does not keep up is treated as having failed. On this reading, sustainability needs more equal and inclusive development, not only more efficient growth.

Two conflicts to remember

Farmers' distress in cotton regions. In the textbook's account, journalist P. Sainath's investigation links the distress of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra to a mix of environmental and economic factors. Farmers face a volatile world market, and government support for small farmers declined with liberalisation. Cotton is a high risk, high return crop that needs irrigation and is prone to pests. Heavy extraction has depleted water, so farmers must drill deeper, and pests have become resistant, so they must spray new pesticides more often. These inputs need credit, often from private moneylenders at high interest, and a failed crop leaves farmers unable to repay or meet family obligations. The chapter's point is that an apparently "private" crisis has environmental, economic and social roots.

Urban land and water. Drawing on Amita Baviskar, the chapter notes that migrants come to cities for work, cannot afford scarce legal housing and settle on public land. That land is now in demand for infrastructure for affluent residents and visitors, such as malls, hotels and tourist sites, so poor workers and their families are moved to the outskirts and their homes demolished. Land, air and water have become contested resources in the city.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: urban conflict over land and water is an example of environment and society conflicts. In reality: similar pressures appear in many growing cities: the question of who gets land, water and sanitation is usually decided by income and political influence, not just by need. Why it matters: it shows that the same sociological tools (stratification, power, property relations) from earlier chapters apply to environmental questions.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Social Change and Social Order in Rural and Urban Society treats the environment as one source of social change, which this chapter expands.
• Earlier ideas: Social Structure, Stratification and Social Processes in Society gives inequality and conflict, which explain why environmental problems fall unevenly.
• Next: Introducing Western Sociologists turns to the thinkers behind these ideas.
• Class XII link: Change and Development in Rural Society returns to land, water and agriculture in India.