Definition of three Environmental Issues and Problems . ... environment in the Vanderbijlpark area of South Africa. The second problem is the Belo Monte.
UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH
Social construction of environmental issues and problems Die sosiale konstruksie van omgewingskwessies en probleme F.C. Prinsloo 2013
Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Explaining the social construction of environmental issues .......................................... 2 Definition of three Environmental Issues and Problems ................................................ 3 ISCOR ......................................................................................................................... 3 Belo Monte Dam ......................................................................................................... 3 Midway ........................................................................................................................ 4 Critisism.......................................................................................................................... 4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 5 References ...................................................................................................................... 6 Google Translation: Afrikaans to English
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Introduction This essay discusses the impact of manmade activities on the environment and associated social and environmental problems that these actions create. The social construction and environmental issues in three example development projects are dealt with in the essay. The three problems will be analyzed and discussed in terms of the factors that play a role in the environment and its influence. The first problem is the Iscor Steel Plant impact on the environment in the Vanderbijlpark area of South Africa. The second problem is the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil and the impact it will have on the residents and on the environment. The last issue to be discussed is the "Midway" Island in the Pacific Ocean, the debris it receives from the sea and how the island and the species living there affected. Finally we will take a critical look at social constructionism and criticism on social constructionism in the sociology area.
Explaining the social construction of environmental issues and problems Social construction of environmental issues has a multidisciplinary in nature and is a concept that is associated with in a number of disciplines, including philosophy, sociology and linguistics (Burr, 1995:2). The environment is constructed through social institutions, for example, families, schools, religion and the media has an influence on the way we think and what we see and experience, and that we occupy ourselves. Newspapers are a primary means of cultural transmission, which not only report the news, but we also helps to observe what is newsworthy and important (Hessing, 2003). Our understanding of environmental problems is a social construction created by the media, and other interactions with people. It discusses the environmental issues of environmental attitudes and behaviour, environmental justice, sustainable development and environmental management (Bird, 1987:260). It thus challenges us to be critical of our observations of the world and our idea of it. It also challenges us about our view and that conventional knowledge is based on objective, unbiased observation of the world (Burr, 1995:3). Social interactions of all kinds, especially language, is of great importance to social constructionism (Burr, 1995:11). The task is to present a new architecture for the production and dissemination of knowledge, on order to build a bridge between the poor and public intellectuals, activists and policy makers in different societies. A great controversy arose between private and public conservation problems and because of this, many problems are not resolved. A switch should be found to problems, wherein the private and public conservation help order the problems in a holistic approach (Cock, 2006).
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Definition of three environmental issues and problems ISCOR Iscor is a steelworks in the Vanderbijlpark area of South Africa that is used as the first example. Water in the area are polluted by waste materials from Iscor which seeps into the soil. According to scientists and residents, air pollution and water pollution in the area major factor that leads people to become ill and crops fail (Cock, 2006:299). Many residents do not obtain water from the municipality but use borehole water in their houses and gardens. In such cases, contaminated groundwater is thus pumped up by residents and used for their daily activities (Cock, 2004:27). This leads to many health and economic issues affecting the area (Cock, 2004:29). Such health problems ranges from kidney disease to cancer caused by the impurities in the water, especially for those residents that rely on groundwater (Cock, 2006:298). An associated problem is socially constructed by environmental activists and the media. Their view of the problem is explained in the media and is this transferred to us. Additional problems are thus socially constructed from a viewpoint of environmental activists and residents living in the area. The residents explained how their lives ruined by the capitalist lifestyle of the modern world. The goal is to make people aware of the negative impacts of large factories who seek wealth and not to the local environment looks or protected. A holistic approach must be taken to solve the problem at all levels in order to ensure a sustainable environment for the generations that follow.
Belo Monte Dam The Belo Monte Dam (formerly known as Kararaô) is a hydraulic dam that is proposed by the government of Brazil to provide renewable energy to the country (Borges & Da Silva, 2011). People want the see the country survive, so they are willing to lose their neighbourhood and their centuries-old history in the area because of the modern world's demand for energy. The dam will cover a large part of the forest and will leave areas around the Amazon river underwater. This large area hosts ancient tribes who have been living there in piece with many animals and other species. The development will cause the tribes and animals to be left without land, with their natural habitat is converted in an effort to create renewable energy (Renzler, 2012). The cultural groups that live there are socially constructed in their local area as reflections of themselves and their environment. In the process, the social, cultural and natural environment part of the tribes will be destroyed (Greider & Garkovich, 1994:8).
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The problem is common in the modern world. Ancient tribes who have lived a primitive lifestyle since the beginning of humanity is forced to adapt to the modern world. It is terrifying to see how the modern world fail to protect the people they care about in history. The environmental impact study was conducted by scientists, mainly with the objective to provide energy. While sociologists criticize the way the issue was handled, the government takes decisions without the indigenous people living in the area (Renzler, 2012). The problem is thus socially constructed by the media who favours energy development, bot no-one emphasized the fact that the development will have an effect on the ancient tribes and animals living in the area.
Midway The film "MIDWAY" provides a powerful visual journey into the heart of an astonishingly symbolic environmental tragedy (MIDWAY: Message from the Gyre, 2012). The film depicts one of the most remote islands on the planet, where thousands of baby albatrosses lie dead on the ground. Their bodies filled with plastic from the "Pacific Garbage Patch" (MIDWAY: Message from the Gyre, 2012). The scene emphasizes that humanity does not care about the environment (Marine Debris: Cigarette Lighters and the Plastic Problem on Midway Atoll, 2003). The capitalist mind-set of the modern world may have changed our humanity in a population that does not care about nature, due to the fact that we do not directly depend on it. People strive for wealth and luxury goods without always considering sustainability. The approach of scientists and environmental activists has left the public with an opinion that is socially constructed. The activists made their case through a short film, in which animals and sea life are negatively harmed by the human consequences. The goal was to make people aware and the state to take over the problem existed because of people's carelessness. They accuse the government because there is no resolving actions.
Criticism Emile Durkheim writes that the psychological facts are above biological facts, claiming that social phenomena cannot be explained by a lens of individual psychology (Hannigan, 2006:6). The social construction of environmental issues by different parties are differently constructed. Environmental sociologists tend to emphasise the nature of the work by describing self-identified findings (Hannigan, 2006:11). There are typically focused on the perspectives from the Western view, while the third world countries' views are rejected.
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There are also criticism in the social constructionism viewpoints of both post-modern and relativistic view (Hannigan, 2006:10-15). The questions are asked, but no solutions are proposed has worked. At the end, questions are asked and fingers pointed to those who are responsible, but nobody does anything about the problems or wants to bear responsibility. They are critical for the sake of it to be critical (Greider & Garkovich, 1994:21), while problems are defined by different people and to different criteria. Questions should be asked that would help find the solution to the problem, while options for social change must be considered. It should be consider whether individuals can make a difference, or if the structure of society must change (Burr, 1995:15). More upfront research should be done by opinion writers, in order to design better communication with the public that would reduce misunderstandings about the environmental problem (Kalof, 1993:104). People do not act directly on their environment, but only indirectly through the medium of their cultural representations (Woodgate & Redclift, 1998:5). We have to accept nature as both material conditions and cultural symbols (Woodgate & Redclift, 1998:7). Scientists and modern philosophers of science see nature as real, independent existence of people and their various philosophical theories (Good & Shymansky, 2001:175).
Conclusion This essay discussed social construction of environmental issues and clarified these issues on the basis of environmental challenges and problems. It used three issues or environmental problems as examples on how social construction associated with development projects impact on the environment. The environment is constructed through social institutions, for example, families, schools, religion and the media has an influence on the way we think and what we see and experience. Social interactions, especially language, is of great importance to social constructionism. Academic literature sources were used to analyse problems and explain the concepts around social constructionism, while the criticism was explained on the basis of problems causes. In general, the conclusion is that too many questions are asked and no solutions are offered. The problems are defined by different people using different criteria, meaning different parties construct different problems.
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References Bird, ER 1987. The Social Construction of Nature: Theoretical Approaches to the History of Environmental Problems. Environmental Reviev, 11 (4) :255-264. Borges, FS & Da Silva, DR 2011. Environmental and Social Issues, Brazilian jurisprudence and water dam projects. [Online]. Available:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:l NRJVHUoCsAJ:www.iucnael.org/en/component/docman/doc_download/1015-telesda-silva-solange.html+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=za [2013, March 11]. Burr, V. 1995. An Introduction to Social constructionism. London: Routledge. Cock, J. 2004. Connecting the red, brown and green: The environmental justice movement in South Africa [Online]. Available:http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Cock%20Connecting%20the%20r ed,%20brown%20and%20green%20The%20environmental%20justice%20movement% 20in%20South%20Africa.pdf[2013, March 11]. Cock, J. 2006. Public sociology and the social crisis. South African Review of Sociology, 37 (2) :293-307. Good, R. & Shymansky, J. 2001. Nature-of-Science Literacy in Benchmarks and Standards: Post-Modern/Relativist or Modern / Realist?Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Greider, T. & Garkovich, L. 1994. Landscapes: The Social Construction of Nature and the Environment. Rural Sociology, 59 (1) :1-24. Hannigan, J. 2006. Environmental sociology (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. 1-15. Hessing, M. 2003. Green Mail: The Social Construction of Environmental Issues through Letters to the Editor. Canadian Journal of Communication,28 (1). [Online]. Available: http://www.cjconline.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1339/1398 [2013 March 11]. Kalof, L. 1993. Understanding the Social Construction of Environmental Concern. Human Ecology Review, 4 (2). [Online], Available:http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her42/42kalof.pdf [2013, March 11].
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Marine Debris: Cigarette Lighters and the Plastic Problem on Midway Atoll. In 2003. [Online]. Available:http://www.fws.gov/midway/Midway_Atoll_NWR_Cigarette_Ligh ters.pdf [2013 March 11]. MIDWAY: Message from the Gyre [film]. , 2012. New York: Midway Movie. Renzler, N. 2012. Brazil's Belo Monte Move: National Development Banks Will Start Taking Human Rights and Environmental Concerns More Seriously? [Online]. Available: http://www.csrandthelaw.com/2012/12/brazils-belomonte-move-will-national-development-banks-start-taking-human-rights-andenvironmental-concerns-more-seriously/ [2013, March 11]. Woodgate, G. & Redclift, M. 1998. From a sociology of Nature to Environmental Sociology: Beyond Social Construction. Cambridge: The White Horse Press.
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