“Environmental Sociology and the Environmental Revolution: A 25th Anniversary Assessment,” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 2002), pp. 55-58. DOI: 10.1177/1086026602151005
It is a great honor to be asked to respond to articles by individuals who can all be rightly considered to be founders of environmental sociology, legendary figures in the field. If I have something distinctive to add to this symposium, it mostly arises out of my own standpoint as a respresentative of what I like to think is the second wave of environmental sociology. Environmental sociology arose in the 1970s and then waned for a time in membership and influence in the early and mid 1980s. In the late 1980s, however, new interest was sparked in the field as a result of the globalization of environmental issues, with growth of world concern about the destruction of the ozone layer, global warming, and species extinction (see Dunlap, 1997, p. 28-29). At the same time, these years saw the emergence of new kinds of radical environmentalism, incorporating the environmental justice movement, ecofeminism, and ecosocialism. Environmental sociology is much more divers than it was 25 or even 10 years ago— and that fact has to be a crucial part of any quarter—century assessment. I was to reflect here, then, not only on the past but also on the future of environmental sociology— its condition of long-term health.
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