The Tampa Bay Tribune ran a story today about whether or not environmentalism and ‘green living’ have become truly mainstream. In the article, they include some interesting sociological commentary about the movement and individual behavior.
Brian Mayer, who teaches environmental sociology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, said researchers are intrigued by what makes some people embrace a sense of personal responsibility.
The economy definitely can play a role, he said. Some people might hang on to or reuse items that otherwise would have gone to the landfill, but others experience a shift in priorities. Mayer cited a recent health survey in which migrant workers in Apopka were asked to rank their most pressing issues, including the environment. No. 1 was crime. No. 2? Adequate streetlights to prevent crime.
“Environmental issues are not always of concern in populations with unmet needs, even if their working environment is unsafe,” said Mayer, author of “Blue-Green Coalitions: Fighting for Safe Workplaces and Healthy Communities” (ILR Press, 2008).
During the 1960s and 1970s, the ecology movement, with its own green flag, was one of many popular social causes. People vowed to save the planet and clean up its waters. Earth Day was founded in 1970 as an “environmental teach-in.”
Cynicism, a sense of powerlessness, a decline in social involvement and a belief that individual needs were more pressing than collective concerns contributed to the decline in interest.
Mayer said he thinks many people have substituted a sense of personal responsibility for a group effort that would prove more effective in the long haul. “We’ll buy green products or bottled water, but critics say we’re missing the larger problem,” he said. Environmental sociologists call it “inverted quarantine” – people trying to keep themselves safe while keeping out the dangerous world.
Another sociologist considers this part of a larger historical pattern…
In “Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed From Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves,” (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) author and sociologist Andrew Szasz argues that people are buying products that give them a sense of safety while ignoring bigger environmental dangers.
Similar behavior occurred when Americans in the early 1960s built bomb shelters in their backyards, Szasz says.