A Review of Environmental Sociology and the Sociology of Natural Resources:Insights for the Development of Environmental Sociology in China

Environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources are two key subdisciplines of the sociological study on the interactions between nature and human society.Previous discussion on the relationships of these two fields has largely focused on their distinctions and synthesis in western(particularly American) academia.Environmental sociology emerged as an important sociological subdiscipline in China in the early 1990s and is under vigorous disciplinary construction at present.By contrast,the sociology of natural resources is still a novel term for most Chinese researchers.This article provides a systematic review of recent literature on the relationships between environmental and natural resource sociologies,which should provide important implications for the further development of environmental sociology in China.

Exploring Green Development From the Perspective of Sociology:Logical Basis,Constraints,and Optimization Paths

With the advancement of ecological conservation in China,the concept of green development has gained extensive acceptance and recognition.Exploring green development from the perspectives of environmental protection and sociology holds great theoretical value and practical significance in studying the issues related to green development.Firstly,this paper examines green development in light of the objective needs of the economic and social transformation in the international community and China,and deconstructed its underlying social logic.Secondly,it further investigates the social factors that restrict green development,encompassing social structures,social concepts,social systems,and social behaviors.Finally,within the framework of the“green”discipline system in environmental sociology,this paper proposes specific measures such as restructuring social systems and transforming production modes,lifestyles,and consumption patterns to promote green development.

Sociology and Degrowth： Visions of Social Change, Entropy and Evolution in a Waydown Era

In the last few years, different sources pointed to a same message： industrial civilization had entered into an overshoot mode; the natural limits to growth had been already surpassed. This frontier does not wait for us in the future; it already belongs to our past. If population and the economy are truly beyond the limits, then current visions and theories of social change would be deeply perturbed. If the development era is approaching its end, then many sociological theories on current societies will share the same destiny： sustainable development doctrines between them. It is worth to examine theories that explicitly look at the social world which at least are not incompatible with it. Four different approaches are discussed in this context： governance of complexity, post-development and alternative local development, utopian sceneries of a prosperous waydown, visions of collapse and the die-off. As a conclusion, the paper accepts an evolutionary perspective supports that there are some potentials for conscious social change, but it does not justify the belief in a particular only line of history. This conclusion does not satisfy the desire of knowing the future; nevertheless it may be the only one possible. The future is not written. Neither in history nor in evolution; not even in the mixture of history and evolution that conforms us as inhabitants of the Earth.