Environment and Society II: Displacement and Rehabilitation, Water and Exclusion, Disasters, Pollution and Health, Climate Change and Environmental Movements
2. Disasters and community responses
Sociology treats disasters not as purely natural events but as the meeting of a hazard with a vulnerable society. The vulnerability approach of Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner (At Risk, 1994) set out the Pressure and Release model: root causes (unequal access to power and resources) produce dynamic pressures (rapid urbanisation, degradation) that create unsafe conditions (fragile housing, dangerous locations), so that risk = hazard × vulnerability, and the same cyclone kills the poor far more than the rich. Ulrich Beck's Risk Society (1986) argued that late modernity is organised around manufactured risks — nuclear, chemical, ecological — produced by industrial modernisation itself, which spread across class lines ('poverty is hierarchic, smog is democratic') yet are still distributed unequally. Kai Erikson's Everything in Its Path (1976), on the Buffalo Creek flood, showed that disaster can destroy communality itself, producing collective as well as individual trauma.
| Event or framework | Sociological significance |
|---|---|
| Bhopal gas disaster (December 1984) | Methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide plant; the poor settlements nearest the plant suffered most, and survivors fought decades-long struggles for compensation and health care |
| Odisha super cyclone (1999); Gujarat earthquake (2001); Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) | Relief and reconstruction exposed caste and gender discrimination in aid distribution, as well as strong community and civil-society responses |
| Disaster Management Act (2005) | Created the National Disaster Management Authority and shifted policy from relief towards preparedness and mitigation |
| Sendai Framework (2015–2030) | The UN framework for disaster risk reduction, emphasising understanding risk and building resilience |
3. Environmental pollution, public health and disability; climate change and international policies
Pollution produces illness and disability unequally. Japan's Minamata disease, caused by industrial mercury in fish, and the chronic illnesses and birth defects reported among Bhopal survivors are classic cases; in India, fluorosis and arsenic in groundwater and the aftermath of aerial spraying of the pesticide endosulfan in Kasaragod, Kerala, have left communities with long-term disabilities. The environmental justice movement, launched in the United States with studies such as Robert Bullard's Dumping in Dixie (1990), showed that hazardous facilities are sited disproportionately in poor and Black neighbourhoods; in India the equivalent pattern falls on slums, industrial peripheries and tribal mining regions. India's National Green Tribunal (2010) is one institutional response.
| Milestone | What it established |
|---|---|
| IPCC (1988) | The scientific assessment body on climate change |
| UNFCCC (1992, Rio) | The framework treaty, with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities — industrialised countries bear greater responsibility for historical emissions |
| Kyoto Protocol (1997) | Binding emission-reduction targets for industrialised (Annex I) countries only |
| Paris Agreement (2015) | All countries submit nationally determined contributions to hold warming well below 2°C and pursue 1.5°C |
| India's National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008) | Eight national missions, including solar energy and sustainable agriculture |
Sociologically, climate change is a problem of climate justice: those least responsible for emissions — small farmers, fishers, coastal and hill communities, the urban poor — are most exposed to heatwaves, floods, droughts and sea-level rise, and least able to adapt. International negotiations turn on the same inequality between North and South that the CBDR principle tries to recognise.
4. Environmental movements
| Movement | Place and issue |
|---|---|
| Chipko (from 1973) | Garhwal Himalaya; villagers, led by figures such as Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahuguna and the women of Reni, hugged trees to stop commercial felling and assert local rights to forests |
| Appiko (1983) | Uttara Kannada, Karnataka; a Chipko-inspired movement against felling in the Western Ghats |
| Silent Valley (1970s–80s) | Kerala; a campaign, led partly by the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, against a hydroelectric dam in an evergreen forest, which became a national park |
| Narmada Bachao Andolan (from the mid-1980s) | Against the Sardar Sarovar and other Narmada dams over displacement without adequate rehabilitation; the World Bank withdrew from the project in 1993 after an independent review |
| Niyamgiri | Odisha; the Dongria Kondh opposed bauxite mining on their sacred hills, and in 2013 the Supreme Court left the decision to local gram sabhas, which rejected it |
Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martínez-Alier (Varieties of Environmentalism, 1997) contrasted the 'full-stomach' environmentalism of the affluent North, concerned with wilderness and amenity, with the 'environmentalism of the poor' in the South, where struggles over forests, water and land are struggles for livelihood and justice. Guha also distinguished three ideological strands within Indian environmentalism: crusading Gandhians (moral critique of modern industrial civilisation), ecological Marxists (focus on class and the unequal distribution of resources) and appropriate technologists (practical, small-scale alternatives). Earlier precedents, such as the Bishnoi sacrifice at Khejarli in 1730 led by Amrita Devi to protect trees, show that ecological ethics are also rooted in religious tradition.
Key takeaways
- Development-induced displacement falls heavily on Adivasis and Dalits; Cernea's IRR model names eight impoverishment risks; the 2013 land acquisition law added social impact assessment and consent.
- Water access is structured by caste and gender (Mahad Satyagraha, Mosse's Rule of Water) and increasingly by commercialisation (Plachimada).
- Disasters are hazards meeting vulnerability (the Pressure and Release model); Beck's risk society describes manufactured risks of modernity; Erikson showed disasters destroying communality.
- Environmental justice shows pollution and disability falling on the poor; climate policy runs from the UNFCCC's common but differentiated responsibilities through Kyoto to Paris's nationally determined contributions.
- Chipko, Appiko, Silent Valley, Narmada and Niyamgiri exemplify the 'environmentalism of the poor'; Guha distinguishes Gandhian, Marxist and appropriate-technology strands.
Practice questions (10)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
Which of the following are among the impoverishment risks in Michael Cernea's IRR model of displacement? Select all that apply.
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Answer: A — Landlessness; B — Social disarticulation; C — Loss of access to common property resources
Cernea's eight risks are landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalisation, food insecurity, increased morbidity and mortality, loss of access to common property, and social disarticulation. Sanskritisation is unrelated.In the Pressure and Release model of Blaikie and colleagues, disaster risk is understood as the product of:
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Answer: B — Hazard and vulnerability
At Risk (1994) framed risk as hazard multiplied by vulnerability, where vulnerability arises from root causes and dynamic pressures in society — so disasters are socially produced, not purely natural.Ulrich Beck's Risk Society argues that late modern societies are increasingly organised around:
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Answer: B — Manufactured risks produced by modernisation itself
For Beck, the central conflicts of reflexive modernity concern the distribution of 'bads' — nuclear, chemical and ecological risks created by industrial society — alongside the older distribution of goods.The Appiko movement, inspired by Chipko, took place in:
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Answer: D — Uttara Kannada, Karnataka
Appiko ('to hug' in Kannada) began in 1983 in Uttara Kannada in the Western Ghats against commercial felling, carrying Chipko's method south.Guha and Martínez-Alier's 'environmentalism of the poor' refers to:
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Answer: D — Struggles in which the poor defend forests, water and land as the basis of their livelihoods
Against the 'full-stomach' environmentalism of affluent societies, the environmentalism of the poor fuses ecological and livelihood concerns, as in Chipko and Narmada.Assertion (A): The Kyoto Protocol set binding emission targets only for industrialised countries. Reason (R): The UNFCCC recognised the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Choose the correct option.
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Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Limiting Kyoto's binding targets to Annex I countries was the direct application of CBDR: those with greater historical responsibility and capacity were to act first.Robert Bullard's Dumping in Dixie is a founding text of which field?
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Answer: A — Environmental justice
Bullard (1990) documented the siting of hazardous waste facilities in Black communities in the American South, establishing the concept of environmental racism and the environmental justice movement.In which year did the Paris Agreement on climate change get adopted? (Enter the year)
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: 2015
Adopted at COP21 in December 2015, the Paris Agreement requires every party to submit nationally determined contributions aimed at holding warming well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C.In 2013 the Supreme Court left the decision on bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills to:
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Answer: A — The local gram sabhas
Recognising the religious and cultural rights of the Dongria Kondh under the Forest Rights Act, the Court asked the gram sabhas to decide; they unanimously rejected the project.Which pairing is NOT correct?
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Answer: B — Everything in Its Path — the Bhopal gas disaster
Kai Erikson's Everything in Its Path (1976) studies the Buffalo Creek flood in West Virginia and the destruction of communality, not Bhopal.