(eBook PDF) Environmental Sociology:

From Analysis to Action 4th Edition

Go to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-environmental-sociology-from-analysis-to
-action-4th-edition/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

(eBook PDF) Contemporary Organizational Behavior: From

Ideas to Action

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-contemporary-
organizational-behavior-from-ideas-to-action/

(eBook PDF) An Invitation to Environmental Sociology

6th Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-an-invitation-to-
environmental-sociology-6th-edition/

(Original PDF) Sociology in Action 3rd Canadian Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/original-pdf-sociology-in-
action-3rd-canadian-edition/

(eBook PDF) Global Environmental Politics: From Person

to Planet

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-global-environmental-
politics-from-person-to-planet/
(eBook PDF) Sociology in Action A Canadian Perspective
2nd

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-sociology-in-action-a-
canadian-perspective-2nd/

(eBook PDF) Psychology From Inquiry to Understanding

From Inquiry to Understanding 4th

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-psychology-from-inquiry-
to-understanding-from-inquiry-to-understanding-4th/

(eBook PDF) Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology

2nd

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-twenty-lessons-in-
environmental-sociology-2nd/

(eBook PDF) Biochemical Adaptation: Response to

Environmental Challenges from Life's Origins to the
Anthropocene

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-biochemical-adaptation-
response-to-environmental-challenges-from-lifes-origins-to-the-
anthropocene/

(eBook PDF) Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology

3rd Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-twenty-lessons-in-
environmental-sociology-3rd-edition/
Acknowledgments
For help, assistance, and great ideas on this fourth edition, we would like to
thank first and foremost our student assistants: Zoe Tilden, Samantha Peikes,
Kathryn Maurer, and Shea Leibow. Their insightful comments and questions on
dozens upon dozens of chapters and articles helped us narrow down our choices.
Zoe also helped us proofread and edit the pieces we included. In addition, we
thank our editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Nancy Roberts, and her assistant
Megan Manzano.

vii
Preface
We both strongly believe that humans have come to a turning point in terms of
our destruction of ecological resources and the endangerment of human health.
A daily look at the major newspapers points, without fail, to worsening envi-
ronmental problems and sometimes (but not often enough) a hopeful solution.
Humans created these problems, and we have the power to resolve them. Nat-
urally, the longer we wait, the more devastating the problems will become; the
more we ignore the sociological dimensions of environmental decline, the more
our proposed solutions will fail.
Out of our concern for and dedication to bringing about a more sustainable
future, we have worked hard to develop environmental sociology courses that
not only educate students about environmental issues but also show them their
potential role as facilitators of well-informed change. This reader results in large
part from our commitment to the idea that sociology can be a starting point for
social change, and we have sought to include in it work that reflects our vision.
Sociology, however, can be good at critiquing social arrangements and not as
good at highlighting positive change and explaining how that change has come
about. We tried to include a few selections that show how groups of people have
been able to effect positive changes, but be warned that some of the selections in
this reader, reflecting the discipline of sociology, reveal problems in which solu-
tions may seem elusive.
Anthologies seek to accomplish different things. One of our goals has been
to provide students and their instructors with shortened versions of fairly recent
academic research. Mostly, the articles and chapters included here were originally
intended for an academic audience; to make them more accessible to students
new to the discipline, we have shortened most of the selections and tried to pro-
vide a bit of context for each one.
We actively looked for readings that interest, motivate, and make sense to an
undergraduate audience. Choosing which selections to include has been exciting
and thought provoking, but it was not without a few dilemmas. For example, a
good deal of research in the subdiscipline of environmental sociology is quan-
titative. Some undergraduate students have the skills to read and interpret this
type of work, but many do not. Thus, we have leaned toward qualitative work
that is often more accessible to generalist audiences. Our selection process has
evolved over the four editions, and this edition is most pointedly focused on
pieces that would provoke productive discussion, whether for students in small
seminars or for students in larger classes. We do not include “classical” or foun-
dational works; instead, we provide an overview of more recent work in the field
to give students a sense of what types of research environmental sociologists are
currently engaging in. This field is relatively new and it’s evolving quickly—there
are many exciting new directions to discover.
In addition, several other good edited volumes and readers include the
“classics,” so we did not see a need to reinvent the wheel. One of our most
viii
 Preface ix

difficult decisions was to leave out many “big name” researchers who have pro-
foundly influenced the field. Some of this work represents a dialogue with a long
and intertwined body of thought and research. Understanding such a dialogue
would require reading the lineage of research leading up to it. In addition, much
of the theoretical work in environmental sociology (as in most of our subdisci-
plines) engages important, but very specialized, issues.
As a way of providing students with a beginning understanding of this lin-
eage, our introductory chapter presents a brief overview of the field for students
wishing to explore specific theoretical perspectives in greater depth. The works
in the book itself balance this introductory chapter—recent articles and book
chapters illustrate a wide variety of ways that sociologists might address environ-
mental questions. The field of environmental sociology has changed dramatically
since the first edition of this reader, published in 2004. Our main challenge, as
editors, in putting together the first edition was to find enough contemporary
pieces. By contrast, the main challenge that we faced in putting together the
fourth edition was choosing which excerpts to include given the abundance of
great work. This, as they say, is a good problem to have. We have watched the
field grow from a fringe sociology subdiscipline to a major force in research on
interdisciplinary environmental issues. It’s an exciting, and hopeful, time to be
an environmental sociologist. With this in mind, the introductory chapter of the
fourth edition, and the pieces republished in this volume, reflect changes and
growth that have occurred in the discipline over the last several years.
We also wanted this reader to be accessible to a maximum number of instruc-
tors, whether or not they are specialists in environmental sociology. Most sociol-
ogists and social scientists we know speak the language of inequalities, political
economy, and social constructionism; we tend not to be as fluent in the bio-
logical and mechanical details of energy production, watershed management, or
climate change. Thus, we organized our reader not by environmental issue but
by sociological perspective. The reader frames the issues in terms of sociologi-
cal concepts and seeks to show students how sociologists go about examining
­environment-related issues. We do want to emphasize, though, that in devel-
oping the reader’s conceptual blocks, we were careful to cover a broad range of
topics—from coal mining to overfishing to climate change.
Ultimately, we think the most important feature of the reader is not the
topics we chose or how we decided to organize the different chapters into cat-
egories; rather, it is the connection between power and environmental decision
making that is woven throughout the collection in the choice of material. Most
of the chapters address systems of power (e.g., inequalities in the distribution of
toxic waste or who gets blamed for environmental problems, among others). We
believe that good environmental decision making must incorporate sociological
perspectives, and we hope that activists, policy makers, and academics will benefit
from exposure to these frameworks.
Introduction

Environmental Problems
Require Social Solutions
Deborah McCarthy Auriffeille and Leslie King

What Is Environmental Sociology?

What is environmental sociology? The answer, of course, involves exploring two
ideas: sociology and environment. Sociology is, above all else, a way of viewing
and understanding the social world. It allows us to better understand social orga-
nization, inequalities, and all sorts of human interaction. Sociology is a multifac-
eted discipline that researchers use in diverse ways and, along with many others
(e.g., Feagin and Vera 2001), we think it has the potential to help us create
a more just world. Like sociology, environment can be an elusive term. Is the
environment somewhere outside, “in nature,” untouched by humans? Or are
humans part of the environment? Does it include places where you live and work
and what you eat and breathe? Or is it more remote: the rolling valleys of the
Blue Ridge Mountains, the pristine waters of Lake Tahoe, the lush rain forests of
Brazil?
For environmental sociologists, the answer is that the “environment”
encompasses the most remote regions of the earth as well as all the bits and
pieces of our daily lives—from the cleaners we use to wash our carpets to the
air we breathe on our way to work each day. Most environmental sociologists
assume, first and foremost, that humans and nature are part of each other and
are part of the environment and that environment and society can only be fully
understood in relation to each other. We build on this understanding to point
to fissures that are developing in the relationship between humans and nature.
These are problems that humans both have contributed to and are feverishly
attempting to solve. Our lack of understanding about the human-nature rela-
tionship has led to some of our worst environmental problems—climate change,
toxic waste, deforestation, and so on—and has limited our ability to solve those
problems.
In fact, some attempts to solve environmental problems have actually made
them worse. The Green Revolution, initiated in the mid-twentieth century, is
an example. Promoted by U.S.-based organizations, including the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Green Revolution entailed the transfer of large-scale agricultural
technologies and practices first to Mexico and later to several countries in Asia

1
2 Introduction

(Dawson, Martin, and Sikor 2016). The stated goal of the Green Revolution
was to increase world food yields through the transfer of Western agricultural
techniques, fertilizers, pesticides, knowledge, and equipment to lower-income
countries. The resulting shift massively reorganized agricultural production on a
global scale. Although the global rates of food production increased, the revolu-
tion, with its focus on export crop production, for-profit rather than sustainable
agriculture, mechanization, and heavy pesticide and fertilizer use, contributed
to the destabilization of social, political, and ecological systems in many regions
of the world (Dowie 2001: 106–40). For example, farmers must now engage in
a money economy in order to pay for pesticides and herbicides, and, as a result,
many small-scale farmers have lost their land (Bell 1998). What is more, as Peter
Rosset and colleagues (2000) point out, an increase in food production does
not necessarily lead to a decrease in hunger. In their words, “Narrowly focus-
ing on increasing production—as the Green Revolution does—cannot alleviate
hunger because it fails to alter the tightly concentrated distribution of economic
power, especially access to land and purchasing power. . . . In a nutshell—if the
poor don’t have the money to buy food, increased production is not going to
help them.” Importantly, the Green Revolution is not something that happened
only in the past. The Green Revolution continues to operate, and its impacts
continue to be felt (Sekhon 2017). One recent article documents that some of
the negative impacts of the Green Revolution in India include the loss of soil
fertility, erosion of soil, soil toxicity, diminishing water resources, pollution of
underground water, and increased incidence of human and livestock diseases
(Rahman 2015). Recently, Green Revolution strategies are being promoted in
African countries where, because it still primarily benefits large farms that are
geared toward production rather than subsistence, it is resulting in some of the
same deleterious effects, including poverty exacerbation and impairment of local
systems of knowledge (Dawson, Martin, and Sikor 2016).
With a better understanding of how political, cultural, and economic struc-
tures shape decision making, perhaps we can prevent such problems from occur-
ring again and build a more socially and environmentally sustainable future. The
collection of readings in this book represents a broad sample of work by many
writers and researchers who are attempting to illuminate social structures and
practices with a view toward creating a more socially just and ecologically sus-
tainable world.

Environmental Problems Are Social Problems

Sociologists, by focusing their research on questions of inequality, culture, econ-
omy, power, and politics, bring a perspective to environmental questions and
problems that is quite different from that of most natural and physical scien-
tists. Take the following examples: the devastating impact of the 2005 Hurri-
cane Katrina on communities in Louisiana and Mississippi; the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster in Japan. Why are those not uniquely “natural science” or engineer-
ing issues? While scientists and engineers train their lenses on weather patterns,
 Introduction 3

wetland loss, or technological and engineering questions, sociologists look at

how social organization—a series of identifiable managerial steps, a collection of
beliefs, a set of regulations, or other social structures—contributes to or causes
what are often labeled as “natural disasters” or “accidents.” In the following
summaries, we consider several of these disasters in detail.
• Hurricane Katrina: Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and
Mississippi on August 29, 2005. With a storm surge of 20–32 feet, Katrina
did enormous damage; over 1,800 people were killed, and between 700,000
and 1.2 million people were displaced (Gabe et al. 2005; Picou and Marshall
2007). New Orleans was devastated as its levees were breeched and much
of the city was flooded. While hurricanes are typically considered “natural
disasters,” Katrina’s extreme consequences must be considered the result of
social and political failures. Prior to Katrina, it was known that New Orleans
was at risk for flooding in the event of a powerful storm. According to Jenni
Bergal (2007: 4), “Numerous studies before Katrina cautioned that storm
protection plans weren’t moving fast enough, that the levees might not hold
in a strong hurricane, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had used out-
dated data in its engineering plans to build the levees and floodwalls and that
the wetlands buffering the area from storms were disappearing.” Coastal
land that protected New Orleans had been lost due to human activities
including settlement, the building of canals to promote shipping, and the
digging of channels for oil and gas pipelines (Hiles 2007). The levee system
that provided additional protection was vulnerable due, among other things,
to design errors, and the emergency response that should have assisted resi-
dents in the aftermath of the storm proved grossly inadequate (Kroll-Smith,
Baxter, Jenkins 2015; McQuaid 2007).
• Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 hap-
pened while British Petroleum (BP) was drilling for oil 5,000 feet under the
sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico (Krauss 2012). An explosion on the Deepwa-
ter Horizon rig destroyed the drilling platform, caused the death of eleven
people and resulted in a breeched wellhead; oil spilled for three months,
and by the time the well was capped, an estimated 4.9 million barrels (or
about 200 million gallons) of oil had flowed into the Gulf (Freudenburg and
Gramling 2011). In addition, 1.8 million gallons of dispersants to dissolve
the oil were applied, and there are serious safety concerns about these dis-
persants (Foster 2011). The U.S. Department of Interior (2012) reported
that the impacts of the spill were extensive and affected “important species
and their habitats across a wide swath of the coastal areas of Alabama, Flor-
ida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, and a huge area of open water in the
Gulf of Mexico. When injuries to migratory species such as birds, whales,
tuna and turtles are considered, the impacts of the Spill could be felt across
the United States and around the globe.”
The stage was set for this disaster by a series of human decisions guided
by BP’s desire to cut costs and the failure of the U.S. government to strictly
regulate and monitor the actions of the companies drilling in the Gulf of
4 Introduction

Mexico (Freudenburg and Gramling 2011). According to a report by Public

Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) Frontline and ProPublica (PBS 2010) BP, in
order to cut costs and increase profits, had a history of failing to prioritize
for the safety of workers and the environment. Prior to the Deepwater Hori-
zon disaster, there had been an explosion in one of BP’s Texas refineries in
2005 that killed twenty-six people, and there had been a major oil spill in
Alaska in 2006 that resulted from a ruptured pipeline. A reporter for the
New Orleans Times Picayune (Hammer 2010) wrote, “The rig’s malfunc-
tioning blowout preventer ultimately failed, but it was needed only because
of human errors. . . . The engineers repeatedly chose to take quicker, cheaper
and ultimately more dangerous actions, compared with available options.
Even when they acknowledged limited risks, they seemed to consider each
danger in a vacuum, never thinking the combination of bad choices would
add up to a total well blowout.” Thus, to understand an event such as the
Deepwater Horizon blowout, it is important to consider not only “techno-
logical failures” but also the social organization that allows for a series of
risky decisions by powerful actors.
• Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: In March 2011, a powerful earthquake struck
off the coast of Japan in the Pacific Ocean, generating an enormous tsu-
nami and ultimately causing catastrophic meltdowns at the Fukushima Daii-
chi Nuclear Plant. The tsunami disabled the backup generators that would
have been used to cool reactors that were shut down as a result of the
earthquake. The resulting disaster was the worst nuclear accident since the
meltdown at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in 1986. Radiation releases at
the Fukushima plant necessitated the evacuation of 90,000 people (Fackler
2012) and caused extensive damage to Japan’s food and water supplies.
The Japanese government and the power company that ran the plant,
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), were subsequently criticized for
failing to institute adequate safety measures, given that the plant was built in
an earthquake- and tsunami-prone area (Fackler 2012; Nöggerath, Geller,
and Gusiakov 2011). The plant was designed in the 1960s, when knowl-
edge and understanding of earthquakes and tsunamis was somewhat limited;
however, since that time, scientists have compiled a substantial amount of
data on these phenomena. A group of scientists writing in the Bulletin of
Atomic Sciences stated, “The knowledge, generally available by about 1980,
that magnitude 9 mega-quakes existed as a class should probably have trig-
gered a re-examination of the earthquake and tsunami counter-measures
at the Fukushima power station, but it did not” (Nöggerath, Geller, and
Gusiakov 2011: 40).
New York Times journalist Martin Fackler (2012) explained that a cozy
relationship between government officials and industry leaders led to a lax
regulatory climate. For example, a number of years before the disaster, a
seismologist serving on a high-level committee on offshore earthquakes in
northeastern Japan “warned that Fukushima’s coast was vulnerable to tsu-
namis more than twice as tall as the forecasts of up to 17 feet put forth by
regulators and TEPCO.” The seismologist was completely ignored, and to
 Introduction 5

the New York Times, he stated, “They completely ignored me in order to

save TEPCO money.” Similar to the aforementioned examples, the accident
at the Fukushima plant was not attributable to “natural” causes (i.e., the
earthquake and subsequent tsunami) alone. And while one could argue that
design flaws led to the accident, it is also clear that money and power—social
relations—played an important role in the decisions that were made by the
Japanese government and TEPCO.
Hurricane Katrina, Deepwater Horizon, and Fukushima represent crises
that occurred in a flash and left immediately visible human and ecological
tragedies in their wakes. Environmental disasters also occur in slow motion
and inflict damages that are harder to detect but are no less severe. Such
“slow-motion” disasters, including global air pollution and climate warm-
ing, among numerous environment-related problems, also have their roots
in human decision making and social structure.
• Air Pollution in the United States: Indoor and outdoor air pollution is a
major environmental problem, with serious health implications for millions
of people around the world. According to the World Health Organization
(WHO 2014), 7 million premature deaths worldwide could be attributed to
air pollution in 2014.
In the United States, as in other parts of the world, the ongoing danger
presented by a host of air pollution problems has roots in social processes,
one being the inability of governmental policies and laws to regulate indus-
try amid the rise of neoliberal agendas, which emphasize deregulation and
corporate rights. The 1970 Clean Air Act (and its 1977 and 1990 amend-
ments) sets standards for air pollution levels, regulates emissions from sta-
tionary sources, calls for state implementation plans for achieving federal
standards, and sets emissions standards for motor vehicles (Rosenbaum
2011). While U.S. air quality has improved since 1970 (EPA 2012), the
nation’s air remains unhealthy with one in four Americans living in coun-
ties with unhealthful levels of ozone or particle pollution (American Lung
Association 2018). This is especially true of two kinds of air pollution—
ground-level ozone (which forms when sunlight reacts with dirty air) and
fine particulates (particles smaller than the diameter of a human hair); both
of these are created by fuel combustion. Both ground-level ozone and fine
particulate matter can cause pulmonary inflammation, decreased lung func-
tion, exacerbation of asthma, and other pulmonary diseases. Fine particulate
matter is also associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (Laum-
bach 2010). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA 2016) docu-
ments that most hazardous air pollutants come from human-made sources,
including mobile sources (cars, buses, planes, trucks, and trains) and station-
ary sources (factories, refineries, and power plants). Hazardous air pollution
is not just an engineering problem in need of a solution but is related to how
our economy and culture have become increasingly dependent on and inter-
twined with fossil fuel.
• Global Climate Change: While air pollution, as well as other forms of pollu-
tion, poses significant challenges to human and ecosystem health, solutions
6 Introduction

do exist. Laws could be enacted that would have almost immediate positive
effects on the quality of air or water. The threat of global climate change
from the release of greenhouse gases, on the other hand, is increasing at
an alarming rate, also much of the warming is irreversible. Global warm-
ing, which is caused primarily by the increasing release of human produced
greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, which is created in large part by the
burning of fossil fuels, cannot easily be turned back (IPCC 2014). Once
carbon dioxide is released, it accumulates and will remain in the atmosphere
for thousands of years. Even if we stopped human-caused carbon emissions
today, it would take forty years for the climate to stabilize at a tempera-
ture that is higher than what we now experience (Rood 2014). This means
that even with reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, significant changes
in climate patterns worldwide are inevitable. The question is not “whether”
climate change is happening, the question is how much we can reduce our
greenhouse gas emissions so that we can slow the rate of climate change and
limit the total overall temperature increase. We must also ask: how can we
adapt to the climactic changes that have occurred already and those that are
inevitably coming in the future?
The warming of the planet is problematic because it comes with an
increased rate of species loss, extreme weather events, coastal flooding, and
water scarcity in addition to lowered crop yields, among other ecological
problems. These ecological changes pose myriad challenges and risks to
human communities including, but not limited to, loss of homes, compro-
mised food supplies, lost work capacity, and increased food- and water-borne
diseases (IPCC 2014). While some media pundits would have us question
that climate change is problematic or even that it is taking place at all, the
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is certain. According to a 2018 Penta-
gon report, the DoD documented and expressed concern that many of their
military installations are highly vulnerable to a variety of climate change–
related weather events including increases in heat waves, flooding, drought,
and wildfires (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,
Technology, and Logistics 2018). Significant warming has already caused
“far more damage than most scientists expected,” including the loss of sum-
mer sea ice in the Arctic, more acidity in the oceans, and a wetter atmosphere
above the oceans, increasing the likelihood of floods (McKibben 2012).
When we first published this reader in 2005, we wrote one paragraph
detailing global climate change projections, and we discussed some of the
likely problems it would bring in the future. Fourteen years later, the future
is here. Many people around the globe already feel the effects of rising sea
levels, flooding, extreme temperatures, and so on. According to the Union
of Concerned Scientists (UCS), U.S. coastal communities are experiencing
increased climate-related flooding. By 2017, ninety U.S. communities faced
“chronic inundation” from flooding, and that number is expected to double
in the next twenty years (UCS 2017a). One of the editors of this reader lives
in one of these chronically flooded communities, Charleston, South Caro-
lina, where between 2015 and 2017 alone high-tide floods, including sunny
 Introduction 7

day floods, increased from thirty-eight to fifty per year (UCS 2017b). Many
communities are also, already, suffering the effects of increased heat waves
(UCS 2014a). Witness the 2015 heat wave in Pakistan that killed 1,300.
Increasing temperatures have also caused the wildfire season in California to
get longer and hotter (UCS 2014a). Look too at climate exacerbated insect
infestations that are on the rise; the recent bark beetle infestation in North
America killed 46 million acres of trees (more acreage than any other known
infestation in North America) (UCS 2014b).
In spite of these terrifying examples, the world’s leaders have so far failed to
collaborate in any meaningful way. The United States remains the only signatory
that has failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (an international treaty that commits
nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions); and even those countries that have
signed on have found it difficult to agree on specific action plans (Parks and
Roberts 2010).
While climate scientists and other specialists can do the work of tracking and
predicting weather patterns and describing current and future results of climate
change, effective solutions have eluded us because, in the end, climate change is
a social, political, and economic problem as much as it is a scientific and tech-
nological one. Proposed solutions to climate change and other environmental
problems need to be better grounded in the type of sociological research, much
of which is already available, that reveals, for example, how national and interna-
tional political practices and regulatory structures place the short-term interests
of corporations over the long-term interests of citizens and, more generally, life
on the planet.
Scientists have given the name “Anthropocene”—or the age of humans—to
the geologic era dating from the beginning of profound human impact on the
ecosphere and biosphere (there is debate over when exactly that began, but cer-
tainly human impact has increased dramatically since the beginning of the Indus-
trial Revolution in the early nineteenth century) and into our contemporary
time. However, sociologists note that such a label implies that all humans have
an equal impact on carbon emissions and climate change; this elides the role, for
example, of powerful corporate actors. Thus, historical sociologist Jason Moore
(2017) suggests we call the current era the “Capitalocene” to emphasize that the
beginning of the “Anthropocene” was enabled by global capitalism. Through the
unequal and often destructive workings of global capitalism, human systems have
changed the “nature” of earth. What is significant to us about this new epoch is
that it is also a moment for global-wide ecological and cultural transformation.
A number of the essays in this fourth edition document activities, both
technological and communal, that communities around the world are engag-
ing in to make a difference. In all cases, it is not enough. But they represent a
growing global awareness of our special point in history—of the connections
between inequality, environmental problems, and economic structures; and
the positive potential of our connections to each other, through new commu-
nicative forms made available by the Internet, social media, etc. On the other
hand, we are at risk of missing this moment—of getting stuck inside our own
8 Introduction

limited understanding of our contemporary, biased experience of this particu-

lar time period. As Ulrich Beck and other “risk society” theorists have pointed
out, modern people have come to expect environmental and other risks and the
cultural anxiety that comes with living with that insecurity (e.g., Beck 1992). It
has become normal. That is the real danger. But true tension does exist between
two current ways of being: the way of “getting fed up and making change, any
change” and the way of just “accepting that risk comes with modernization.”
While the problems outlined in this introduction are profoundly serious,
we believe there is still hope. Sociology, as a body of knowledge and as a way
of seeing the world, has to be a part of this problem solving. Sociologists have
the tools to follow the crumb trail of social facts left behind by climate change
and other ecological crises to envision a more just and sustainable future. Why
should we assume that human ingenuity begins and ends with the invention of
a fossil fuel-based economy? We have put our minds together to invent auto-
mobiles (which contribute to sprawl, asthma, and greenhouse gas production),
polyvinyl chlorides (which are carcinogenic), and nuclear energy (which has led
to the nuclear waste problem). Can we not apply our ingenuity to invent new
alternative and equitable forms of energy production and regulate or ban harm-
ful carcinogens like polyvinyl chlorides? We invite you to use the readings in this
collection as an opportunity to consider these questions.
Environmental sociologists teach us that environmental problems are inex-
tricably linked to societal issues (such as inequality, governance, and economic
practices). Endocrine-disrupting hormones, bioengineered foods, ocean dump-
ing, deforestation, asthma, and so on are each interwoven with economics, pol-
itics, culture, television, religious worldviews, advertising, philosophy, and a
whole complex tapestry of societal institutions, beliefs, and practices. Environ-
mental sociologists tend not to ask whether something—such as the methyl iso-
cyanate used to produce pesticides in Bhopal, India—is inherently good or bad.
Rather, the social organization of the pesticide industry is problematic. Blaming
methyl isocyanate for the massive death toll in Bhopal’s 1982 factory leak is like
cursing the chair after you stub your toe on it. Humans invent pesticides, and
humans decide how to manage those chemicals once they have been produced—
or they can decide to halt production. Who decides whether to ban or regulate
a toxin? How do we decide this? Do some citizens have more say than others?
How do the press, corporate advertising, and other forms of media shape our
understanding of a dangerous chemical or pollutant? These are just a whisper of
the chorus of questions sociologists are asking about environmental problems
and their solutions.
Sociology can also help us see that environmental concerns are not merely
about individual choices. Some people disregard environment-related problems,
explaining that “life itself is a risky business and the issue is ultimately about
choice and free will.” Along this line, the argument is that just as we choose to
engage in any number of risky activities (like downhill skiing without a helmet
or eating deep-fried Twinkies), we also choose to risk the increased cancer rates
that are associated with dry-cleaning solvents in order to have crisp, well-pressed
suits and dress shirts. A sociologist, however, would begin by pointing out that
 Introduction 9

not everyone is involved in that choice and not every community experiences the
same level of exposure to that toxin. The person who lives downstream from a
solvent factory may not be the same person who chooses the convenience (and
the risk) of dry-cleaned clothing (Steingraber 2000).
Finally, sociologists can likewise help us see past the limitations of
­individualist-based approaches. “Mainstream” environmentalists tend to pro-
mote individual-level, consumer-based solutions, such as green purchasing and
recycling (Maniates 2002). Perhaps because we feel most comfortable when act-
ing as consumers and because many of us don’t know how to engage politically,
environmental organizations often propose some variation of “20 Things I Can
Do to Save the Planet.” Often the suggestions involve “green” purchases, such
as hybrid cars or organic food. Consumer-based environmentalism is problem-
atic in that it rarely creates system-wide, structural change. In addition, only an
elite few can afford most “green” solutions. Another problematic example of
­individual-based environmentalism (promoted nearly everywhere as an import-
ant environmental action) is recycling. Samantha MacBride (2012) has shown
that the growth of the recycling industry allowed corporate interests to define
waste as an individual, consumer problem, rather than the responsibility of the
corporations that produce all of those bottles, cans, and plastic containers. Recy-
cling has allowed companies to produce “one-way” containers and disposable
packaging while not having to bear the cost of its post-use transport and dis-
posal. What is more, recycling is mostly an ineffective solution; once the costs—
financial and in carbon emissions—of transporting recyclables are taken into
consideration, it is not at all clear that recycling is a net environmental gain.
Green purchasing and recycling may help a bit—but they may also be harmful if
they draw attention away from the fact that larger structures, like the automobile
industry, are encouraging people to, for instance, buy hybrid cars. The develop-
ment of a hybrid vehicle market, then, potentially, deflects public support and
dollars away from investments in alternative transit (Maniates 2002).

A Brief History of Environmental Sociology

In the earlier sections, we defined environmental sociology and showed how
sociological understandings of “environment” or “ecology” typically differ from
those of the natural and physical sciences and also from mainstream environmen-
talism. In this section, we provide a broad and, by necessity, partial overview of
the subdiscipline of environmental sociology. Auguste Comte first coined the
term sociology in 1838. However, it wasn’t until the late 1960s and the 1970s
that a significant number of sociologists began studying the impacts of natu-
ral processes on humans and the reverse—the social practices that organize our
development and the use of products and technologies that impact nonhuman
ecological and human communities. Certainly many people in the early part of
the twentieth century were interested in a wide range of environmental issues—
from the conservation of vast expanses of wilderness to the improvement of
urban spaces (Taylor 1997). So why the long wait for an environment-focused
sociology?
10 Introduction

Part of the answer lies in the efforts of early sociologists to establish the
discipline of sociology as separate from other areas of study, especially the natu-
ral sciences (Hannigan 1995). Sociology provides an important counterpoint to
the natural sciences by showing how social interaction, institutions, and beliefs
shape human behavior—not just genetics, physiology, and the “natural” envi-
ronment. In addition, the sociological perspective has been a crucial tool for
dismantling attempts to use the natural sciences to justify ethnocentrism, racism,
sexism, and homophobism. Sociologists have traditionally been reluctant, there-
fore, to venture outside the study of how various social processes (e.g., politics,
culture, and economy) interact to look at human-nature interactions.1 Writing
about this trend in the discipline, Riley Dunlap and William Catton argued in the
1970s that sociologists should claim the study of the environment and not leave
the “natural” world to natural and physical scientists (Catton and Dunlap 1978;
Dunlap 1997). Catton and Dunlap thought environmental sociology ought to
examine how humans alter their environments and also how environments affect
humans. They developed a “new ecological paradigm,” which represented an
initial attempt to explore society-environment relations.
During the first decades of environmental sociology (the 1970s and 1980s),
researchers, most of them in the United States and Western Europe (Lidskog,
Mol, and Oosterveer 2015), focused primarily on the same issues that the
emerging environmental movement highlighted, including air and water pollu-
tion, solid and hazardous waste dumping, litter, urban decay, the preservation
of wild areas and wildlife, and fossil fuel dependence. These problems were easy
to measure and see: think of polluted rivers catching on fire, visible and smelly
urban smog, ocean dumping of solid and hazardous wastes, and the appearance
of refuse along the side of the road. Most early sociological studies focused on
people’s attitudes toward problems and the impacts of those problems on demo-
graphic trends (for instance, trends in health and mortality).2
During these early years of the subdiscipline, some environmental sociolo-
gists drew a distinction between the “realists,” who preferred not to question
“the material truth of environmental problems” (Bell 1998: 3), and the “con-
structionists,” who emphasized the creation of meaning—including the mean-
ing of “environment” and “environmental problems”—as a social phenomenon
(Bell 1998; Lidskog 2001). Social constructionism—which emphasizes the
process through which concepts and beliefs about the world are formed (and
reformed) and through which meanings are attached to things and events—has
always been a big part of sociology, and a number of environmental sociologists
have used this framework to understand environmental issues (e.g., Greider and
Garkovich 1994; Hannigan 1995; Burningham and Cooper 1999; Scarce 2000;
Yearley 1992). Realists worried that a focus on how meanings are contingent
would detract attention from what they saw as real and worrisome environmental
degradation. The debate between “realists” and “constructionists” has, however,
largely disappeared from the work of environmental sociologists. All sociology is,
to some extent, constructionist (Burningham and Cooper 1999). All along, the
difference was more in the extent to which the authors emphasized the process
through which meanings are created.
 Introduction 11

Potential and currently existing hazards that are socially, politically, and tech-
nologically complex, difficult to detect, potentially catastrophic, sometimes long-
range in impact, and attributable to multiple causes (e.g., environmental racism,
rain forest destruction, loss of biodiversity, technological accidents, and climate
change) began to attract the attention of the nascent environmental sociology
community beginning in the 1980s.3 Environmental sociologists of the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are studying a broad range of issues—
from environmental racism to the international trade in electronic waste to lead
poisoning.4
Social scientists have developed a number of specialist lenses to explore the
increasingly complex relationships between environments and societies. Envi-
ronmental sociologists frequently focus on power and inequalities. They tend to
ask who (which groups or individual actors) have the power not only to make
policy decisions but also to create knowledge and set the terms of debate. In
addition, most sociologists see all things—from material items to institutions to
“nature”—as imbued with meaning by humans.
Environmental sociologists interested in power dynamics often explore
intersections between political and economic practices and structures; we often
use the term political economy to characterize this work. According to Rudel,
Roberts, and Carmin (2011: 222), “The political economy of the environment
refers to how people control and, periodically, struggle for control over the insti-
tutions and organizations that produce and regulate the flows of materials that
sustain people (corporations and the state).” Often, researchers using political
economy frameworks see environmental devastation and resource exhaustion as
inevitable consequences of capital accumulation (the process of increasing the
monetary value of an investment).5
There are numerous ways to approach a political economy of the environ-
ment (see Rudel, Roberts, and Carmin 2011 for a review). Sociologist Brett
Clark and colleagues (2018) discuss three theoretical perspectives taken up by
researchers concerned with understanding the social and environmental effects
of a growth-based economic system.
The “treadmill of production,” developed by Allan Schnaiberg (1980),
emphasizes the tendency of capitalist production to constantly seek to expand.
According to Schnaiberg and his colleagues, this emphasis on growth leads to
increased resource consumption as well as the increased generation of wastes and
pollutants (both from the by-products of production and from consumption).
Thus, according to this perspective, capitalist production, by its very nature, is at
odds with efforts to clean up or improve the environment. The exploitation of
people and the destruction of resources, however, continue and are often legit-
imated by institutions like the media (Bonds 2016) because, though everyone
suffers in the end, many also benefit in the short term, even if the benefits are
unequal.
A second perspective emphasizes metabolic processes, examining the
interchange of matter and energy between humans and the larger ecosystem
(Clark, Auerbach, and Zhang 2018; Foster 2010). John Bellamy Foster coined
the term metabolic rift to extend Marx’s views on ecological crisis. For Foster,
12 Introduction

the metabolic rift occurs when through capitalist processes, especially capital-
ist agriculture, energy is transferred out of an ecological resource and is not
replaced. For instance, the overuse of fertilizers can deplete the soil (Clark and
Foster 2009; Foster 2010). Researchers using this framework have also exam-
ined the rift between other exploitative processes, such as fossil fuel production,
and natural ecological processes (Clark and York 2005; Foster and Clark 2012).
In all cases, it is assumed that capitalist processes inevitably exceed their own
human labor and natural resource needs. The idea of the metabolic rift has more
recently been elaborated on to include less “binary” thinking—­emphasizing
“capitalism in nature” rather than “capitalism and nature” (Moore 2011). As
Jason Moore explains, “Capitalism does not develop upon global nature so
much as it emerges through the messy and contingent relations of humans with
the rest of nature” (110).
A third perspective has been labeled “ecologically unequal exchange” (Clark,
Auerbach, and Zhang 2018) and focuses on inequalities between countries.
Historically and currently, the labor and natural resources of countries in the
“Global South” (less affluent counties, most of them former colonies) have been
exploited by elites in wealthy countries. In addition, Global South countries are
increasingly the recipients of unwanted products of industrial production and
consumption. For example, electronic waste, which is often hazardous, is rou-
tinely exported from wealthy countries to Global South countries (Little and
Lucier 2017).
Not all sociologists, however, believe that capitalism is, by its very nature,
environmentally exploitative. “Ecological modernization,” developed mainly by
European social scientists, is less critical of current capitalist political economic
systems (e.g., Mol 1997; Spaargarten and Mol 1992). Ecological moderniza-
tion calls our attention to the ways in which environmental degradation may
be reduced or even reversed within our current system of institutions. Theorists
working within this framework believe that our institutions may be capable of
transforming themselves through the use of increasingly sophisticated technolo-
gies and that production processes in the future will have fewer negative environ-
mental consequences. Maurie Cohen (2006) has argued that the inability of the
U.S. environmental movement to embrace the principles of ecological modern-
ization to produce change has deprived the United States of some of the sustain-
ability successes witnessed in northern European countries, especially in regard
to energy efficiency and the development of clean production technologies.
Another important theoretical perspective developed in large part by Euro-
pean scholars focuses on risk and science. Ulrich Beck (1999), for example, has
argued that people in modern times feel increasingly at risk, due in large part
to environmental degradation. Beck developed the concept of the risk society.
According to Beck (1999: 72), we are now at “a phase of development in mod-
ern society in which the social, political, ecological and individual risks created
by the momentum of innovation increasingly elude the control and protective
institutions of industrial society.” In other words, even powerful actors in soci-
ety may be subject to harm from dangerous technologies they themselves have
created and/or profited from. Beck examines how risks, and especially the social
 Introduction 13

stresses associated with our perceptions of risks, are fostering deterioration in our
quality of life.
The study of risks and the study of health are necessarily interconnected,
and many environmental sociologists focus their research on the health conse-
quences of environmental risks and other types of degradation. For example,
Kari Marie Norgaard (2007) documents how in a rural region of Northern Cal-
ifornia controversy arose over the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed use of herbi-
cides on spotted knapweed. The Karuk tribe and other community members,
who perceived that they would suffer disproportionate health risks, successfully
fought the Forest Service’s plans for herbicide application. Norgaard shows that
the question of who faces risks from modern technology, as well as perceptions
about the existence of risks, is influenced by sociological factors such as gender,
race, and power. In the case study by Norgaard, conflict arose partly because
citizens had been left out of policy deliberations over how to deal with the weed
problem. Phil Brown and his colleagues (e.g., Brown and Mikkelsen 1990;
Brown 2007), meanwhile, have documented and promoted the idea of “popular
­epidemiology”—a process whereby nonscientist citizens become active produc-
ers and users of scientific data.6
Theoretical perspectives such as the treadmill of production, metabolic rift,
ecologically unequal exchange, ecological modernization, the risk society, and
popular epidemiology have been developed specifically to help us better under-
stand the human-environment nexus. In addition, many environmental sociolo-
gies call our attention to environmental inequalities. The study of environmental
justice is a major development that derives from a combination of social scien-
tists’ long-standing interest in inequalities and social movement activism that
has sought to remedy environmental inequities. Finally, sociologists have long
been interested in the cause and consequences of social movement activism, and
researchers working in this area of sociology have increasingly examined envi-
ronmental social movement organizations—such as Greenpeace or the Sierra
Club—and environmental movement objectives—such as reducing toxins (see
Pellow and Brehm 2013 for a review of research in environmental sociology as
well as several disciplines that speak to—or have influenced—it).
Lidskog and colleagues detailed in a 2015 article that while environmen-
tal sociology research was at first centered in the United States and Europe, in
more recent decades, regions across the globe have been contributing to the
­discipline—especially East Asia and Latin America. Work conducted by research-
ers in these regions are bringing new perspectives, new issues, and a more global
focus to environmental sociology. In Japan, for instance, environmental sociol-
ogists focus much of their research on region-specific case studies of victims of
environmental pollution, most recently, victims of the Fukushima nuclear disas-
ter. The Fukushima research is especially important as very little sociological
research on nuclear power and/or disasters has appeared in the twenty-first cen-
tury. Brazilian research, on the other hand, has taken a broader focus on socio-­
environmental problems in developing countries in general (Lidskog, Mol, and
Oosterveer 2015). The Brazilian work on food and agriculture has applicability
to the many agrarian regions of the developing world. Lidskog and colleagues
14 Introduction

express hope that as environmental sociology takes on a more global presence

and focus, it will “prevent the development of poorly connected/­integrated
place-based environmental sociology communities and . . . allow for much more
cross fertilization between different traditions, frames and approaches” (Lidskog,
Mol, and Oosterveer 2015: 356).

A Brief Look at What’s Included in the Reader

This reader provides a sampling of excerpts from recently published sociological
research on environment-related issues. The first selection, by Hillary Angelo
and Colin Jerolmack, shows how social forces affect how we see and understand
“nature” (chapter 1). Next, we include four works that use a political economy
perspective, examining, for example, how economic growth often leads to envi-
ronmental destruction. Some of these authors use ideas developed by Karl Marx.
Many of the authors in this section of the reader argue that there is a funda-
mental conflict between capitalism’s need for constant expansion and the protec-
tion of the environment, and they are wary of technological solutions that, they
argue, often fail to produce safer, healthier environmental conditions.
For example, in a provocative essay, John Bellamy Foster argues that we have
on our hands an ecological crisis so dire as to warrant an “ecological revolution”
that would also be a social revolution because, he contends (as do many envi-
ronmental sociologists), without addressing fundamental inequalities, we can-
not tackle climate change and other environmental issues (chapter 2).7 Daniel
Faber, in chapter 3, explains how environmental inequalities have deepened as
a result of globalization. Stefano B. Longo and Rebecca Clausen use a Marx-
ist framework to examine overfishing of tuna in the Mediterranean (chapter 4).
In an article very different from the previous three, Benjamin Vail (chapter 5)
describes ecological modernization, the idea that technological advances, within
the current capitalist system, will result in necessary changes to bring about sus-
tainability. To do this, he conducts a case study of Sweden’s broad-reaching envi-
ronmental policy and asks to what extent it has been guided by the precepts of
ecological modernization. Next, Richard York and his colleagues (chapter 6) use
a political economy lens to examine the ecological footprint of China, India,
Japan, and the United States from 1962 to 2003. The authors show that, con-
trary to the ideas of ecological modernization, increased efficiency does not lead
to smaller ecological footprints.
In the third section of the reader, we present readings that examine how
race, class, and gender intersect with environment. Brett Clark and colleagues
use an intersectional lens to study the historic case of guano production in
nineteenth-century Peru (chapter 7). Next, Karida Brown, Michael Murphy,
and Appollonya Porcelli investigate how African American coal miners created
meaning out of their Appalachian landscapes (chapter 8). In chapter 9, Valerie
Stull, Michael Bell, and Mpumelelo Ncwadi use the concept of “environmental
apartheid” to show how environmental injustices are not just enacted in space
but space itself can also be used as a mechanism for marginalization of vulnera-
ble groups. Finally, the piece by Lois Bryson, Kathleen McPhillips, and Kathryn
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
In shape they resemble a globe or a flask with a narrow mouth,
through which the spores are ejected (peronocarpic ascocarps).
Different kinds of reproduction—conidia, pycnidia (chiefly with
microconidia), chlamydospores, and perithecia—are found in the
same species. The various stages in the life-history of these Fungi
are so dissimilar, that formally they were considered to be different
genera. Ergot furnishes a very good example.

Fig. 114.—A small portion of an ovary attacked with Claviceps

purpurea (Sphacelia).
 Fig. 115.—An ovary with the conidial stage
of Claviceps purpurea (Sphacelia).
This family may be subdivided into 3 sub-families.

Sub-Family 1. Hypocreales.

The perithecia are pale, fleshy, brightly coloured, and generally

aggregated on a stroma. Conidia and chlamydospores occur very
frequently. Only one order.
Order. Hypocreaceæ. In this order the majority are parasites
upon Flowering-plants (Nectria, Polystigma, Epichloë, Claviceps);
but some are parasites upon Fungi (Hypomyces, Melanospora), or
upon insects (Cordyceps).
 Fig. 116.—Claviceps purpurea. A Sclerotium with stromata (cl) (× by
2). B Stroma divided longitudinally to show the perithecia (cp). C A
perithecium with the surrounding hyphæ (hy). D An ascus ruptured, with
the eight filamentous ascospores emerging.
The most important member of this order is the Ergot (Claviceps
purpurea, Figs. 114, 115, 116). This Fungus is found in the flowers of
many species of Grasses, especially the Rye, attacking and
destroying the ovaries. In the first or conidial stage of the attack,
the ovaries are found covered with a white, irregularly folded
mycelium (Fig. 114 m, Fig. 115), formed of numerous hyphæ woven
together and penetrating the wall of the ovary. From these a number
of hyphæ (Fig. 114 a) project into the air and abstrict from their
apices the conidia (b) which serve as reproductive organs. The
mycelium also secretes a sticky, stinking fluid (honey-dew) in which
the conidia are embedded in great numbers. The honey-dew exudes
from the bases of the glumes, and is greedily sought by flies, which
thus carry the conidia to other ovaries. In this manner fresh ears are
infected, which might escape were the conidia only distributed by the
wind. This stage formerly was regarded as an independent Fungus,
known as Sphacelia segetum (Fig. 115). On germination, the conidia
produce either a new mycelium (Fig. 114 d, c), or new conidia. The
second or sclerotium stage is the one in which the Fungus
passes the winter. The mycelium penetrates deeper and deeper into
the attacked ovaries, their tissues are destroyed and replaced by the
hyphæ, which gradually become more and more felted together. A
firm, pseudo-parenchymatous mass of hyphæ is thus formed at the
base of the loosely-woven Sphacelia, which is in part transformed
into the hard sclerotium, and the remainder thrown off. A dark, hard,
poisonous body, longer than the natural grain, is thus formed; these
bodies are known as Ergots, and were formerly considered to be a
distinct species,—Sclerotium clavus (“Secale cornutum,” Ergot, Fig.
116 A, c). The third stage, described as Claviceps purpurea, is
developed in the following spring from the germinating sclerotium,
which produces dark-red stromata with short stalks. In the stroma
numerous perithecia with asci and ascospores are produced. The
latter may infect young flowers of the cereals, in which the disease is
then developed as before.
 Fig. 117.—Nectria cinnabarina: a branch of Acer pseudoplatanus, with
conidial-layers and perithecia (nat. size); b a conidial-layer (Tuberculoria
vulgaris); c, a mass of perithecia. (b and c × 8.)
Several species of the genus Nectria, with blood-red perithecia, are found as
dangerous parasites, especially N. ditissima, which causes “Canker” in the Beech,
Ash, and Apple, etc.; N. cucurbitula, which appears on Pine-trees, and N.
cinnabarina (Fig. 117), whose conidial form was formerly named Tubercularia
vulgaris.—Polystigma rubrum forms shining red spots on the green leaves of
Prunus-species.—Epichloë typhina is parasitic on the sheaths of Grasses, on
which it first forms a white conidial-layer, later on a yellow layer of perithecia.—
Cordyceps (Chrysalis Fungus, Figs. 118, 119) lives in and destroys insects, and
after compassing their death produces the club-formed, generally yellow, stromata,
one part of which bears conidia (Isaria) and another perithecia. C. militaris (Fig.
118) on the chrysalides and caterpillars of moths, is the most common.
The so-called Botrytis bassiana, which produces the disease known by the
name of “Muscardine,” in silkworms, is probably a conidial form belonging to
Cordyceps.

Fig. 118.—Cordyceps militaris. I Stromata

with conidiophores (Isaria farinosa). II A larva,
with stromata, bearing perithecia. III A spore.
 Fig. 119.—Cordyceps robertii on the larva of
Hepialus virescens: a stalk of stroma; b
perithecia.

Sub-Family 2. Sphæriales.
To this sub-family belong the majority of the Pyrenomycetes. The
perithecia are of a firm consistence (tough, leathery, woody or
carbonaceous), and of a dark colour. Their covering is quite distinct
from the stroma when this structure is present. The stromata are
sometimes very large, and may be either cushion-like, crustaceous,
upright and club-like, or branched bodies. In general, small,
inconspicuous Fungi, living on dead vegetable matter, sometimes
parasites. Free conidiophores and conidiocarps are known in many
species, and in several, chlamydospore-like forms of reproduction.
Orders 3–18 constitute the Sphæriaceæ of older systematists.

Fig. 120.—Strickeria obducens: a a portion of an Ash-branch with the bark

partly thrown off; on the wood are numerous black perithecia (× 20); b longitudinal
section through a perithecium; c a spore; d longitudinal section through a
pycnidium whose ascospores are being ejected; e portion of the same, with hyphæ
and spores.
Order 1. Sordariaceæ.—Fungi living on dung with fragile perithecia, either
aerial or buried in the substratum. The dark brown or black spores have either a
mucilaginous envelope (Sordaria, etc.) or mucilaginous appendages (Podospora),
by means of which their expulsion and distribution are promoted.
Order 2. Chætomiaceæ. Perithecia fragile, free, bearing on the summit a tuft of
hairs. Chætomium, on decaying vegetable matter.
Orders 3–7. Perithecia scattered or aggregated, situated from the
commencement on the surface of the substratum. Stroma wanting.
 Order 3. Trichosphæriaceæ. Trichosphæria parasitica (Fig. 121), on Abies
alba; Herpotrichia nigra on Picea excelsa and Pinus montana.

Fig. 121.—Trichosphæria parasitica: a a twig of Abies alba, with epiphytic

mycelium; b a leaf with mycelium and sporangia (magnified); c a sporangium (×
60); d an ascus with spores (× 550).
Order 4. Melanommaceæ. Rosellinia quercina lives in the roots of 1–3-year-old
Oaks, and destroys the plants.
Order 5. Ceratostomaceæ.
Order 6. Amphisphæriaceæ. Strickeria obducens (Fig. 120) has brick-like
spores, and lives aggregated on the hard branches of Fraxinus.
Order 7. Lophiostomaceæ.
Order 8. Cucurbitariaceæ. Perithecia tufted, at first embedded, then breaking
through, often situated upon an indistinct stroma.
Orders 9–13. The perithecia remain embedded, and are only liberated by the
casting off of the covering layers of the substratum. Stroma wanting.
 Order 9. Sphærellaceæ. The species of Sphærella have colourless, bicellular
spores. They live upon the leaves of many plants, and develope spherical
perithecia upon the fallen leaves.
Order 10. Pleosporaceæ. The conidial-forms of Pleospora herbarum and P.
vulgaris form a black covering on various plants, known as “smuts.”—Venturia
ditricha occurs on the underside of dry Birch leaves, and perhaps to this belongs
the conidial-form, Fusicladium pirinum, which causes the “Rust spots” on Apples
and Pears.
Order 11. Massariaceæ.
Order 12. Clypeosphæriaceæ.
Order 13. Gnomoniaceæ. Perithecia, with peak-like aperture. Gnomonia
erythrostoma in the leaves of Prunus avium, which turn brown and do not fall in
autumn.
Orders 14–18. Stroma generally well developed. The perithecia are embedded
in the stroma, but when this is rudimentary, in the substratum.
Order 14. Valsaceæ. Valsa.
Order 15. Diatrypaceæ. Diatrype.
Order 16. Melanconidaceæ.
Order 17. Melogrammataceæ.

Order 18. Xylariaceæ. This order is the most highly developed of

the Sphæriales. The stroma arises on the surface of the substratum,
which is generally dead or decorticated wood; it is well-developed,
crustaceous, hemispherical or upright. In the younger conditions it is
covered with a layer of conidia, and later on it bears the perithecia,
arranged in a layer immediately beneath its surface. The ascospores
are of a dark colour. Often also there are free conidiophores.
 Fig. 122.—Xylaria hypoxylon (nat. size) on a tree stump: a younger, b an older
stroma, both of which, with the exception of the black lower portion, are covered
with white conidia; n, spot where the perithecia are developed; c an old stroma
with upper part fallen off; d, e large branched stromata; k conidia.
Hypoxylon and Ustulina have a cushion-like or crustaceous stroma.—Xylaria
has a club-shaped or branched stroma, often several centimetres high. X.
hypoxylon (Fig. 122) and X. polymorpha occur on old tree stumps.—Poronia grows
on old horse dung, and has a conical stroma.

Sub-Family 3. Dothideales.
The perithecia are always embedded in a black stroma, and are
not distinctly separated from it. The accessory forms of reproduction
are: conidiophores, conidiocarps, and yeast-like conidia. The
majority are parasites. One order.
 Order Dothideaceæ. Phyllachora graminis produces scab-like patches on the
leaves of the Grasses.—Scirrhia rimosa grows on the leaf-sheathes of Phragmites.
—Rhopographus pteridis on Pteridium aquilinum.

Family 4. Hysteriales.
This family, like the following, has hemiangiocarpic ascocarps
(apothecia). These are closed in the early stages, but when ripe
open in a valvular manner by a longitudinal fissure; they are black,
oblong, and often twisted. Some species are parasites, especially
upon the Coniferæ.
 Fig. 123.—Lophodermium (Hypoderma) nervisequium:
a two leaves of Abies alba seen from above with pycnidia;
b a leaf seen from the underside with apothecia; c an
ascus with ascospores. (× 500.)
 Fig. 124.—Three leaves of the Red-
pine with Lophodermium
macrosporum: a under side of the
leaves with apothecia; b a leaf from
upper side with pycnidia. (× about 2.)
 Fig. 125.—Lophodermium
pinastri: a leaves of Pinus
sylvestris with apothecia (nat.
size); b two paraphyses and an
ascus with filamentous spores.
Order 1. Hysteriaceæ. Hysterium pulicare upon the ruptured bark of many
trees.
Order 2. Hypodermaceæ. The species of Lophodermium live upon the leaves
of Conifers, and are the cause of their falling off (blight). L. pinastri (Fig. 125), on
the leaves of Pinus and Picea; the leaves become red-brown and fall off; at first
conidiocarps are formed, and later apothecia; L. nervisequium (Fig. 123), on Abies
alba; L. macrosporum (Fig. 124), on Picea excelsa; L. brachysporum, on Pinus
strobus.
Order 3. Dichænaceæ.
Order 4. Acrospermaceæ.
 Family 5. Discomycetes.
The ascocarps (apothecia) are at first closed, and only open at
the time of their ripening, not valvularly, but more or less like a
saucer or cup, so that the hymenium lies exposed on their upper
surface. In the first three sub-families, and generally also in the
fourth, the apothecia are formed inside the substratum. The
apothecia are, in contrast to the Pyrenomycetes, light and brightly
coloured, and their size varies very much, and may be several
centimetres in diameter. Paraphyses are often present between the
asci; they often contain colouring matter, and give to the disc its
characteristic colour. The tissue on which the asci are borne is
known as the hypothecium. The shape and colour of the spores is
not so varied as in the Pyrenomycetes. The accessory forms of
reproduction are conidia (sometimes of two forms), chlamydospores,
and oidia. The family is divided into 5 sub-families.

Sub-Family 1. Phacidiales.

The apothecia are developed in the interior of the substratum,

which they break through, and in general dehisce apically. The
envelope is tough and black. Hypothecium inconspicuous;
hymenium flat.
Order 1. Euphacidiaceæ. Phacidium abietinum, on the leaves of Abies alba.—
Rhytisma; the pycnidia are found in the summer on the green leaves, while the
apothecia are developed on the fallen leaves and dehisce in the following spring.
R. acerinum causes black spots on the leaves of the Sycamore, and R. salicinum
on Willows.
Order 2. Pseudophacidiaceæ.

Sub-Family 2. Stictidales.
The apothecia when ripe break through the substratum which
forms a border round them. Hymenium generally saucer-shaped.
Order 1. Stictidaceæ. Stictis.
Order 2. Ostropaceæ. Ostropa.

Sub-Family 3. Tryblidiales.
 The apothecia are embedded in the substratum in the early
stages, and then are raised high above it. Hypothecium thick.
Hymenium cup-shaped.
Order 1. Tryblidiaceæ. Tryblidium.
Order 2. Heterosphæriaceæ. Heterosphæria patella on the dead stalks of
Umbellifers.

Sub-Family 4. Dermateales.

The apothecia in the early stages are embedded in the

substratum and then break through it, or are from the first situated on
the surface of the substratum. Hypothecium thick.
Order 1. Cenangiaceæ. Cenangium.
Order 2. Dermateaceæ. Dermatea.
Order 3. Patellariaceæ. Patellea, Biatorella, Patellaria.
Order 4. Caliciaceæ. Calicium, Coniocybe, etc., on the bark of trees.
Order 5. Arthoniaceæ. Arthonia on the bark of several trees. Celidium
stictarum on the apothecia of Sticta pulmonaria.
Order 6. Bulgariaceæ. Apothecia gelatinous under moist conditions, and horny
when dried.—Calloria fusarioides; the red apothecia break out in the spring on the
dried stalks of Urtica dioica; a gelatinous reproductive form of the Fungus is found
before the apothecia, which consists of oidia (formerly described as “Dacryomyces
urticæ”).—Bulgaria inquinans on the living or fallen trucks of Oaks and Beeches.
 Fig. 126.—Botrytis cinerea: a slightly
magnified; b more highly magnified; c
germinating conidium.
 Fig. 127.—Sclerotinia fuckeliania: a sclerotium
with conidiophores; b with apothecia; c section
through sclerotium and apothecium; d ascus with
eight ascospores. (× 390.)

Sub-Family 5. Pezizales.
The apothecia are developed on the surface of the substratum
and are waxy or fleshy; at the commencement closed, and covered
with a saucer- or cup-shaped, seldom flat, hymenium. The
hypothecium is generally well developed. This sub-family is the
richest in species of the Discomycetes and contains forms of very
different habit. They grow upon dead wood, upon the ground, and
upon dung. A few are parasites.
Order 1. Helotiaceæ. Apothecia with waxy envelope of
colourless, or yellowish prosenchymatous cells.—Chlorosplenium
æruginosum is found on decaying wood (particularly Oak and Birch), to which it
gives a green colour. Sclerotinia has sclerotia which are developed upon the host-
plant and from which, after a period of rest, the long, brown-stalked apothecia
arise. S. ciborioides (S. trifoliorum, Fig. 128) is parasitic on Clover; S. sclerotiorum,
on Daucus-roots, Phaseolus, etc.; S. baccarum, on the berries of Vaccinium
myrtillus; “Botrytis cinerea” is a common parasite and is probably the conidial form
of S. fuckeliania (Fig. 127).—Helotium herbarum lives on dry plant stems.—
Dasyscypha willkommii (Fig. 129) produces Larch-canker on the bark of the Larch.