Environment and Society

Which social institutions and organisations play a role in industrial accidents like the Bhopal disaster?

What steps can be taken to prevent such disasters?

Is water scarcity natural or human-made?

What social factors shape how water is allocated among different users?

How do different patterns of water-use affect different social groups?

How is water depleted through agricultural activity?

Why do the urban poor often live in slums?

Which social groups control landed property and housing in the city?

What social factors affect people's access to water and sanitation?

Describe in your own words what you understand by the term 'ecology'.

Why is ecology not limited only to the forces of nature?

Describe the two-way process by which 'social environments' emerge.

Why and how does social organisation shape the relationship between the environment and society?

Why is environmental management a complex and huge task for society?

What are some of the important forms of pollution-related environmental hazards?

What are the major environmental issues associated with resource depletion?

Explain why environmental problems are simultaneously social problems.

What is meant by social ecology?

Describe some environment related conflicts that you know of or have read about. (Other than the examples in the text.)