Environmental Problems
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18934817 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Riley E Dunlap (0000-0002-7047-3757, Oklahoma State University Oklahoma City, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Pages | 1-4 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | OTHER |
| Venue | The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeose098.pub3 |
| OpenAlex | W4407743558 |
| ISBN | 9781405165518 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
The entry provides an overview of the nature of environmental problems, including their historical progression, in the USA and worldwide. A simple model of the three major functions that the environment, or more specifically ecosystems, serve for humans and other species is presented: supply depot, waste repository, and living space. When humans overuse these functions, it leads to resource shortages and scarcities, pollution, and overcrowding or overpopulation. Furthermore, the use of a given environment for one function diminishes its ability to serve the other two, and wealthy nations not only overuse their own environments but those of other nations as well as the global ecoystem. The total human load represented by ecological footprints is exceeding the long‐term carrying capacity of the global ecosystem, and reducing it in an equitable manner that is fair to poor nations is proving to be difficult
Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Environmental Science · Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy
Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
A safe operating space for humanity
A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services
Planetary just transition? How inclusive and how just
Which Function(s) of the Environment Do We Study? A Comparison of Environmental and Natural Resource Sociology
The Challenges of Measuring Environmental Sustainability
Societies consuming nature
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |