The Effort Factor
An Adjustment to our Understanding of Social-Ecological Metabolism in the Era of Peak Oil
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2245196 |
|---|---|
| Authors | D J Davidson (0000-0003-1734-7767, University of Alberta, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 66 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 69-85 |
| Publication date | 2019-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Problems (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7791 • E-ISSN: 1533-8533 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/socpro/spx031 |
| OpenAlex | W2762911532 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 36 |
The size of our ecological footprint is often attributed to those social processes governing the consumption of material resources, reflecting the tendency within sociology to pay far more attention to our social constructions of nature, and our effects on nature, but far less attention to natural processes themselves. However, our level of ecological disruption is, more precisely, a function of the effort required to exploit natural resources and convert them into the things we value for use and exchange. As the quality of those resources declines in response to historic exploitation, effort increases, and hence so does our ecological impact, a tendency that interacts with social processes to produce emergent outcomes. This effort factor constitutes an important but largely overlooked feature of social-ecological metabolic relations, one that can offer fruitful opportunities for advances in scholarship in environmental sociology, and for environmental monitoring and mediation efforts by states and civil societies. The effort factor constitutes an important causal mechanism in our socioecological relations, the effects of which are best conceived through the lens of critical realism. This article offers a conceptual elaboration of the effort factor, and a case study analysis with reference to the historical development of oil, with particular emphasis on Alberta, Canada, which highlights the disruptive tendencies embodied in our current fossil fuel-dependent socioeconomic systems.
Biology · Ecological footprint · Economic growth · Economics · Epistemology · Function (biology) · Mechanism (biology) · Mediation · Natural resource · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Sustainable development · Ecology · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Mining and Resource Management · Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis
World Energy Outlook 2008
World Energy Outlook 2014
The Principles of Scientific Thinking
World Energy Outlook 2012
Globalization and the Race for Resources
The construction of social reality
The Evolution of Organizations and Natural Environment Discourse
Organizing Within Dynamic Ecosystems
Climate Change, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
On the Construction of a Social Reality
Realist Social Theory
Realism and Social Science
Quantifying land use of oil sands production
Regional social structure and agrarian radicalism in Canada
The effort factor
Definitions of conflict and the legitimation of resources
Ecological Civilization
Further Beyond the Durkheimian Problematic
A Realist Theory of Science
Underdeveloping the Amazon
Evolutionary theory in sociology
The Second Darwinian Revolution
Structure, agency and environment
Society, Biology, and Ecology
Explaining Society, Critical Realism in the Social Sciences
A Closer Look at 'Local Control
Routine, Reflexivity, and Realism
Against Political Ecology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2019 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |