The Impact Of Symbolic Interactionism On The Environment

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As with most group projects, I started out with a basic understanding of the issue; essentially pollution and environmental changes humans make impact the environment in very bad ways. I grew up with a family who believes in intelligent design, young earth theory, and they all vehemently deny that anything humans do cause damage to the planet- everything reported in the news or by scientists are part of a larger “Liberal Democrat conspiracy.” Thus, my views had become largely hazy and even though I pride myself on being a Liberal, educated, intelligent young person, sometimes I was unsure what was actually true or what had been dramatized or exaggerated by scientists or the media to actually get people to pay attention. In addition, I also …show more content…

Symbolic Interactionism could be applied to this topic because it could help explain why people fail to engage in activities to help stop environmental changes or actively engage in these activities. For example, if someone buys the organic stuff or makes sure they buy the special groceries that are all about saving the rainforest or spends time recycling, they may be branded as hippies or tree huggers in a way that has a negative connotation. People often don’t like to stand out so if something like that happens or they are the only person in their neighborhood putting out that green bin on recycling days, chances are that they will stop. Symbolic Interactionism also highlights people’s perceptions of environmental issues they form from public attitudes, so if half of our country says environmental changes aren’t a problem, not a lot is going to change. Building off of this, if people and organizations are not united and vocal about what they consider a problem and a way to address it, action will again fail. I feel that functionalism is also a fitting theory for this topic because it can suggest that two things are related, population growth and environmental issues. I think the functionalism theory suggests that in a society as industrialized, advanced, and large as ours environmental problems are to be expected, but they have become

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