Abstract
Most college instructors can attest that one of the most important decisions they make each semester is constructing a course’s reading list. It is a teacher’s mission to assign readings that students find worthwhile, relevant, and engaging. Ideally, readings should spark in-class discussion, be appropriately challenging, and ultimately make the class more enjoyable. As a representative of their discipline, teachers must fashion together reading assignments that serve as snapshots of the field and provide their students with an accurate view of the currents gliding through the appropriate subfields. In the broad area of environmental sociology, teachers have the challenge of selecting only a tiny sliver of an enormous number of publications. One can become overwhelmed making those selections. Fortunately, two recent books, Techno-Fix and Too Many People?, present viewpoints clashing with mainstream environmentalism and are suitable for undergraduate (and possibly graduate) environmental sociology courses.
Michael Huesemann and Joyce Huesemann aim to debunk the assumption that technological innovations are the best way to tackle environmental issues in Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment. This 14-chapter book is clearly written, intuitively organized, and evenly paced, and it serves as an excellent accompaniment for environmental sociology instructors. The book is organized into three parts. Part I, “Technology and Its Limitations,” provides the groundwork of the authors’ argument—relying on technological achievements to mitigate climate change is not a sufficient solution, namely because of its unintended consequences. Part II, “The Uncritical Acceptance of Technology,” focuses on the remarkable faith in technological progress and the complications surrounding techno-optimism. Part III, “The Next Scientific and Technological Revolution,” discusses the important need for different technologies and new ways of thinking and can be easily paired with lectures on the various definitions of sustainability.
Techno-Fix is a wonderful supplement for lesson plans covering a multitude of important topics, and it is a great launching pad for getting students involved with their vocabulary. For instance, technological optimism, as described in detail in Part II, can be neatly paired with a lesson plan on terms like technological fetishism, market fundamentalism, and ecological modernization. Chapter 5 on efficiency improvements can accompany a lecture on the Jevons Paradox and the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Chapter 7 on the belief in progress could be partnered with a discussion on neoliberal agendas and the economic motives behind technological optimism, chapter 8 (“The Positive Biases of Technology and Cost-Benefit Analysis”) can enhance classes on risk assessment and externalities, and chapter 9 on happiness could complement lessons on ideals of consumption. Pairing the readings with specific lectures allows educators to build extended, elaborate connections, and Techno-Fix lends itself to classes on environmental sociology because it contains an abundance of essential topics.
Inevitably, teachers encounter students who are intimidated by reading assignments. Despite the fact that Techno-Fix is easy to read, it is well over 400 pages and has a nauseating number of footnotes. Its formidable length will likely be an obstacle for some undergraduates. Due to its size, convincing students to read Techno-Fix closely will take some motivational teaching. For teachers trying to avoid making the class too reading-intensive, the first two parts (which contain the first 11 chapters) will most likely suffice, as they do a great job outlining how technological evolutions have not resulted in radically reduced pollution and consumption levels. Huesemann and Huesemann provide their most teachable lessons first: many students should be awakened by the conversations of unintended consequences of technological failures, countertechnologies (specifically the geo-engineering proposals covered in chapter 4), and how technological innovation reinforces capitalist values, like materialist accumulation and profit maximization. Chapter 11 includes several discussable passages, namely, the section covering the highly relevant themes of social inequalities and privilege (pp. 260–67). The book can lead students toward the salient discussion of the prioritization of economic growth, which for Huesemann and Huesemann is the driver of environmental problems. With some guidance, undergraduates should be able to connect the growth agenda and the vested interests of the capitalist class to technological optimism, which is one of the book’s strongest pedagogical merits.
The insight contained in Techno-Fix can be revived throughout the semester, particularly if students have used their sociological imaginations and can visualize the structural reasons why certain “solutions” to climate change are more popular than others. In the spirit of challenging conventional environmentalism and probing alternatives to economic growth, Ian Angus and Simon Butler put forth their eco-socialist perspectives in Too Many People? Popula-tion, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis. In 15 brisk chapters, this critique of populationism (the idea that large human numbers are responsible for environmental problems) consistently argues that overpopulation is a myth and environmental crises are not caused by a breaching of a planetary carrying capacity. Angus and Butler instead insist that the capitalist class and capitalist system are responsible for massive externalities, obsolescence, staggering levels of pollution, and increased emissions. Too Many People? has clear—although controversial—theses: (1) We have an overconsumption not an overpopulation problem; and (2) populationist arguments are based on assumptions that protect the capitalist class.
Too Many People? targets well-known commentaries on demographic and environmental issues, and it gives teachers a menu of chapters that can be taken in fruitful directions. The first several chapters (including the thorough introduction and forewords) contend that the environmental movement is mistaken by adhering to populationism. They also summarize (and refute) key populationist literature and provide a thorough synopsis of the various cliques of populationists and their arguments. The book also contends that population growth does not have to be halted by restricting the reproductive rights of those in the developing world (chapter 7, “The Populationist War against the Poor”), that populationist thought has been intercepted by nativist and racist agendas (chapter 9, “Lifeboat Ethics), and that developed nations should not embrace anti-immigration policies (chapter 10, “Allies, Not Enemies”). Chapters 7 and 9 would be great supplements for a lesson on ethnocentrism, and chapter 10 could be paired with a class on global citizenship or global civil society, although those phrases are not used in the text. Chapter 13 (“The Military-Corporate Polluter Complex”) could complement a lecture on the role of the capitalist class, as it devotes attention to “corporate destroyers” and military pollution and argues that capitalist hyperconsumption and power are at the heart of environmental crises.
Furthermore, asking students to unpack the complicated argument that population is not connected to emissions or the planet’s ecology allows them to revisit the work and extract some of its counterintuitive points. To that end, students should find the book extremely informative and committed to accuracy: It provides an accurate interpretation of the global environmental crisis in that it is driven by economic, rather than reproductive, activity. Too Many People? additionally corrects some common misinterpretations surrounding Malthus’s arguments in the appendix, and in chapter 3 (“Dissecting Those ‘Overpopulation’ Numbers”), it astutely mentions that populations do not grow exponentially. On the whole, Angus and Butler maintain that key facets of mainstream environmentalism are misguided. This should be an arousing takeaway for many environmentalists, and it gives Too Many People? its pedagogical punch.
Too Many People? is forcefully written and effectively deploys a profuse amount of memorable quotes, which should keep students attentive. Angus and Butler discuss several topics pertaining to environmental and demographic issues and present most of them sufficiently in fewer than 300 pages. Yet as a teaching instrument, the book’s pacing can become problematic. The book as a whole is concise, with chapters reaching only 10 to 15 pages, but a majority of the book is devoted to debunking populationism, and readers will inevitably start wondering “If overpopulation is not the problem, what is?” long before the authors make their case against capitalism. Perhaps the intended audience is nonsocialists who are curious about pertinent dialogues in demography. If so, it will expose them to the shortcomings of populationism and, after a lot of reading, will direct them to a socialist critique. The organization of the book could leave some Marxist readers unsatisfied, as the hard anticapitalist critiques come late in the book.
Organizational issues aside, a noteworthy characteristic of Angus and Butler’s writing is their unfailing devotion to Marxism in the book’s final chapters. If ever an instructor needed an attention-grabbing example of a distinct theoretical camp, Angus and Butler have written a sensational illustration of what it “sounds like” to be faithful eco-socialists. When the anticapitalist rhetoric arrives in the final 60 pages, Angus and Butler release an unrelenting barrage. As a sample of eco-socialist literature, Too Many People? can go beyond environmental sociology classes; it could be integrated into demography, migration, or social theory courses as well. While this book can find a niche in a variety of classrooms, its arguments will undoubtedly be too jarring for some students. Teachers should probably forewarn their less experienced students about the revolutionary tone of the book. Too Many People? is radically left, and its perspective could make students uncomfortable. Fortunately, that undesirable “shock value” can be buffered if students first eased into the alternative environmental literature with the perspectives proffered by Huesemann and Huesemann. With that said, Techno-Fix and Too Many People? are guaranteed to expand students’ knowledge bases if they are only following the popular dialogues within current environmentalism.
The books evaluated here provide sociologically valuable—and counterintuitive—lessons: Techno-Fix lays out the shortcomings of technological optimism, and Too Many People? argues that systems of production, rather than sheer numbers, drive environmental crises. Instructors seeking “eye-opening” readings will appreciate what these publications bring to the classroom. Both readings supply eminently lecture-friendly material for environmental sociology courses, and the critiques introduced by Huesemann and Huesemann are pushed further by Angus and Butler. Many environmentally-conscious undergraduates interested in climate change are familiar with the language of mainstream (market-influenced) environmentalism, but fewer are aware of the dialogues concerning eco-socialist and antigrowth alternatives. These works delineate the difference between contemporary and alternative environmentalists. To paraphrase Angus and Butler, technological optimists and “populationists assume that the social and economic context won’t change; we insist that it must” (p. 240). Students who read Techno-Fix and Too Many People? will understand that “going green” and “controlling populations” are hegemonic approaches that support market growth and capitalist exploitation and therefore are not sufficient solutions to environmental crises. With that key lesson in mind, students should develop an appreciation for unconventional discourses within environmentalism.