A Retrospective View of My Development as an Environmental Sociologist

Abstract

Initially hoping just to contribute increments of useful knowledge by genuinely scientific social research, this formerly “mainstream” sociologist was alerted to environmental concerns by encounters with urban growth, burgeoning university enrollment, and impacts of overuse in wildland recreation areas. Enlightening research collaboration with foresters, exposure to ecological themes in interpretive exhibits at National Parks in New Zealand and North America, and encounters with significant literature in biological sciences contradicted conventional notions that human societies are somehow exempt from influences by non-social aspects of the ecosystems of which they are part. It became apparent that biogeochemical processes and other extra-societal variables must be taken into account to understand humanity's inescapable adjustments to carrying capacity deficit after an era of thriving on a carrying capacity surplus.