SOCIOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: A Study of Fragile Ecology, Health Risks and Population Pangs

Environmental sustainability is a matter of grave concern to all of us. Planet Earth is unique in its characteristic in view of the fact that it has provided life on it to micro-organisms, plants and animals, including man. Man through his understanding and reasoning capabilities has succeeded in harnessing his environment. However, man as a species himself is also responsible for environmental degradation and deterioration by overutilizing the resources on this planet because of his ingenuity and greed. This has caused an imbalance in the environment and has made our ecology fragile. Therefore, we need to restore and protect our planet resources to provide an ecological balance for environmental sustainability.

In the context of a developing nation like ours, this paradigm of development has posed greater challenges as we do not have adequate technologies to take care of environmental problems. Besides, we are also encountering a major problem of population explosion which has made us vulnerable to greater health risks and increasing population pangs. For sustainable development, we need not only a healthy ecology but we also require to take into account the health risks and population problems.

The present book discusses issues related to different dimensions of environment, health and population to suggest a viable alternative for sustainable development based on participatory approach and having roots in our cultural ethos.