 Dear students, in this module, we are going to discuss environment as sociological issue. Environment is not just a scientific or technological issue, but a social issue with significant implications on different human societies. We can see around us that how societies are interacting with the environment, how certain societies are more concerned about the environment and how certain societies are contributing more into the environmental degradation. So sociological perspectives provide a very unique, a very up to the up to mark and different framework for analyzing the social, economic and political factors that contribute to different environmental problems. So let us discuss some key sociological issues currently under the academic discussion. Number one is human-environment interactions, how human beings are interacting with the environment and what are the consequences of that interaction. So society's relationship with the environment is a two-way interaction. It is not that the human beings are merely affecting from the one side and on the other side the environment is just the recipient. Environment is also counteractively producing the consequences. So while there are certain activities, practices and policies significantly have an impact on the environment. For example, the brick industry in Pakistan heavily contributes to the air pollution due to the burning of coal and affecting both the local as well as global environment. And at the same time, this environmental pollution is also producing a dire consequences on the health of the population surrounding those areas. So if we see it from a sociological point of view, we need to have different sociological frameworks. So these are the theories like environmental determinism, possibilism and social constructivism which provide different lenses through which we can understand and interpret the relationship between the society and the environment. If we talk about the environmental justice, it refers to the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in the environmental decision making. We can see that since there is this inequality in the environmental consequences, so we find it a very challenging aspect of today's policy related to the environment that how we can produce the environmental justice. In Pakistan, for example, environmental justice can be seen in the placement of waste dumpings and the industrial plants in the impoverished areas. So we can observe that waste management and the policies like how we can or where we can put these industrial plants, we see that it's a very big challenge for to produce the environmental justice. In a way that these waste management are ineffective in the poor areas as compared to those who are living in the poor areas or in the much developed areas. So it's leading to a disproportionate health impact on these communities. So we find that the people living in those slum areas particularly where there are piles, huge piles of waste, they are more prone to different diseases. So consequently they have a more or gigantic health impact due to these environmental effects. Then we have the environmental racism and classicism. So this points relate points to how marginalized groups based on their racial and socioeconomic backgrounds often bear a disproportionate brunt of these environmental hazards. For example, Pakistan's low income groups suffer more from the poor air quality. They are likely to live in a densely populated areas which are prone to more and more pollution. Then we have the climate change and society. Climate change is not the only physical phenomenon, it's a social issue. It's impacting the societies on their economic and cultural aspects. For example, in Pakistan we see that highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change with the significant effects on its agriculture, water availability and resultantly it has the increased climate migration. So those areas where there is scarcity of water, where the lands are not available for the agriculture, people are migrating from those places to the areas where these resources are available. And then we have the consumer culture and environment. Consumerism and the resultant waste have serious environmental implications. In the urban centers in Pakistan for example, where there are not effective ways for this waste collection, we see the piles of garbage piles of waste almost everywhere. There are open dumping sites, people unfortunately who are not much trained or much sensitive about the environment, they are just burning their waste outside their homes. Particularly the cities like Lahore and Karachi, these mega cities are more vulnerable to these environmental hazards in a way that unfortunately in the recent past, we see that these two cities are considered among the most polluted cities of the world. And then how we can see that social policy or public policy can play the role and how different institutions can play their role in the environmental issues that it is very important to see that environmental issues cannot be resolved without the active involvement of policy making bodies and different social institutions. In Pakistan, the establishment of Ministry of Climate Change and Environment Protection Agency reflects this need. However, the effectiveness of these bodies remain a critical issue because we see that people are not converting these policies into the practices and it becomes more and more difficult than to understand the significance of these policies. Then we see the environmental activism which is a growing social movement that seeks to influence the political and social discourse around these environmental issues. The rise of young climate activists in Pakistan is an example of this trend. However, we need to have a more effective policy at the public level, at the government level to understand the significance of this issue. What can be the future of the environment? So, the future interaction of environment and society depends largely on technological advancement, policy shift and cultural change and how societies are responding to these environmental crisis. For example, Pakistan's switching or in the process of being switching to the cleaner energy sources like solar and wind power could significantly alter its environmental future. However, it is to see that how our government policies are making it more effective and more encouraging for the public to go for the solar and for the alternative energy sources.