Quick-revision summary of Chapter 3: Environment and Society (Understanding Society, Class 11, Book 2). For full explanations, read the complete notes. CBSE does not examine this chapter in 2026-27; UP Board (10 marks), Rajasthan Board (10) and MP Board (8) do.
1 Key definitions
Key definitions
EcologyThe web of physical and biological systems and processes of which humans are one element
Social environmentsEmerge from the interaction of biophysical ecology and human interventions; a two-way process
Commodification of natureTurning nature into objects bought and sold for profit (capitalist values)
Risk societyUsing technologies and products we do not fully grasp
Social ecologySocial relations, especially property and production, shape environmental perceptions and practices
Sustainable developmentMeets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own (Brundtland Report, 1987)
2 Glossary terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Hydrology | Science of water and its flows; broad structure of water resources of a country or region |
| Deforestation | Loss of forest area by cutting trees and/or taking the land for other uses, usually cultivation |
| Green house | Covered structure protecting plants from extremes of climate, usually excessive cold; warmer inside (hot house) |
| Emissions | Waste gases from a human-initiated process (industries, vehicles) |
| Effluents | Waste materials in fluid form from industrial processes |
| Aquifers | Natural underground formations where water gets stored |
| Monoculture | Plant life of a locality reduced to a single variety |
3 Ecology and its human modification
- Every material object’s source lies in nature (the chair example); all societies have an ecological basis.
- A place’s ecology depends on its geography and hydrology; the desert’s life is adapted to scarce rainfall, rocky or sandy soils, extreme temperatures.
- Human action modifies ecology: aridity or flood-proneness often human-made; deforestation in the upper catchment may make rivers flood-prone; climate change.
- Activity 1: Delhi’s Ridge forest planted by the British around 1915 (Prosopis juliflora, from South America); Corbett’s chaurs were once fields.
- Obviously human-made: an agricultural farm; a city’s built environment (“very much a human artefact”).
4 Two-way process
Nature shapes society
- Indo-Gangetic floodplain: intensive farming, dense population, surplus, hierarchical societies and states
- Rajasthan desert: only pastoralists
Society shapes nature
- Capitalism; the private automobile: pollution, congestion, wars over oil, global warming
- Industrial Revolution: Lancashire mills, Caribbean plantations, West African slaves
5 Social organisation
- Property relations: government forests (timber companies or villagers); private land and water.
- Division of labour: rural women fetch fuel and water but do not control them, so they are likely to feel scarcity more acutely.
- Values: capitalist (commodification of a river), socialist (land to landless peasants), religious (sacred groves; divine sanction).
- Knowledge: nature-nurture debate; equality ideas of the 18th century’s revolutions; colonial disciplines: geology, geography, botany, zoology, forestry, hydraulic engineering.
6 Management and Bhopal
- Hard because: limited knowledge; complex relations; faster extraction; fragile management systems. Risk societies: Chernobyl, Bhopal, Mad Cow disease.
- Bhopal: night of 3 December 1984; about 4,000 killed, 200,000 disabled; MIC; Union Carbide pesticide factory (came 1977). CSE’s Second Citizens’ Report.
- Warnings ignored: officer transferred, Rs 25,000 for a park; May 1982 survey by three experts from Union Carbide Corporation, USA; Rapat’s articles; union letters; clearance weeks before.
- Why: political links (relatives employed, Rs 1.5 lakh donation). Company: no computerised early warning system, no evacuation plan, a third of capacity, staff cut.
7 Five major problems
| Problem | Key points |
|---|---|
| Resource depletion | Groundwater (Punjab, Haryana, UP), aquifers, rivers dammed and diverted, topsoil (erosion, water-logging, salinisation, bricks), biodiversity habitats (agriculture), tigers |
| Pollution | Air (industry, vehicles, wood and coal); indoor chulha smoke harms village women; WHO 2012: around 7 million deaths (3.3 million indoor, 2.6 million outdoor); water (sewage, effluents, farm runoff); noise (loudspeakers, horns, construction) |
| Global warming | Carbon dioxide, methane trap heat; ice melts, sea rises, coasts submerged; China and India increasingly significant contributors |
| GM organisms | Bacillus thuringiensis genes in cotton against bollworm; unknown long-term effects; sterile seeds |
| Disasters | Bhopal 1984 (man-made); tsunami 2004 (natural) |
- Effects are “a function of social inequality”; status and power decide insulation. Kutch: rich farmers’ tubewells, poor villagers’ dry wells.
- Public interest is “a hotly contested arena”: large dams, protected areas.
- Social ecology: Forest Department (bamboo for the paper industry) vs artisan (baskets); crises rooted in social inequality; change relations of men and women, urban and rural, landlords and labourers. Murray Bookchin.
9 Sustainable development and cases
- Brundtland Report (October 1987, Our Common Future): two concepts, needs (of the world’s poor) and limitations (technology, social organisation).
- Capitalist development rests on consumption; Sunita Narain (Down to Earth, 25 January 2016): “aspiration is the new God”. Inclusive, not exclusive, development.
- 193 UN member states; 17 Global Goals; 169 targets; Ban Ki Moon: “no Plan B, because there is no Planet B”. Gandhi: “strip the world bare like locusts”.
- P. Sainath: farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra; cotton, costlier water and pesticides, moneylenders, liberalisation.
- Amita Baviskar (2003): migrants on public land evicted for malls and hotels; land, air and water contested. Activities 2 (household water) and 3 (a day in a slum).
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