ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the power of the media, and with it the responsibility they have of reporting accurately and what the ramifications can be when stories are not. It discusses how social systems and cultural values are tied to a region's biodiversity. The chapter examines the organization of environmental movements and the unusual chain of events that occurred in order for the first Earth Day to come about more than 45 years ago. An important component of the whole climate change picture is the sociological aspect; yet it is one of the least looked at and understood. Climate change and its effect on the society fall under the sociological study of societal–environmental interactions, or environmental sociology. The principal focus of the field is the relationship between the society and the environment—specifically social factors that lead to environmental problems, the resultant societal impacts of those problems, and the subsequent efforts to adequately solve those problems.
