Our Environment - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 311

7.5 THE SOCIAL SPHERE - SOCIAL AND
CULTURAL FABRIC OF SOCIETY

In studying social impacts we are concerned about changes in the social and cultural fabric
of human groups. Groups are the essence of life in society since we become who we are
because of our membership in human groups. The essential feature of a group is that its
members have something in common and that they believe that what they have in com-
mon is important. The largest and most complex group is society, people who share a cul-
ture and a territory.
Anthropologists and sociologists have identified five types of society that have developed
in the course of human history: hunting and gathering, pastoral and horticultural, agricul-
tural, industrial, and postindustrial, each characterized by distinct forms of social division,
social labour, and social inequality. These societies and their attributes are described in the
following drawn from the excellent textbook by Hensin (2005).
The hunting and gathering society has the fewest social divisions and is the most egali-
tarian. In this society, the men hunt large animals and the women usually gather edible
plants, fruits, and other food found growing in the wild. The first social revolution was
based on the domestication of plants and animals. This resulted in the development of the
pastoral society that concentrated on the herding of animals and the horticultural society
that specialized in planting and harvesting crops. The horticultural society made it possi-
ble for permanent settlements to be established since it was no longer necessary for people
to follow the food supply. In the third social revolution, the invention of the plough made
it possible for large areas of land to be cultivated and harvested. The society that devel-
oped, known as the agricultural society, made large cities possible because it freed some
members of society from being dedicated to producing their own food. In the fourth social
revolution, the invention of the steam engine introduced the industrial society which
concentrated on the manufacturing and consumption of goods. The fifth social revolu-
tion commenced with the invention of the microchip in 1973. In our current society, the
emphasis is on the development and transfer of technology, information, and knowledge,
today central to the ever-growing service industry.
Human groups and societies are characterized by a number of closely interrelated
attributes that combine to form the human environment in which we live. These attributes
relate to demographics, type of organization, race and ethnicity, gender, culture, norms,
values, and religion. Our human environment is constantly changing; some changes are
too subtle to be noticed; some changes are too violent to cope with. Dysfunctional social
change may be associated with large-scale developments such as mining when too much
happens too suddenly.

The essential feature of a
group is that its members have
something in common and that
they believe that what they have
in common is important.

Dysfunctional social change may
be associated with large-scale
developments such as mining
when too much happens too
suddenly.

Demography - Size, Composition, Growth, and
Distribution of Population

The study of the size, composition, growth, and distribution of human population is called
demography. Three demographic variables are used to project population trends: fertil-
ity, mortality, and migration. Fertility refers to the number of children the average woman
bears while mortality is measured by the crude death rate - the annual number of deaths
per 1,000 population. Known as the basic demographic equation, the growth rate equals
births minus deaths, plus net migration. The growth rate is affected by anticipated variables,
such as the percentage of women who are in their childbearing years, and unanticipated