Natural disasters can be traced to weather-related phenomena and therefore can be discussed without any reference to politics or human social behavior. On the surface, natural disasters do not seem to be a sociological issue. However, natural disasters have sociological causes and solutions. Human technological advancements have caused dramatic enough chemical changes in the atmosphere to lead to climatic and geological changes. Those technological advancements were achieved in part due to the exploitation of laborers, a clear sociological issue. Discovering the ideal public policies related to minimizing natural disasters without sacrificing technological growth also requires a sociological mindset. Moreover, natural disasters have definite human consequences in terms of quality of life and social justice. The consequences of natural disasters and their political causes warrant attention to the politics of commerce. Sociological problems of natural disasters are also related to recovery and rescue operations. The sociological implications of natural disasters include causes, repercussions, and solutions.
The causes of natural disasters can be viewed within a sociological context. For example, the Industrial Revolution led to the advent of mass production. Mass production would not have been possible without technological tools, which would not be possible without...
The means by which to develop technological tools includes knowledge management and time spent developing the visionary perspective needed. Mass production also would not have been possible without the elimination of the hereditary social class structures or traditional serfdom. The capitalization of the labor market made it so that the traditional artisan craftsman model gave way to hourly or piecemeal labor. As sociologists like Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim noted, capitalist labor models create alienation. "Alienation allowed commodities to be seen not as the products of labor, which was hidden from consumers, but as fetishes, things imbued with an almost animate power in the world," ("Consumerism," n.d.). Traditional societies are based on subsistence labor, in which the person is intimately connected to the means of production. In modern and postmodern capitalist societies, the owners of the means of production possess all the political power.
With political power comes the potential to make decisions related to the use of natural resources and the repercussions of that use. The repercussions of resource exploitation natural disasters include loss of life and habitat. Other repercussions include battles and disputes over ownership of land and natural resources. Most political disputes and wars can on some…
