The River is Not the Same Anymore: Environmental Awareness and the High River Flood

• In Event: 103 - Regular Session. Environmental Sociology 2

Abstract

Research in environmental sociology contends that even when individuals are well educated about environmental issues, they often take little action to mitigate these problems. This is especially the case in communities that depend economically on fossil fuel extraction or refining. Disasters have the potential to rupture or disrupt a community’s inaction toward environmental problems, as they expose how environmentally harmful practices put families and communities at risk. This qualitative research is based on focus group interviews with 46 individuals in High River, Alberta, a rural community hardest hit by the 2013 Southern Alberta flood. Results indicate that High River residents faced a contradiction; while residents believe that human actions, like deforestation and carbon emissions, have altered the natural environment and placed communities like their own at risk, they also argue that natural forces are immune to human efforts to control them. Although residents did demonstrate some new-found environmental awareness, few spoke of any concrete strategies that they have adopted or could adopt to mitigate environmental hazards. We conclude with a discussion of the ramifications of this study for environmental sociology and public policy.

Authors

• Timothy James Haney, Mount Royal University

• Caroline Beth McDonald-Harker, Mount Royal University