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weather patterns. The problems of our oil dependence 

were especially highlighted by the massive 2010 oil 

spill in the Gulf of Mexico. What has yet to become 

clear to the average person, however, are the problems 

with water shortages, an issue that will greatly affect 

everyone. United Nations Secretary General Ban 

 Ki-moon has repeatedly stated that wars will most 

likely be fought over water sources in our lifetime. 

So significant is this stressor that National Geographic 

dedicated an entire issue in April 2010 to the topic of 

water and our thirsty world. Here are some facts that 

will impact you now and in the years to come:

 

■

About 97.5 percent of the earth’s water is salty, with 

only 2.5 percent of earth’s water considered fresh.

 

■

Two-thirds of all fresh water is frozen.

 

■

Many Western states (e.g., Texas, Arizona, and 

California) are draining underground aquifers 

quicker than they can be naturally restored.

 

■

Many fresh-water streams contain hormones 

and antibiotics from prescription drugs flushed 

down toilets and agricultural run-off containing 

petrochemical fertilizers.

 

■

Americans use approximately 100 gallons of 

water at home each day, compared to 5 gallons/

day in developing nations.

 

■

It takes 2,500 gallons of water to make 1 pound 

of hamburger and 1,800 gallons to grow enough 

cotton for a pair of blue jeans.

 

■

Clean water is a huge issue in China, so much 

so that it tried (and failed) to license and export 

fresh water from the Great Lakes region in the 

United States and Canada.

 

■

The Three Gorges Dam in central China will 

cause the earth’s axis to tilt by nearly an inch.

Perhaps the most subtle warning about this discon-

nect from our environment is the news that for the 

first time it has been noted that Americans are not 

 getting enough vitamin D, as explained by nutritionist 

and New York Times reporter, Jane Brody. Vitamin D 

deficiency is due to a lack of exposure to sunlight and 

poor dietary habits. Sunlight is often referred to as the 

sunshine vitamin because, as sunlight reaches the skin, 

it reacts to help form vitamin D. Today people spend 

little time outdoors, denying themselves exposure to 

adequate amounts of sunlight.

Americans may be lacking in the social graces, but in 

the face of global calamities, such as the 2010 earth-

quake in Haiti or the 2008 tsunami in Indonesia, 

Americans are renowned the world over for giving 

generously to the needy in far-away lands. However, 

texting a donation during the Superbowl for earth-

quake relief is far different than face-to-face contact 

and polite social interactions. It’s the direct social con-

tact skills that prove to be sorely lacking in American 

culture today. How good are your social skills in this 

age of incivility? You can begin to find out by com-

pleting Exercises 1.7 and 1.8.

Environmental Disconnect

Even if you don’t listen to the news regularly, it’s hard 

to ignore the impact humanity is having on the state of 

the planet. With a population exceeding 7 billion people, 

the word sustainable has entered the American lexicon 

with great regularity, even if the concept is largely 

ignored by most citizens. Modern society can be said to 

be suffering from an environmental disconnect, a state in 

which people have distanced themselves so much from 

the natural environment that they cannot fathom the 

magnitude of their impact on it. It was predicted many 

years ago by a great many experts and luminaries that 

as humanity distances itself from nature, people will 

suffer the consequences, primarily in terms of com-

promised health status. The term nature deficit disorder 

was coined by award-winning author Richard Louv, in 

Last Child in the Woods, to describe the growing abyss 

between people and the outdoor world. Kids, as it turns 

out, would rather play video games or surf online than 

play  outside—where there are no outlets or WiFi access.

There is an age-old question that states, “How many 

angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Today that 

imponderable question has become, “How many 

humans can sustainably live on planet Earth?” It’s inter-

esting to note that some of the earliest studies on stress 

physiology involved placing an abnormally high number 

of mice in a cage. As their environment, personal space, 

food availability, and quality of life decreased with each 

additional occupant, tension significantly increased. 

The parallels between the environment and behavior of 

those mice and humans today are unavoidable.

By now everyone has not only heard of the issues on 

global warming, but also has experienced the prelimi-

nary effects first hand: violent storms, warm winters, 

hotter summers, more intense droughts, and severe 

 

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planetary healing.” Lipton uses the model of holism 

(where all parts are respected and come together for 

a greater purpose) as the template for his optimism. 

Lipton is among a growing group of social luminaries, 

including Barbara Marx-Hubbard, Jean Houston, 

Christine Page, Edgar Mitchell, Elizabeth Sartoris, 

and Gregg Braden, who share this optimistic para-

digm of humanity’s shifting consciousness (Schlitz, 

2010). In the words of the rock musician Sting, “Yes 

we are in an appalling environmental crisis, but I 

think as a species, we evolve through crises. That’s 

the only glimmer of hope, really” (Richter, 2010). 

Exercise 1.9 invites you to evaluate your relationship 

to the planet’s health.

Race and Gender Stress

One cannot address the issue of the sociology of stress 

without acknowledging the issue of race and gender 

stress. The United States, a nation of immigrants, has 

often been described as a melting pot, but recently 

another metaphor has been used to describe the make-

up of its citizens: a tossed salad, where assimilation 

meets head on with cultural diversity. Race and ethnic 

issues continually make headline news with regard to 

illegal alien issues nationwide, disenfranchised black 

voters in Florida, poverty in New Orleans, and Muslim 

Americans facing episodes of discrimination, to name 

a few. Race and gender tensions, however, are not new. 

It could be argued that they are as old as humanity 

itself. Since time began, people have been threat-

ened by other people of different skin color, ethnicity, 

gender, or sexual preference. The 2008 election of the 

first African American president has helped jumpstart 

a national discussion on race, but it hasn’t resolved the 

issue of intolerance. Like race issues, gender issues 

(and to this we can add sexual orientation issues) are 

also threads in the social fabric once dominated by a 

white patriarchal society, yet this is changing. Despite 

the demographic shifts, the dated cultural perceptions 

of superiority/inferiority persist, and with them the 

biases that go with them.

Stress, you will remember, is defined as a perceived 

threat, a threat generated by the ego. These threats 

manifest in a variety of ways including stereotyping, 

prejudice, discrimination, harassment, and even phys-

ical harm. Race and gender stress may begin early in 

life, too; many children can attest to being bullied in 

school, or excluded and teased by social cliques. The 

Vitamin D isn’t the only nutritional/environmental 

problem. People who saw the documentary film 

Food, Inc. (or who read the book by Karl Weber) are 

acutely aware that the move away from family farms 

to industrial farms in the last few decades has greatly 

compromised the quality of food, primarily chicken 

and beef, and encouraged the proliferation of products 

that use high fructose corn syrup. Changes in the food 

industry, along with inadequate exercise, help explain 

the recent dramatic increase in national obesity levels. 

Genetic engineering of food crops is suggested as a pri-

mary reason for the decimation of half of the world’s 

bee population, which is creating a problem regarding 

the pollination of many crops. But bat and frog pop-

ulations are being decimated as well. The balance of 

nature is, in no uncertain terms, out of balance.

Some of the world’s leading scientists are not opti-

mistic about the future of humanity, given the stresses 

we have put on our environment and, in turn, our-

selves. Physicist Stephen Hawking’s current outlook 

for humanity is grim at best, unless we learn to change 

our ways, and quickly. In a 2010 interview with the 

 Huffington Post he stated, “We are entering an increas-

ingly dangerous period in our history. There have been 

a number of times in the past when survival has been a 

question of touch and go. We are rapidly depleting the 

finite natural resources that Earth provides, and our 

genetic code carries selfish and aggressive instincts.” 

Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson and others now refer 

to the loss of biodiversity in our modern era as the 

“sixth mass extinction” on Earth, with hunting and 

fishing, loss of natural habitat, and pollution as the 

primary causes (Eldridge, 2001). Meanwhile, sociolo-

gist Jared  Diamond, author of the best selling book, 

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail on Success (2005), 

has this message: If positive changes are not made with 

regard to our use of resources and our relationship to 

our natural environment, we, too, will face extinction.

Not all views of humanity are so dire or fatalistic. 

Several, in fact, are quite optimistic—with the caveat 

that we must act now. Consider that of cell biologist 

and philosopher Bruce Lipton. In his book Sponta-

neous Evolution, he states: “Society is beginning to 

realize that our current beliefs are detrimental and 

that our world is in a very precarious position. The 

new science (the nexus of quantum physics, psy-

chology, and biology) paves a way into a hopeful story 

of humanity’s potential future, one that promotes 

Chapter 1

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