Allan Schnaiberg (August 20, 1939 – June 6, 2009) was an American sociologist known especially for his contributions to environmental sociology. At the time of his death, Schnaiberg was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
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Born in Montreal on August 20, 1939, Schnaiberg was the son of Belle and Harry Schnaiberg.[1] According to his curriculum vitae, he "Attended McGill University for four years, majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Mathematics. After graduating with distinction in general science, worked for one year as an analytic chemist, and two years as a metallurgical engineer."[2] He received his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1968 from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; his dissertation was entitled "Some determinants and consequences of modernism in Turkey". He became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He joined the sociology faculty at Northwestern University in 1969 and served as sociology department chairman from 1976-1979, receiving numerous honors and awards for his scholarship over the years. He retired from Northwestern in 2008 but remained actively engaged in his field.
Allan Schnaiberg was a brilliant and incisive critical analyst. He was the author of over 70 scholarly articles and books on topics ranging from globalization and the environment to labor and social inequality. His contribution to the sociological understanding of the relationship between social systems and ecosystems was groundbreaking, prescient, and enduring. Although he never accepted the designation of “environmental sociologist” he was a founder of the subfield, providing it with a deeply rigorous analytical foundation. His “Treadmill of Production” framework for understanding the social causes and consequences of environmental problems formed the first, and arguably still the most comprehensive and influential sociological approach to understanding environmental problems. His 1980 book, The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity remains one of, if not the most important work in the field, and a necessary point of departure for any student of environmental sociology. His work was motivated by a deep and sincere concern for people’s quality of life. The body of work that he produced has remained central to intellectual debate in environmental sociology. Many of his earliest insights have come to be accepted as basic premises of socioenvironmental analysis, although they were far from such when he first theorized them, such as:
In addition to The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity, Allan Schnaiberg co-authored four books with his former students: Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict (St. Martin’s Press 1994; Blackburn Press 2000), Local Environmental Struggles: Citizen Activism in the Treadmill of Production (Cambridge University Press 1996), Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development (Princeton University Press 2000), and The Treadmill of Production: Injustice and Unsustainability in the Global Economy (Paradigm Publishers 2008).
Schnaiberg received the Distinguished Contribution Award of the Section on Environment and Technology, American Sociological Association, in 1984. A few years later, he was elected Chair-elect (1990-91), and then served as Chair (1992-93) of that Section.[3]