William R. Catton, Jr. (born January 15, 1926) is an American sociologist best known for his scholarly work in environmental sociology and human ecology. His intellectual approach is broad and interdisciplinary. Catton's repute extends beyond academic social science due primarily to his 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. Catton has written three other books, including From Animistic to Naturalistic Sociology. In addition he has authored numerous scholarly articles, book chapters and book reviews. In 2008 he is working on a new book, titled Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse. He is retired from academic life and lives in Lakewood, Washington, USA.
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William Catton was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 15, 1926. He served in the US Navy from 1943-46. After his military service he enrolled at Oberlin College, where he met Nancy Lewis. The two were married in 1949 and remain married in 2008. They have four sons, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Catton graduated from Oberlin College with an A.B. degree in 1950, whereupon he entered the graduate program in sociology at the University of Washington. He earned his M.A. there in 1952 and his Ph.D. in 1954. He is now Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Washington State University. Catton served as president of the Pacific Sociological Association 1984-85 and as the first chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Environmental Sociology.[1]
William Catton started his professional career as a mainstream sociologist, without a special focus on the environment. However, in the course of his early research he worked with John Hendee, a USFS forest ranger, and Frank Brockman, a National Parks naturalist who became Professor of Forestry at the University of Washington. Catton became sensitized to population issues by noting the congestion at campgrounds in the natural parks he visited in the northwest US and Canada. He was also influenced by the museum exhibits in the Visitor Centers in these parks.
From an early point in his career Catton was dissatisfied with the qualitative slant of sociology and wanted to put the discipline on a more quantitative and thus scientific footing. He felt that this orientation would help sociologists guide human societies to a better future. This "neopositivist" attitude was directed towards ecological issues after Catton resigned his position at the University of Washington in 1970 and moved to the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He had become discouraged by the rapidly swelling student body at his old university, and by the adverse social effects of a sharp population increase in the Puget Sound region.
In New Zealand, Catton once again associated with foresters and became familiar with that country's national park system. His "Aha!" moment came at the Visitor Center in Westland National Park. An exhibit there represented the case of land newly made bare by a receding glacier. It showed the sequence of changes in vegetation at increasing distances from the retreating ice, representing earlier and earlier time periods. This example of ecological succession - the transformation of ecosystems over time - showed plant species altering their environment, thereby making it less suitable for them but more suitable for successor species. Another revelation came when he picked up the book Violence, Monkeys, and Man, which reinforced his personal view that higher population is associated with greater stress and violence. With these two experiences, Catton's broad aim to make sociology more scientific became the specific aim to make the discipline more cognizant of the biogeochemical processes associated with the environment. This paradigm shift led quickly to the writing project that produced Overshoot.[2]
Overshoot was started during Catton’s three years in New Zealand, and completed after he returned to the US in 1973 to become Professor of Sociology at Washington State University. It took considerable time in the late 1970s for him to find a reputable publisher who did not assume that the market for books on ecology was saturated, so Overshoot was not published until 1980. During this period Catton, in collaboration with fellow scholar Riley Dunlap, produced a series of influential articles on ecological issues. Although Overshoot has never been a major seller, it has remained in print continuously since 1980, and it has recently been translated into Russian and Spanish.[3]
The core message in Overshoot is that, "... our lifestyles, mores, institutions, patterns of interaction, values, and expectations are shaped by a cultural heritage that was formed in a time when carrying capacity exceeded the human load. A cultural heritage can outlast the conditions that produced it. That carrying capacity surplus is gone now, eroded both by population increase and immense technological enlargement of per capita resource appetites and environmental impacts. Human life is now being lived in an era of deepening carrying capacity deficit. All of the familiar aspects of human societal life are under compelling pressure to change in this new era when the load increasingly exceeds the carrying capacities of many local regions—and of a finite planet. Social disorganization, friction, demoralization, and conflict will escalate."[4] Catton here also coined the term Cosmeticism for "faith that relatively superficial adjustments in our activities will keep the New World new and will perpetuate the Age of Exuberance."
Overshoot continues to be a source of conceptual insight and existential inspiration regarding the ecological basis of human societies, especially to those aware of the massive threat posed by peak oil, climate change and other ecological pressures Catton either identified or anticipated. Years ahead of its time because of the clarity of formulation of a fully ecological paradigm, the book supplies scientific analysis of what E.O. Wilson has called "The Bottleneck" of ecological pressures and threats resulting from human actions on the natural environment.
William Catton came of age in sociology when the major debates in the field were about theoretical orientation (structural-functionalism or consensus theory versus Marxism or conflict theory), and methodology (quantitative versus qualitative). His inherent attraction to nature and understanding of how the earth’s ecosystems operate afforded him the insight that all human social systems, including the economy, operate within the parameters of the natural ecology.
Catton’s primary contribution is the articulation of an intellectual framework that synthesizes sociological and ecological theory. He has shown that the prevalent idea of human control over nature being a great achievement was in fact a reflection of the exploitation of natural resources that seemed limitless but were actually finite.
One of his critical observations is that, “Monumental social changes (and troubles) in the 21st century will be misunderstood (and thus worsened, I believe) insofar as people ... continue interpreting events according to a [pre-ecological] worldview that insufficiently recognizes human society’s ultimate dependence on its ecosystem context.”[4]