Abstract
"How come, that the future world climate is more important for us than the ground on which we live?" asks the Frankfurter Rundschau (2. Aug. 1995, 6, "Am Boden"; translation a.m.) and further on it says: "Maybe one should engage a psychologist. For in the view of the facts the deformation of information, interests and actions cannot be understood: Why does a certainly threatening, but scientifically not yet 100 % confirmed future climatic disaster agitate journalists and politicians in such a way, so that news-headlines are piling up and world summits are organized, whereas the inevitable, partly insidious, the partly acute vanishing of arable land ["Bodensterben"] meets with such disinterest and unwillingness to act?" This is an example of one of the main leading themes of environmental sociology, namely the general problem: why are certain environmental phenomena diagnosed as problematic and brought towards a solution, while others - factually not less "problematic" or "risky" events - are hardly noticed, or not at all? Is this about subjective preferences or social priorities with their corresponding non-justifiable value judgements? Or does the graded attention comply with the factual weightiness of the real, objectively existing problems? Of course this would be desirable, for then it would be possible to direct the praxis of dealing with environmental problems and technological risks rationally, for instance with the help of the principle 'to do the most towards preventing the worst damage'.