Earlier this year flooding in the midwest impacted nearly twelve million people. For days on end, rain was falling in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Oklahoma with nearly 12 inches of downpour. Rivers near St. Louis, Missouri were at dangerously high levels for flooding towns, forcing people to evacuate, and closedown of sewage companies. The Mississippi River flooded rooftops of buildings causing roads to close from Texas to St. Louis. Many people are evacuated incase the levees cannot be upheld from the mass amounts of rainfall and rivers velocity. Through Tennessee floods were rising and flash flood advisories began to start in the carolinas and Georgia. Currently 24 people have died from driving into flooded areas. This event took a toll on many families, livestock and farmlands. Nearly 2,500 Pigs died because there was no way out of the 4-inch of water in Illinois alone. Crops and Farms are threatened by the flooding while beforehand sales rapidly increase due to the knowledge of ruined farmland. The cause most likely is the El Nino weather which has to do with ocean levels rising due to global warming and changing weather patterns.
In chapter one we talked about sociology perspective which is basically how people think or approach sociology. It starts with the beginner’s mind so it is basically a mind with no expectations or opinions of any sort. This is very hard to come by because people often grow up in cultures where they start learning differences and decide based on their preference. Culture Shock is disorientation when entering a new place or culture. This happens to many people depending on whether its moving to a smaller or bigger place, traveling to other states or countries with different lifestyles or expectations they originally come from. As well as, sociological imagination which is understanding the difference between individual circumstances and societal circumstances. An individual problem is a problem that cannot be traces to an obvious source but still has opportunities. A public issue is a group of people are struggling at the same time for the same reasons or social causes. This article represents larger social structural causes because it is much more than just one person impacted by a problem. It is a society of people with the same struggle: flooding. This is a public issue because it is out on one’s control. This would be considered Macrosociology because it studies a large-scale how the lives of groups and individuals are both affected. Climate change is a major controversial topic that is currently impacting the world and large groups of people therefore making this tragic event a problem of society and not individual.
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Britt, Sue, and Kevin Murphy. “Record Flooding Hits U.S. Midwest, Threatens South.” Scientific American, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/record-flooding-hits-u-s-midwest-threatens-south1/.
Current Soc 