Abstract
By offering a radical reorientation of mainstream sociology, modern social theories illuminate theoretical themes in environmental sociology. Indeed, it has recently begun to contest the honoured epistemological assumption of the environment as an independent, objective reality. New environmental issues such as global warming has actually triggered off to a more direct theoretical concern with the social consequences of environmental degradation and resource management by environmental sociology. That is the reason why ecological alarmism seems to reflect uncertainties and anxieties to the changing character of late modern society. How to apprehend such a complex issue that relies on every societal field? By linking environment to sociology, to what extent does the Beck's Risk society thesis offer a new approach of the crisis the modern societies are facing? As science is closely related to environmental sociology, which keys is it likely to offer us?
