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The world community has long striven for the liquidation of chemical weapons of mass destruction. The 1925 Geneva treaty “On the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacterial Methods of Warfare” was the first international accord on chemical weapons prohibition. Signed by 125 countries, the USSR ratified the treaty in December 1927. The later development of the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and their Destruction” (henceforth “the Convention”) followed this early step and was undertaken with Russia's active participation. The Convention was signed by the Russian Federation in January 1993 and ratified by the State Duma in November 1997 with the decision to end chemical weapons stockpiling by 2007. As a signatory, Russia accepted international responsibilities for solving many interrelated problems, paramount among them was the protection of people and the environment (The Convention…, 1994, item 4).

This paper is about some of my experiences as a sociologist, doing research at the Love Canal. The Love Canal remains an important story, because it aroused the consciousness of the world to the human and social consequences of environmental pollution. As an indication of continuing interest in that area, the 25th anniversary ceremonies at the site, early in August 2003, were well attended and publicized nationally by the mass media.

In a seminal essay, Mumford (1963) argued that society is forced to adapt to the demands of the technological systems it chooses. He distinguished between what he called “Authoritarian” and “Democratic” technics. Societies choosing the former path select technological and energy systems that are high risk and therefore demand authoritarian, centralized, secretive and closed social controls. In contrast, the second low-risk path allows for decentralized, open, participatory and democratic control. The two directions, and thus the resulting social forms, could not be more contradictory.¹ Democratic technics, not Authoritarian, are necessary for a sustainable future.

What are the dynamics of a contaminated community – in Russia or the U.S.? These six diverse chapters chart what I have called “Environmental Turbulence,” the disrupted complacency of everyday life caused by accepting information about one's exposure to environmental contamination as fact. The Theory of Environmental Turbulence (Edelstein 2004) posits that normal social and institutional networks regularly fail to help toxic victims address their needs, forcing victims to band together in common response.

The deteriorating relationship between humans and the environment is a cause for our concern. On one hand, the human influence on nature has resulted in global climate change and a decline in the health of the world's oceans. On the other hand, it is evident that humans cannot adapt to new ecological conditions, as evidenced by new diseases. Is there any way out of the crisis?

Personal life experience is not sufficient for an adequate environmental risk evaluation. People cannot understand environmental danger without having necessary information. Once established, however, environmental awareness has a direct influence on people's evaluations and, consequently, on their lifestyles (Sjoberg, 1996).

The 20th century was characterized by increased risk to both natural ecosystems and humanity due to the combined effect of fast industrial development and the increasing scarcity of natural resources. The former Soviet Union was one of the most polluted regions on earth. Within the country, it became necessary to delineate zones of recognized ecological disaster. This condition resulted from a policy that placed industrial development as the highest priority and the well-being of people and nature as the lowest. We created “industrial monsters” that rapidly consumed natural and human health alike. Beyond such well-known ecological disasters as the Aral Sea and the Bashkirian and Chernobyl disasters, other severe ecological problems screamed out across the nation for attention. No place was immune from such tragedy, even the relatively small town of Kirishi, Leningradskaya oblast, an hour's train ride north from St. Petersburg.

Local landfills in communities across the US are the battlegrounds in the conflict between our desire to consume goods at an extraordinary rate and our inability to deal with waste that is a by-product of this consumption. Despite efforts to reduce the amount of wastes generated through source reduction, in 2003, US residences, businesses, and institutions produced more than 236 million tons of municipal solid waste (trash and garbage), approximately 4.5 pounds of waste per person per day (EPA, 2003a). Also in 2003, 16,694 generators of regulated hazardous waste accounted for more than 30 million tons of hazardous wastes, more than half a pound of hazardous wastes per person per day (EPA, 2003b).

In both natural sciences and social sciences, there is relative agreement about the fact that the 20th century saw great diminishment of the earth's natural resources. In addition to dwindling materials and space for human activities, our industrial mode of natural resource consumption brought various ecological problems, including waste, and pollution of water, soil, and air.¹ The specifics of any given social system influence an individual's perception of pollution of the surrounding environment and its consequences, and also influence the reaction of a society in general to ecological problems. In other words, different societies develop different collective and individual strategies for coping with problematic situations related to “technogenic” pollution of the environment. This article, based as it is on an in-depth case study, analyzes the peculiar relationship of people to ecological issues in Russian society. Research was carried out in the city Dzerzhinsk, which, throughout the Soviet period, was proudly called the “Capital of Soviet Chemistry.” This city is thus a demonstrable example of the Soviet period, and the history of the city will serve as a lens through which we will analyze contemporary ecological problems of the city and the relations of its citizens to these problems. Dzerzhinsk was selected for study after it was described in newspapers as “the dirtiest (i.e., most polluted) city in Russia.”

Russia represents one of the world's most dangerous ecological risk zones. Yet, the risk is not evenly distributed within the country. Certain areas of Russia show a disproportionately heavy concentration of pollution and present an even higher ecological risk than the country as a whole. Making a major contribution to the list of areas at greatest risk are the “ZATO.” These unique “Closed Administrative Territorial Establishments” are Russian settlements or cities containing large nuclear enterprises; they are held in a state of extreme secrecy and security. Despite the end of the cold war, ZATO persist and their production activities continue to cause terrible damage to the environment and to the health of their residents. Additionally, the sites of closed former ZATO represent lasting ecological and health threats.