The sociological discipline, as it came to be constructed from the late 19th century and onwards, deliberately concentrated on human societies, giving little attention to biophysical nature, which is a precondition for its existence and development. Today, sociologists claim that modern environmental problems constitute a challenge to the classical sociological understanding. We have a tension between `environmental realism', which argues that sociologists need to include biophysical facts in their analysis to be able to create knowledge concerning environmental issues, and `environmental constructivism', which argues that sociology should only deal with social facts. By critically discussing these two positions, this article seeks to elaborate a position that alleviates the dichotomy between them.
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