Environmental sociologists have identified various facets of anthropogenic ecological degradation such as deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, natural resource depletion, and water and land pollution. Virtually all of these outcomes are encompassed by one important dimension—the introduction of “entropy” or disorder via processes of production, consumption, and waste creation that are critical to understanding current cleavages in sustainability profiles of nations. This article synthesizes thermodynamic laws with global political-economic interpretations on the environment. A cross-national structural equation model demonstrates the theoretical and empirical importance of entropy as it relates to natural resources and environmental degradation. Conclusions and implications for research in environmental sociology, particularly, and sociology, generally, are discussed.
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