Social inventions for environmental solutions and filling institutional blanks

The relationship between social and biophysical phenomena received little or no attention by early sociologists. In the early 1960s, rural and general sociologists began to take a specific interest in this unattended area. In examining relationships between the biophysical environment and changing human society, the institutional arrangements for social and environmental systems often have been missing or have existed only in an elemental piecemeal state. These missing institutions are conceptualized as ''institutional blanks.'' The accelerating needs for environmental solutions require many of these blanks to be filled. Accomplishing this will require social inventions. Social scientists have the knowledge and skills to invent needed new systems to fill the institutional blanks in environmental problems.