Thomas Macias is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of Vermont.  A central question in Macias’ research is what shapes people’s willingness to care and become engaged in environmental issues? While much of the social science literature in this area has focused on how values and beliefs inform environmental action, Macias’s work draws out the ways in which elements of social structure – socioeconomic class, immigration, race, gender, and the experience of environmental injustice – shape the way we understand and relate to the natural world around us.  Like other aspects of modern life, access to nature is unequally distributed, as are the costs of air, water and ground contamination which tends to concentrate among those communities and in those parts of the world with the least economic and political power to protect themselves.  With a focus on environmental justice, Macias’ work calls attention to the central role social inequality plays in both the anthropogenic origins and disproportionate impacts of the current ecological crisis.