Global warming and climate changes are much debated topics these days, especially in the media. Put very roughly, the media debates seem to focus either on "power games" or the schism between those who say that climate change is due to human behavior and excessive CO2 emissions and that we can change this situation if we all stand together - and, on the other hand, those who either deny the existence of climate change or deny the idea that we can do something to prevent the world from getting warmer.

However, every now and then I cannot stop wonder what a "sociology of climate change" would focus on. A marxist view would probably focus on capitalism, global inequality and Western hegemony; a more Foucaultian perspective would probably highlight the social construction of "climate change" and so on. Not that these aren't interesting perspectives - I really think they are - but what else do you think that an ambitious sociology of climate change would have to take into account?

Personally, I guess I would place the question of social change (in the sense of a discussion of why (or why not) and how it would be possible for modern people to live in a way that does not pollute the planet as much as we have done until now ) at a central point, but let me hear what you think?

Best regards
Lars

Hey Lars,

Great question! I think you hit the nail on the head as to what we might expect from a Marxist and a Foucaultian analysis on climate change.

As part of the social change, I think the current crisis and our response to it reflects how human beings see themselves in relation to the environment. We live in a very disconnected (from our environment), self-serving way (consume until you can't, etc). Is it just as bad that we have the naive/arrogant notion we can "fix" global warming? What does the current disappointment of the Copenhagen talks mean?

As a species we've sort of been on this snowball effect whereby we have used our ability to manipulate the environment without taking into account the planet as a whole . So in this way, I think an ambitious sociology of climate change would also be an evolutionary perspective. How have we lived as a species (and not just nationally), how does culture fit into that and what impact does a rapidly changing climate have on our attitudes?

How do humans see themselves? Does living in cities mask or hide the reality of the processes involved in mass production, deforestation, eco-genocide? How does a lack of a coherent awareness of a planetary whole affect a species with the power of industry and technology? Alot of these are more questions than answers...

Personally, not a sociologist or anthropologist but an independent scientist, James Lovelock is who I resonate strongly with. The problem is a lack of a developed perspective. We still have a lot to learn about our own intelligence and how our activities impact the Earth, which functions far more dynamically than we are yet to be knowledgeable about.

These are all a lot of vague, big ideas so I guess I'll end my reflection here.

From my perspective, Sociology of Climate Change, would have to focus on the interaction between human social systems and ecological systems. Do not discount a 'Marxist' interpretation of climate change because the historical-materialist analysis provided by a Marxist framework could direct inquiry toward developing the social accounting of resource management, resource consumption, etc. From my own experience, try reviewing world-systems scholars who focus on energy (Peter Grimes and Andrew Jorgenson come to mind).

Further to Hypocrates' point that a sociology of climate change would have to focus on the interactions between human and non-human systems, it strikes me that Actor-Network Theory could be a fruitful methodological approach. It also strikes me that the term "climate change" requires a lot of unpicking in order to determine what it is we're actually looking at!

There is actually already quite a large body of sociological research on climate change. See a summary of the US National Science Foundation workshop on the topic here: http://ireswb.cc.ku.edu/~crgc/NSFWorkshop/index.html . (The report link on the bottom contains a very detailed PDF).

It shouldn't be that hard to plug in climate-change related variables into any macro models of society, or visa versa. Since there are plenty of disciplines working on climate change already, the real benefit of sociological input into this would be to provide for more accurate variables depicting human activity. So I think the approach to take is to start with various environmental science models and see how we can make their independent variables for large-scale human activity have greater veracity. It seems like Stratification would be the best place to search for such variables.

I love the idea of bringing in an evolutionary perspective for a more ambitious approach to this. It would be really interesting if this would be a way to tie gene-environment interactions and gene-cultural co-evolution together with stratification theories etc into a comprehensive model of cognitive/biological/morphological social change.

I'll buy the usefulness of Foucault or Latour here if you can convince me that either of their approaches can lead to models that will help us predict climate change, or even be able to meaningfully interact with the present body of research on it from the natural sciences. As with other parts of the discipline, I think the contributions that sociology will make will stem from its solid empirical focus and its diverse & sophisticated methodological toolkit, not from these social philosophers.

(And yes, sociology would be far more effective if it had comprehensive theory from which to immediately make a-priori inferences, like econ--but were are not there right now. I am hopeful that we can get there in the next 20 years though, starting with the work of Harrison White or John Levi Martin.)

Didn't Andre Gorz nail this question dead with Ecology as Politics (1st english edition 1978?).

He might have, but since my french is almost non-existing, I can't read the Wikipedia link. What is it he claims that nails this question dead?

Sorry Lars,
Gorz specifically focused on the political aspects of the system of resource control and distribution that currently threaten the ecology and how the state - whose interest is longer term than profit seeking entities - would move towards ecological modes of action in order to ensure its own survival (and of course the replication and maintenance of state elites). I have a couple of his articles (on similar theme) in english translation in pdf if you want to take a look.

ECHOecho - are you certain that sociology would be far more effective if it had a mathematical structure to it &/or was more like economics? Society seems to me to be far too messy to be reducible to numbers and economics looks far too speciously like the theology of capitalism to be worth emulating.
Finally, isn't cognitivism itself something of a dead duck? The latter Wittgenstein (especially here), the loughborough school of Discursive Psychology (e.g.) and a general 'discursive turn' in social & cultural studies seems to be eclipsing it somewhat.

@Rykalski, as long as Wittgenstein is on the table, let's remember that anything that can be said at all, can be said clearly. And if something can be said clearly (that is, with precise definitons and exact logic), then it can be described mathematically. This is not to say that all math models are accurate descriptions of reality--but any accurate description of reality can be made into a math model. If a phenomenon is messy or complex, it is no excuse to describe it without clarity. It just represents something that we have not yet discovered how to describe. Most likely, if we cannot describe it clearly, we should be modest and not claim that we can describe it at all.

Econ has some serious flaws--the biggest of which is that much of macro is (was?) too comfortable with treating its own theory and models as if it itself was proof (though some branches of Soc can be blamed of this, too, I think mainstream Soc is far better at being strictly empirical, at least in the US). Soc should certainly not imitate that. Econ is also very doctrinaire about its models, which is also not good:it is far more of an intellectual monoculture than soc.

But nobody who has seriously engaged economics can claim that it is "merely" a theology--much of micro-economics is highly rigorous and strongly supported by evidence. Micro is fabulously successful at creating accurate predictive models in its domain (e.g., business operations). It's theory is clear, precise, and well-elucidated. Since the theory is formally defined, there is consensus about what the theory itself predicts--and thus the discipline can actually make a-priori inferences with some success (though oftentimes econ itself is too comfortable with these inferences). Most sociological theory does not have this level of clarity.

As far as cog sci goes, it is easily the most successful discipline in the United States right now. It number of departments is ballooning quickly, it is developing a strong theoretical foundation, and its foothold in the constituent disciplines (mostly psych, neuro, philosophy, linguistics--but increasingly anthro and econ) also keeps on growing. I am optimistic about seeing its growth in sociology in the next decade, too--there are some good sociologists of culture on the scene that are engaging it much more deeply than the previous generation. In the US, the discursive turn has been over for about a half-decade now.

The institutional success of a discipline has nothing to do with its intellectual force and everything to do with its connexions with the structures of power in a society. The success of cognitivism ought to be analysed sociologically not uncritically welcomed.

Further given that neurology is painting itself into a conner in regard of the possibility of communication or interaction (this is the implication of its brain activity is prior to 'voluntary' action model (set out in many places but here is a start) it would seem that as a field it is in denial about the very existence of society. Not a very useful approach to adopt for the study of society.

I really mean this. Consider this from the absract of the article above;
"Electrophysiological findings in humans who are performing voluntary acts, indicate that the intention to act, follows brain activity rather than preceding it. "
How is this conversation possible if 'we' are just the effect of brian electro-chemistry?

What is tempting to Sociology in this sciencism and mathematicisation is the borrowing of the parrhesiastic clothes of Science proper and not in the development of greater understanding.

Wait, if huge numbers of academics in various disciplines are being convinced by the data and arguments of cogntive science, you think that power structures are the best explanation? Would that mean that, if I was convinced by your argument, it would be because of some sort of power structure as well? Or are only people you disagree with pawns to power structures?

If the quote you cite is properly supported by data, then it is true. That is the only criteria for truth: not how much it aligns with your political and disciplinary programs. On the other hand, if it is false, you should be able to demonstrate that with data as well. Denouncing it as false because you don't like it's implications independent of whether or not it is supported by data is (to use your favorite term) the very definition of ideology.

The cognitive world is quite split about the role of society in brain function. The mirror neuron people and people from soc psychology give lots of power to social activity, and the ones coming from the evolutionary perspective give little. It's an open debate, as it should be--because nobody actually knows where the social begins and ends.

As far as this "understanding" bit goes, what kind of "understanding" is it if you can't describe it clearly or prove it by evidence--and especially if you oppose the very idea of rigorous proof by evidence in the first place? If you "understand" something without evidence showing that it's true or not, and especially without a precise enough phrasing to even enable the gathering of evidence, you have no "understanding" at all--rather, all you have is rehashing of language, self-righteous finger pointing, political witch-hunts, and denunciation of imaginary conspiracies. The point of insisting on precise definitions, rigorous evidence, and analytic clarity (which is what the math/science bits come down to) is specifically to develop actual, true, deep understanding.

Sociology was founded to be a science of society, and has overwhelmingly remained that. It is only the crit theory and pomo types in the 1960s-1990s who tried to hijack the discipline into a political project (Marx was not written into the sociology canon until the 1960s).

Power is always a good starting point for the history of ideas/ sociology of concepts. The whole of SSK and Foucault's many works in this field suggest so.

What data do you think a discipline can create that is self-critical of the discipline? If you cause the data to come into existence it will support your epistemo-methedological position because it was made by it.

Truth is a function of discourse. In Science they have a very special discourse for establishing that which is both true and useful for them and they still cannot exclude the most foolish ideas from colonising there field.

Take psychiatry as a starting point.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments on this thread.

Sounds interesting with that Gortz guy - I don''t really have the time to dig further into it however, but I am pretty sure that I get the basic point he's trying to make.

A rather obvious contribution to the sociology of climate change, which I forgot initially, is of course Ulrich Becks "Risk Society" ! In that book, he very much discusses the ways human societies are exposed to and deal with environmental threats and he does so along the lines of a Marxian class perspective.

And thanks to Rykalski and ECHOecho for the interesting digression about cognitive science vs. power studies!

Perhaps the works that appear in this series will provide some of the answers.
Critical Climate Change