Climate Change and Society

Climate Change and Society PDF Author: John Urry
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745650376
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book explores the significance of human behaviour to understanding the causes and impacts of changing climates and to assessing varied ways of responding to such changes. So far the discipline that has represented and modelled such human behaviour is economics. By contrast Climate Change and Society tries to place the ‘social’ at the heart of both the analysis of climates and of the assessment of alternative futures. It demonstrates the importance of social practices organised into systems. In the fateful twentieth century various interlocking high carbon systems were established. This sedimented high carbon social practices, engendering huge population growth, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the potentially declining availability of oil that made this world go round. Especially important in stabilising this pattern was the ‘carbon military-industrial complex’ around the world. The book goes on to examine how in this new century it is systems that have to change, to move from growing high carbon systems to those that are low carbon. Many suggestions are made as to how to innovate such low carbon systems. It is shown that such a transition has to happen fast so as to create positive feedbacks of each low carbon system upon each other. Various scenarios are elaborated of differing futures for the middle of this century, futures that all contain significant costs for the scale, extent and richness of social life. Climate Change and Society thus attempts to replace economics with sociology as the dominant discipline in climate change analysis. Sociology has spent much time examining the nature of modern societies, of modernity, but mostly failed to analyse the carbon resource base of such societies. This book seeks to remedy that failing. It should appeal to teachers and students in sociology, economics, environmental studies, geography, planning, politics and science studies, as well as to the public concerned with the long term future of carbon and society.

Climate Change and Society

Climate Change and Society PDF Author: John Urry
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745650376
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores the significance of human behaviour to understanding the causes and impacts of changing climates and to assessing varied ways of responding to such changes. So far the discipline that has represented and modelled such human behaviour is economics. By contrast Climate Change and Society tries to place the ‘social’ at the heart of both the analysis of climates and of the assessment of alternative futures. It demonstrates the importance of social practices organised into systems. In the fateful twentieth century various interlocking high carbon systems were established. This sedimented high carbon social practices, engendering huge population growth, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the potentially declining availability of oil that made this world go round. Especially important in stabilising this pattern was the ‘carbon military-industrial complex’ around the world. The book goes on to examine how in this new century it is systems that have to change, to move from growing high carbon systems to those that are low carbon. Many suggestions are made as to how to innovate such low carbon systems. It is shown that such a transition has to happen fast so as to create positive feedbacks of each low carbon system upon each other. Various scenarios are elaborated of differing futures for the middle of this century, futures that all contain significant costs for the scale, extent and richness of social life. Climate Change and Society thus attempts to replace economics with sociology as the dominant discipline in climate change analysis. Sociology has spent much time examining the nature of modern societies, of modernity, but mostly failed to analyse the carbon resource base of such societies. This book seeks to remedy that failing. It should appeal to teachers and students in sociology, economics, environmental studies, geography, planning, politics and science studies, as well as to the public concerned with the long term future of carbon and society.

Climate Change and Society

Climate Change and Society PDF Author: Riley E. Dunlap
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199356122
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
Climate change is one of the most critical issues of the twenty-first century, presenting a major intellectual challenge to both the natural and social sciences. While there has been significant progress in natural science understanding of climate change, social science analyses have not been as fully developed. Climate Change and Society breaks new theoretical and empirical ground by presenting climate change as a thoroughly social phenomenon, embedded in behaviors, institutions, and cultural practices. This collection of essays summarizes existing approaches to understanding the social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of climate change. From the factors that drive carbon emissions to those which influence societal responses to climate change, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of the social dimensions of climate change. An improved understanding of the complex relationship between climate change and society is essential for modifying ecologically harmful human behaviors and institutional practices, creating just and effective environmental policies, and developing a more sustainable future. Climate Change and Society provides a useful tool in efforts to integrate social science research, natural science research, and policymaking regarding climate change and sustainability. Produced by the American Sociological Association's Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change, this book presents a challenging shift from the standard climate change discourse, and offers a valuable resource for students, scholars, and professionals involved in climate change research and policy.

Social Science Perspectives on Climate Change

Social Science Perspectives on Climate Change PDF Author: David Canter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317408381
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
Although it is generally accepted that the climate is changing for the worse and that human activities are a major contributing factor in that change, there is still only marginal response to the challenge posed by climate change. The reasons behind this limited response are becoming clearer through the recognition that climate change is not just a set of physical science facts, but it is also part of a series of complex social processes. Consequently, this book is important in providing social science perspectives on a range of attempts to adjust human activity to reduce its environmental impact. These attempts vary from the changing of the dress code in Japanese offices to the creation of zero-carbon, gated communities in Bangalore, India. Taken together, the contributions to this book provide timely insights into the complexities of saving the planet through human endeavour. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

Historical Perspectives on Climate Change

Historical Perspectives on Climate Change PDF Author: James Rodger Fleming
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198024061
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems.

Perspectives on Climate Change

Perspectives on Climate Change PDF Author: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0762312718
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Explores the interplay between science, economics, politics, and ethics in relation to climate change and the international community.

The Anthropology of Climate Change

The Anthropology of Climate Change PDF Author: Hans Baer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317817672
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
In addressing the urgent questions raised by climate change, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the anthropology of climate change guided by a critical political ecological framework. It argues that anthropologists must significantly expand their focus on climate change and their contributions to responding to climate change as a grave risk to humanity. The book presents a human socioecological framework for conceptualizing climate change. It examines the emergence and slow maturation of the anthropology of climate change; reviews the historic foundations for this work in the archaeology of climate change; and presents three alternative contemporary theoretical perspectives in the anthropology of climate change. The book synthesizes anthropological work and perspectives on climate change in the form of case studies in various regions of the world revealing the nature of global climate change as constituting multiple and somewhat diverse changes in local settings. It explores the applied anthropology of climate change in terms of the ways anthropologists are contributing to climate policy, working with communities on climate change issues, as well as within the climate movement both internationally and nationally. Finally it provides an overview of what other the social sciences are saying about climate change and explores ways that the anthropology of climate change can interface with sociology, political science, and human geography in order to create an integrated social science of climate change. This book gives researchers and students in Environmental Anthropology, Climate Change, Human Geography, and Sociology, a novel framework for understanding climate change that emphasizes human socioecological interactions.

Engaging with Climate Change

Engaging with Climate Change PDF Author: Sally Weintrobe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415667607
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This book explores what climate change means to people. It brings members of a range of disciplines in the social sciences together in discussion, introducing a psychoanalytic perspective.

Why We Disagree about Climate Change

Why We Disagree about Climate Change PDF Author: Mike Hulme
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107268893
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Climate change is not 'a problem' waiting for 'a solution'. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the way we think about ourselves, our societies and humanity's place on Earth. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as an international climate change scientist and public commentator, Mike Hulme provides a unique insider's account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the diverse ways in which it is understood. He uses different standpoints from science, economics, faith, psychology, communication, sociology, politics and development to explain why we disagree about climate change. In this way he shows that climate change, far from being simply an 'issue' or a 'threat', can act as a catalyst to revise our perception of our place in the world. Why We Disagree About Climate Change is an important contribution to the ongoing debate over climate change and its likely impact on our lives.

Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis

Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis PDF Author: Steffen Böhm
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800642636
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging scholars and climate activists from around the world, takes a critical look at what has gone wrong and what is to be done to create more decisive action. Composed of twenty-eight essays—a combination of new and republished texts—the anthology is organised around seven main themes: paradigms; what counts?; extraction; dispatches from a climate change frontline country; governance; finance; and action(s). Through this multifaceted approach, the contributors ask pressing questions about how we conceptualise and respond to the climate crisis, providing both ‘big picture’ perspectives and more focussed case studies. This unique and extensive collection will be of great value to environmental and social scientists alike, as well as to the general reader interested in understanding current views on the climate crisis.

Climate Cultures

Climate Cultures PDF Author: Jessica Barnes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300198817
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our times, yet global solutions have proved elusive. This book draws together cutting-edge anthropological research to uncover new ways of approaching the critical questions that surround climate change. Leading anthropologists engage in three major areas of inquiry: how climate change issues have been framed in previous times compared to present-day discourse, how knowledge about climate change and its impacts is produced and interpreted by different groups, and how imagination plays a role in shaping conceptions of climate change.