The Environment and Technology Section

Climate Change Teach-In

Course Specific Resources

 

Social Problems:

Courses in Social Problems might consider questions such as: How has climate change been created as a social problem by different interest groups? How does climate change reflect larger questions of how social problems rise and fall in urgency in our society? What examples can be found of social problems indirectly linked to climate change? Does climate change interact with other social problems in particular ways? See general resources above and also peruse specific ideas for other courses.

Introduction to  Sociology:

Introductory courses in Sociology might consider questions such as: How does social inequality influence different social groups' vulnerability to climate change? See also other questions and readings listed under media, religion, race, etc below.

Sociology of Religion:

What role do environmental problems play in re-shaping religious communities today? How has the consideration of environmental problems as moral issues changed over time? How has climate change in particular split the evangelical community? What is the significance of a religious dimension of the environmental movement? How might this intersect (or not) with secular aspects of the movement?

Internet Resources.

See Bill Moyers seris On American, episode “Is God Green?”http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/green/watch.html#faith

See entire show, and scroll down to links to two additional short segments:

  • Global warming
    In 2002 a conference at Oxford University brought top scientists and religious leaders together for the first time.

  • The Evangelical Climate Initiative
    In February 2006, a group of 86 respected evangelical Christian leaders from across the nation unveiled a campaign for environmental reform and put out a statement calling on all Christians to push for federal legislation that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions in an effort to stem global warming.

Readings on Religion and the Environment (not specific to climate change):

Gottlieb Roger S. 2006 A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future. Oxford University Press

Hendricks, Stepahnie 2005 Divine Destruction: Wise Use, Dominion Theology and the Making of American Environmental Policy Melville House, Hoboken, NJ

McGraw, Barbara 2003 Rediscovering America’s Sacred Ground: Public Religion and the Pursuit of the Good in a Pluralistic America SUNY Press Albany

Tucker, Mary Evelyn 2003 Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase Open Court, Chicago.

Sociology of Media

Courses on Sociology of the Media might address the host of interesting studies on media framing of climate change.

Internet Resources

Episode of On the Media with interview of Ross Gelbspan from 2004:
http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_090304_reality.html

Ross Gelbspan’s website with updated news stories on climate change from around the world
http://www.heatisonline.org/

Readings:
Antilla, Liisa. 2005.  Climate of skepticism:  US newspaper coverage of the science of climate change  Global Environmental Change (pdf)

Boykoff, M. and Boykoff, J. 2004.  Balance as bias:  global warming and the US prestige press.  Global Environmental Change (pdf)

Dispensa, Jaclyn, and Brulle, Robert J, 2003, “Media’s Social Construction of Environmental Issues:  Focus on Global Warming” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Vol. 23, (10) 74-105 (pdf)

See work by journalist Ross Gelbspan in The Heat is On (1997) and Boiling Point (2004).

Resources:
The Crying Indian Commercial - 1971  http://www.kab.org/media.asp?id=246&rid=250

Competitive Enterprise Institute Commercials 
http://www.cei.org/pages/co2.cfm

Environmental Defense Global Warming Commercial:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-_LBXWMCAM

Political Sociology/ Social Movements

Anti Global Warming Mobilization

Readings
Hertsgaard, M. 2006.  While Washington Slept. Vanity Fair, May 2006

McCright, Aaron M., and Dunlap, Riley E. 2003.  Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy  Social Problems, August 2003, Vol. 50, No. 3, Pages 348-373  (pdf)

Buell, F. 2004.  From Apocalypse to Way of Life:  Environmental Crisis in the American Century.  Routledege: New York   Chapter One - The Politics of Denial, and Chapter Two - Taking Crisis Seriously

Brulle, Robert and Jenkins, J. Craig. Is the U.S. Environmental Movement Dead? Forthcoming. Contexts.(pdf)

Bluhdorn, Ingolfur. Symbolic Politics and the Politics of Simulation: Eco-political Practice in the Late-Modern Condition. (pdf)

Intermountain Rural Electric Association 2006  Memorandum on global climate change political response, July 19, 2006 (pdf)

Other Internet Resources
Competitive Enterprise Institute Commercials  http://www.cei.org/pages/co2.cfm
Greenpeace Site - tracing funding flows from Exxon-Mobil’s anti global warming campaign: 
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
Recent BBC series on Climate Skeptics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/11/climate_sceptics.html

Sociology of Health and Illness/Medical Sociology

Epstein, P. 2000.  Health and Climate Change  in Gomez-Echeverri (ed). Climate Change and Development  Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies: New Haven CT. (pdf)

Campbell-Lendrum, D. 2005.  How much does the health community care about global environmental change?  Global Environmental Change 15 (pdf)

Sociology of Emotions

Role of Emotions in Denial and Climate Change

  • Norgaard, K.M. 2006.  “People want to protect themselves a little bit”: Emotions, Denial and Social Movement Nonparticipation.  Sociological Inquiry, Vol 76(3) (pdf)

Social Stratification and Environmental Justice

Courses in Social Stratification and Environmental Justice might consider how people’s experience of climate change are organized by race, class and gender. The racialized dimension of exposure to “natural disasters” such as hurricanes obviously hit the public consciousness after Hurricane Katrina. On the opposite end of the inequality spectrum, privileged people may encounter emotions of guilt regarding their perpetuation of the problem.

Internet Resources:

Climate Justice
http://www.ejcc.org/

Social Science Research Center on Understanding Katrina:
(http://www.understandingkatrina.ssrc.org)
The website discusses issues pertaining to environmental policy and global warming and Katrina.

Social Psychology

Social Psychology courses might discuss how people perceive climate change, including how they fail to process information about this topic:

Readings:

Bazerman, M. 2006.  Climate Change as a predictable surprise.  Climate Change 77. (pdf)

Norgaard, K.M. 2006.  “People want to protect themselves a little bit”: Emotions, Denial and Social Movement Nonparticipation.  Sociological Inquiry, Vol 76(3) LINK TO NORGAARD A

Ungar, S. 2000.  Why Climate Change is not in the air:  Popular culture and the Whirlwind Effect, Proceedings of the Conference on Climate Change Communication, June 22-24, 2000

Weber, E. 2006.  Experience-based  and Description-based perceptions of long term risk:  Why global warming does not scare us (yet)  Climate Change 77 (pdf)

 

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American Sociological Association Section on Environment and Technology
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