How can sociology contribute to the understanding of climate change?

Climate change is arguably the most significant issue of this age and the situation is not improving. It has
been argued that if people around the world do not change their ways and if governments and world
bodies do not act now with policy to mitigate the effects of climate change, then the world will become
not only unsustainable but unliveable. This issue of climate change has been relatively silent in
mainstream sociology over the past two decades. Consequently, this and other reasons has meant that
sociology has been underrepresented in climate change research, with the natural sciences, such as
Geography or Biology, taking the lead in this crucial study area. With so much as stake when discussing
the future of humanity why does sociology fall behind so much in mainstream climate change research?
Additionally, what research has been done in the field of sociology and what could sociology contribute
to the understanding of climate change? By the same token, this gives the implication of asking what
sociology could also contribute to tackling climate change and what it could bring to policy making in
this subject area. Therefore, it is crucial to justify that this essay will interpret the question as to what
sociology can bring to climate change research, both looking at causes and solutions to the problem.
Firstly, it is important to understand as to why sociology has been so quiet in mainstream climate
change research and similarly, as to why the issue of climate change is so quiet in mainstream sociology.
Subsequently, each paragraph will set out a different point, with either a way which sociology can
become more involved with climate change or an idea from sociology that would contribute to the
understanding and research of the issue.

When it comes to key climate change research and policy making in this area, sociology is
underrepresented (Lockie 2013, cited in Bhatasara, 2015). This is backed up by Bjurstrom and Polk who
say that in major reports on climate change, the social sciences, which clearly incorporates sociology,
are only minor elements (2011, cited in Brulle and Dunlap, 2015). Instead, this climate change research
is often dominated by the natural sciences, with the natural sciences also being the subject areas that
are advising national and international bodies and influencing climate change policy. With all that
sociology could bring to the subject of climate change (which will be discussed later), why is this field so
absent from important climate change discussion, research and policy? Brulle and Dunlap (2015) suggest
that the historical dominance shown by the natural sciences has meant that the other sciences and
subject areas have struggled to gain a foothold in climate change research. However, although it cannot
be said necessarily about other subject areas, climate change has rarely been discussed in mainstream
sociology either. This had been pointed out in Lever-Tracy's research (2008) where she searched in a
selection of mainstream sociology journals for specific climate change related words to which she
consequently found no results. This highlighted the lack of sociological research that was being read and
discussed by those involved in sociology and this therefore could be used as an argument as to why
sociology is not influential in climate change research and policy. However, this argument is limited
because it is more likely that the reason why climate change is not discussed in mainstream sociology is
because of sociologists’ lack of faith that their research will have influence. For this reason, it makes
sense that a sociologist would choose to research a different area that has higher probability of having a
larger significance to the field.

Clearly, there has been a call from those sociologists that have been doing climate change research to
get mainstream sociological journals to cover more of these climate-related articles in order to get more
sociologists involved. This call has been somewhat answered. There has been an increased number of
climate-related contributions to the leading journals of sociology since Lever-Tracy's paper of 2008
(Koehrsen et al., 2020). Lever-Tracy's paper was clearly influential because despite environmental
sociologist having a principal focus in humans' relationships with their environment, they only started
concentrating on global climate change shortly after the publication of this paper (Nagel et al., 2010).
But although mainstream sociology has seen an increase in climate change research, there is still
suggestion that the natural scientific community still has domination in the field and that more
sociologists need to engage with climate change research. Norgaard highlights this with a section at the
end of their paper ‘The sociological imagination in a time of climate change’ where they call out
sociologists to be more involved in climate change research and policy (Norgaard, 2018). So evidently,
this increase of climate change research in mainstream sociology has not been significant enough and
that mainstreaming climate change within the discipline is limited as of yet (Koehrsen et al., 2020).

So, what role can the social sciences, and in particular sociology, play in climate change research? The
first major engagement of the social sciences in climate change has been to get more social scientists
engaged with the topic, which is a reason as to why the social sciences have been less active in climate
change research. More recently, there is much more emphasis on creating models and the social
scientists figuring out how they should study climate change rather than whether they will engage with
it. The first thing that has been argued so that sociology can be more involved in climate change
research is that sociologists should get involved in interdisciplinary climate change research. Koehrsen
et al. (2020) argues that most research should be interdisciplinary and cover multiple fields in order to
fully understand the problems at hand and produce a wide range of information and knowledge. More
specifically for climate change research, sociologists could introduce conceptual and methodological
knowledge along with empirical evidence from their field on the causes and impacts of climate change
and this would significantly enhance our understanding of the issue. Norgaard argues that this
interdisciplinary research between natural and social scientists is vital. She argues that it is necessary
that not only the impacts of human action on the earth’s biophysical system is research but also
studying how this environmentally damaging social structure has come about. But as important as
interdisciplinary research is, there must be some fluency between disciplinary and interdisciplinary
study. This is because it would be detrimental to the field of sociology if knowledge gained from
sociological interdisciplinary research was not fed back to the discipline of sociology and sociological
journals (Koehrsen et al., 2020). It is also worth mentioning not only what sociology can bring to climate
change research but also what climate change research can bring to the field of sociology. Engaging with
climate change research will create disciplinary resources for sociology by challenging its foundations
and the norms of the subject (Koehrsen et al., 2020). Furthermore, with climate change being one of the
most pressing issues in the present world, if not the most important, one could also suggest that a
subject involved in its research would benefit through more financial backing in the form of research
grants to expand and improve peoples’ understanding of sociology as well as their understanding of
climate change.

One of the most important areas which sociology can significantly contribute to climate change
understanding is public opinion. According to the U.S. National Research Council of 2010 (as cited in
Shwom et al., 2015), public support is commonly acknowledged as being a crucial factor in framing
society’s response to climate change. This is especially important with much of climate change response
being in the form of the actions of individuals. Furthermore, the public has an extremely important role
in policy. If there is a lack of public consideration on an issue, then this usually translates into a lack of
policy action in the area (Mora, 2014). Research from Gallup demonstrates this. Gallup found from his
research that around 39% of individuals globally were ignorant to the term “global warming” or “climate
change” and of the 61% who were aware of these terms, only 67% viewed climate change as a serious
threat. Hence, only 41% of individuals worldwide saw climate change as a significant problem and this
number translates to why there was such little policy action at the time (Gallup 2007 & 2008, cited in
Shwom et al., 2015). Franzen and Vogl (2013, cited in Shwom et al., 2015) suggest that the individuals in
more economically prosperous countries show high levels of concern for the environment and climate
change. This would make sense considering that people from higher GDP per capita countries tend to be
better educated and therefore likely to be well-informed with the issue of climate change. Furthermore,
these countries have the larger companies that are arguably one of the main causes of the problem
through unsustainable means of production. However, the lower GDP per capita countries have acted
more in the face of the problem because they are worse effected by it. For example, rural farmers
having to change their farming strategies in line with the changing weather patterns caused by climate
change (Moghariya and Smardon, 2014, cited in Shwom et al., 2015). Past sociological research into
individuals’ views on climate change has create a platform with different theories which suggest that
there can be a certain level of prediction when it comes to people’s views on climate change. For
instance, Kvaløy et al. has suggested that individuals that have higher levels of education, show
postmaterialist values, show Left-leaning political identification, and have religiosity are more likely to
be more serious about the topic of climate change (Kvaløy et al., 2012, cited in Shwom et al., 2015).
Additionally, gender socialisation theory suggests that females are more likely to express concern for
climate change than males due to the traditional masculine and feminine identities where men are
supposed to show detachment and control whereas women show empathy and care (Shwom et al.,
2015). It is clear that these so-called predictors will not be the case for all people, but they can be very
useful to those advocating for there to be more climate change policy. These patterns in the type of
people who are more likely to show concern for climate change identifies what type of person should be
targeted by advocates for action against climate change and trying to get support from, such as men and
those who are less education and politically Right-leaning.

Furthermore, sociological research into public views on climate change has highlighted the immense
role that the media plays. The media, as the main source of public information, is dominant in shaping
public understanding and perception of global warming and climate change. There has also been
evidence to suggest that these public views shaped by the media are not necessarily in line with what
scientific knowledge and data would indicate (Koehrsen et al., 2020). Media domination of public
perception is not something that is new to the issue of climate change. Therefore, this indicates that
climate change scientists can do all the right research and get all the right information, but unless they
can get a large number of media outlets across the world to report on correct, peer-reviewed, scientific
information showing the need to act on climate change, then there will continue to be differences
across the world in public opinions as well as limited calling out for climate change policy action.
Moreover, those who are misinformed on climate change can have extremely detrimental effects on the
scientific community. This is because climate change denial and non-experts challenging scientific
evidence creates uncertainty to the extent to which experts are rechecking their findings. Inevitably the
evidence is proven correct, but this process can prevent climate change scientists from researching new
areas and improving their existing information about climate change as well as ways to respond to it
(Lewandowsky et al., 2015).

It has also been argued in sociological research that responses and solutions to climate change have
often been far too embedded in concentrating on individuals’ actions. Shove (2010) describes responses
to climate change to be set in the ‘ABC’ framework, by which people suggest that the solution to climate
change lies in the attitudes, behaviours, and choices of individuals. However, she also argues that this
approach will be far from enough to stop climate change and she plants this argument in line with the
sociological debate between agency and structure. To what extent are individuals able to choose green
actions or does society and social norms stop this? For example, a study of Americans has shown that
more Americans can imagine “the end of the world” than a life switching from using fossil fuels (Klein,
2014, cited in Norgaard, 2018). This shows that humans have formed a society by which people depend
on unsustainable and environmentally damaging resources and ways of life. This brings us to the idea of
the ‘value-action gap’; a lot of people will see their individual actions as being insignificant to the larger
fight against climate change. Hence, people often see changing to greener ways of life as not being
worth it, especially if it causes inconvenience to people or has a negative impact on their quality of life
(Blake, 1999, cited in Shove, 2010). For example, it would be more environmentally beneficial if people
didn’t use cars and instead used public transport or walked or cycled to their destinations, but inevitably
it is always more convenient to drive somewhere by car. Furthermore, in has been acknowledged that
consumers find themselves trapped in unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly ways of living
because of “habits, disincentives, social norms and cultural expectations” (Defra, 2005, cited in Shove,
2010). For these reasons, it becomes clearer that solutions centrally based in terms of individual choice
will not be affective against climate change and that sociological research highlights the relevance of
discussing institutional and structural changes in economic, political and cultural systems (Shwom et al.,
2015).
Shwom et al. (2015) argues that political orientation is by far the strongest indicator of an individual’s
views about climate change and this is because of the role that politics plays in climate change response.
Research of the American public indicates that those who would identify themselves as liberals or
Democrats being more pro-environment than those who identified themselves as conservatives or
Republicans. This makes sense with the response to climate change heading towards a greater need for
more government policy and intervention. This is because the government intervening into markets and
restricting people’s rights is very much against the traditional conservative values, whereas liberals and
Democrats concentrate more on protecting the collective welfare, which tackling climate change would
be considered (Shwom et al., 2015). Giddens has argued that current system of politics which we have
will not be enough to handle the problems faced by climate change (Giddens, 2009, cited in Bhatasara,
2015). The reason for this is that in the current political and economic system, politicians, especially
conservative ones, do not want to create policy that will hinder business because businesses bring in
public revenue through taxes and create jobs. On the surface this seems fine, but it becomes a problem
with climate change policy because imposing businesses to use greener alternatives when making
products or providing services can be inconvenient and costly to them. In a democratic political system,
these larger businesses will support and fund those who share their view or if they are a transnational
company, they will move to a country that is better for their business, which will cause losses in jobs and
revenue in the country imposing greener values on businesses. A complete change in political system
would not be preferable and could negatively impact democracy. Instead, sociology could contribute to
climate change response with more research on politics and its impact on responding to the threats that
climate change pose. Sociologists have argued similarly about the economy and consumption. It has
been suggested that the current means of production and consumption are unsustainable, and
sociologists are insistent on more sociology researchers to study greener alternatives. Markkanen and
Anger-Kraavi (2019) have suggested that this transition to a greener economy with create jobs in
renewable energy generation and in the development of energy efficient technology.

Finally, most of this essay has been discussing what sociology can contribute to climate change research,
but sociology has a right to be involved in climate change research because of the social impacts caused
by climate change. If climate change is not dealt with there is going to be increased inequalities across
the world. The poorest countries, which have the least amount of responsibility for causing climate
change will be the most negatively affected and will also be in the worst position to deal with extreme
climate events and rising temperatures. It is also argued that low-income households that spend a
majority of their income on water, fuel and electricity, will struggle to transform to greener alternatives
because of a lack of affordable options (Markkanen and Anger Kraavi, 2019). They also stress that
equality in areas such as class, gender and race is not just an issue when discussing the impacts of
climate change but are also extremely important when discussing and implementing climate change
mitigation policies, emphasising that justice and equality must be seriously taken into consideration
when debating climate change policy, this becomes especially the case if climate change action is
implemented too late and policy becomes more ambitious. (Markkanen and Anger Kraavi, 2019).

In conclusion, the field of sociology can not only have a large contribution to understanding climate
change, but it should be involved in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary climate change research. The
most notable contribution sociology can make is research on public opinion and views because this
highlights to advocates of climate change action which type of people they need to convince and the
methods of convincing them (through the media). Sociology also suggests that there should be less
promotion of individual action being central in tackling climate change and that instead there needs to
be more consideration for social, political and economic structure change.

References:

Bhatasara, S. (2015) ‘Debating sociology and climate change’, Journal of Integrative Environmental
Sciences, 12(3), pp. 217-233.

Brulle, R. and Dunlap, R. (2015) ‘Sociology and Climate Change’, in Brulle, R. and Dunlap, R. (ed.) Climate
Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-31.

Koehrsen, J. et al. (2020) ‘Climate change in sociology: Still silent or resonating?’, Current Sociology,
68(6), pp. 738-760.

Lever-Tracy, C. (2008) ‘Global Warming and Sociology’, Current Sociology, 56(3), pp. 445-466.

Lewandowsky, S. et al. (2015) ‘Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community’, Global
Environmental Change, 33, pp. 1-13.

Markkanen, S. and Anger-Kraavi, A. (2019) ‘Social impacts of climate change mitigation policies and their
implications for inequality’, Climate Policy, 19(7), pp. 827-844.

Mora, C. (2014) ‘Revisiting the Environmental and Socioeconomic Effects of Population Growth: a
Fundamental but Fading Issue in Modern Scientific, Public, and Political Circles’, Ecology and Society,
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