BSA Climate Change Launch Event Welcome by Elizabeth Shove

Welcome from Jude England British Library

Welcome to the launch of the British Sociological Association’s Climate Change Study Group 2011 January 17

2010 British Sociological Association’s Presidential Debate “ How to put society into climate change” February 8

To bring global change to the heart of the social sciences, and to take the social sciences to the heart of global change. British Sociological Association Lecture, “One world two cultures: sociology and the environment” (Howard Newby) ESRC launched the £19 million Global Environmental Change Programme with the mission: Does this mean we are about 20 years late with this launch? What happened since 1991? 1991

The contribution of the social sciences is not confined to researching the impact of global environmental change. They are as concerned with the causes as with the consequences. Redclift, M. (1992), “At work in the greenhouse: ESRC’s Global Environmental Change Programme”, Global Environmental Change. P343. Environmental economics, Geography (bio diversity, regions, forests), International agreements. Sociology - constructing knowledge, participation, energy. ESRC Global Environmental Change Programme In relation to natural science In relation to policy especially after 1993 ‘Realising our Potential’. The reputation of the ESRC Establishing and extending a role for social science

Redclift and Benton, 1994 Social movements, scientific knowledge, risk and uncertainty, perception, gender, globalisation, biology and nature, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, discourse, social problems, constructivism Points of connection with existing concerns BSA risk and environment study group (started in about 1992) fizzled out Steve Yearley, Alan Irwin, Elizabeth Shove Not easy to bring global change to the heart of the social sciences 1994

European funding: 4 th framework and onwards... SEER programme socio economic environmental research International Human Dimensions Programme (1990) European Science Foundation: Tackling Environmental Resource Management , 1996 Energy, Water, Waste, Mobility, LCA, production and consumption , household metabolism ESRC Environment and human behaviour 2002 (perception and taxation) ESRC Sustainable Technologies Initiative 2004, etc. Research into global environmental change in the United Kingdom, has sought to influence public policy. (Redclift 1995). ISA RC24 Established in 1971: Environment and Society – ecological modernisation; rural sociology Research policy Resources and agendas Global environmental change, sustainable development, climate change.. Meanwhile...

Green social movements ; capitalism and apocalypse ; politics of knowledge ; environmental discourse framing climate change; nature -culture , including humans and non-humans; making science ; the character of social problems (visible, invisible); globalisation and geopolitics; agreements and disagreements; role of the state – technology, tax, targets etc. How are climate change agendas framed? What does sociology offer? What is sociology expected to offer? How does sociology differ from other social sciences? Attitudes, rational action, choice , economic incentives , behavioural- economics; persuasion and education , environmental commitments and values , ‘cultural theory’; lifestyles ; doing your bit, altruism, citizen participation , identifying and influencing the driving factors of individual behaviour, policy making

Not so much: Natural vs Social science and the environment More, what kinds of social science relate to climate change What theories and models of social action? What priorities, paradigms and preoccupations? What relation to policy? Stuffing, critical, disengaged Where is sociology in relation to other social sciences?

2010 After the presidential debate on the 8 th Februrary.. Some of us thought.. it is not that sociology is somehow ‘ missing’ from climate change, but it could be more visible “ sociology has an increasingly important role in shaping and contributing to public and policy debate about climate change. This is an arena in which sociology has an opportunity to really make its mark by enriching the range of theoretical resources and empirical insight brought to bear on urgent issues of social transformation like those required in response to climate change.” Elizabeth Shove, Tom Hargreaves, Jess Paddock, Chris Shaw, Maya Gislason and Leon Sealy-Huggins and around 70 others. Proposal to the BSA for a climate change study group.

Rather than limiting the substantive focus to topics of adaptation or mitigation, or to areas like those of energy, mobility, water or waste, the ambition is to position and promote sociological lines of enquiry and modes of thought across all these fields, engaging with issues of institutional, infrastructural and individual change, and pursuing implications in terms of social inequality, technology and governance. What is climate change?

Organise meetings Have ‘streams’ at conferences (BSA) Go on camping trips Write edited books Have regional sub-groups Have mailing lists Have fun Have lunch Become influential Represent sociology Innovate What do BSA study groups do?

What will the BSA’s Climate Change Study group do next? 2011- That’s up to all of you! Today, we provide: A launch – some topics and speakers An opportunity to build the future programme Some lunch A distinguished set of panel members An opportunity to meet each other An extraordinary lecture – on how the social sciences can help climate change policy An exhibition of ideas, and a glass of wine (thanks to the ESRC’s social-change climate-change working party).

BSA Climate Change Launch Event Welcome by Elizabeth Shove

by British Sociological Association on Feb 09, 2011

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BSA Climate Change Launch Event Welcome by Elizabeth Shove — Presentation Transcript