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Book part
Publication date: 19 July 2021

Joshua A. Basseches, Kaitlyn Rubinstein and Sarah M. Kulaga

At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However…

Abstract

At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However, California's landmark climate law drove a wedge between two segments of the state's environmental community. On one side was a coalition of “market-oriented” environmental social movement organizations (SMOs), who allied with private corporations to advance market-friendly climate policy. On the other side was a coalition of “justice-oriented” environmental SMOs, who viewed capitalist markets as the problem and sought climate policy that would mitigate the uneven distribution of environmental harms within the state. The social movement literature is not well equipped to understand this case, in which coalitional politics helped one environmental social movement succeed in its policy objectives at the expense of another. In this chapter, we draw on legislative and regulatory texts, archival material, and interviews with relevant political actors to compare the policymaking influence of each of these coalitions, and we argue that the composition of the two coalitions is the key to understanding why one was more successful than the other. At the same time, we point out the justice-oriented coalition's growing power, as market-oriented SMOs seek to preserve their legitimacy.

Book part
Publication date: 12 December 2022

Kevin A. Young

The US fossil fuel industry is vulnerable to opposition from other sectors of the ruling class. Non-fossil fuel capitalists might conclude that climate breakdown jeopardizes their…

Abstract

The US fossil fuel industry is vulnerable to opposition from other sectors of the ruling class. Non-fossil fuel capitalists might conclude that climate breakdown jeopardizes their interests. State actors such as judges, regulators, and politicians may come to the same conclusion. However, these other elite actors are unlikely to take concerted collective action against fossil fuels in the absence of growing disruption by grassroots activists. Drawing from the history of the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies, I analyze the forces determining government climate policies and private-sector investments. I focus on how the climate and Indigenous movements have begun to force changes in the behavior of certain ruling-class interests. Of particular importance is these movements' progress in two areas: eroding the financial sector's willingness to fund and insure fossil fuels, and influencing judges and regulators to take actions that further undermine investors' confidence in fossil fuels. Our future hinges largely on whether the movements can build on these victories while expanding their base within labor unions and other strategically positioned sectors.

Details

Trump and the Deeper Crisis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-513-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 April 2022

Nanna Kann-Rasmussen

This article presents a discussion of how librarians' engagement in certain social movements manifests itself in public libraries, how librarians justify their engagement with…

Abstract

Purpose

This article presents a discussion of how librarians' engagement in certain social movements manifests itself in public libraries, how librarians justify their engagement with specifically the LGBT + movement and the climate movement and what it might entail in terms of legitimacy.

Design/methodology/approach

Besides an extensive international literature on libraries and climate/LGBT + issues, the article draws on data from an interview study with librarians from Denmark and Sweden. Theoretically, the article utilizes the orders of worth framework by French sociologists Boltanski and Thévenot. The framework is used to analyse librarians' justifications for engaging in certain agendas in society.

Findings

Active engagement in social and green agendas takes place through strategies of education, efforts to make the cause more visible in the library and by setting an example. Justifications for active engagement in social movement agendas draw on inspirational, civic, projective and green orders of worth (OoW).

Originality/value

Much of the existing research on librarians who engage themselves in either climate issues or in agendas concerning minorities has a normative character. However, this study shows that there is no causal (positive or negative) relation between active engagement in social movements' causes and legitimacy of libraries, but that the justifications for doing so might have an impact on legitimacy.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 79 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2016

Jessica Emma McLean and Sara Fuller

A recent mainstream intervention in Australia involved the creation of a climate change communication institution, the Climate Council, from crowdfunding and support in social…

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Abstract

Purpose

A recent mainstream intervention in Australia involved the creation of a climate change communication institution, the Climate Council, from crowdfunding and support in social media. Such digital action invites further examination of supporters’ motivations. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reported intentions and interests of the Climate Council’s supporters to gain a better understanding of mainstream climate change action in digital spaces.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reports on a survey that was undertaken by the Climate Council with their Founding Friends that sought to understand their motivations for supporting the institution. The survey received over 10,000 responses. From four selected questions, the paper considers all of the quantitative responses while a random sample of 100 responses was taken from the qualitative data.

Findings

The data show that most Climate Council supporters were motivated to maintain an institution that communicates the impacts of climate change while a minority desired more political engagement by the institution. The results capture an example of action with limited conscious activism.

Originality/value

Digital spaces fundamentally need the interconnections between people in order to function, in a similar way to physical spaces. Nonetheless, the power of online action, in all its contradictory forms, should not be overlooked in considering the range of possibilities available to those interested in effecting meaningful social change. Even mainstream interventions, as presented in this paper, that seem to disavow climate change activism on the whole, can nevertheless produce institutional changes that defy national governance shifts.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 36 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

The Extinction Curve
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-824-8

Book part
Publication date: 8 August 2023

Brian P. McCullough, Natasha T. Brison and Anne Dietrich

Athletes have leveraged their social platform and reach to advocate for a variety of social causes. Most recently, given the persistent impacts of climate change on sport, the…

Abstract

Athletes have leveraged their social platform and reach to advocate for a variety of social causes. Most recently, given the persistent impacts of climate change on sport, the sport sector has been leveraged to engage and educate fans, sport participants, and athletes to promote climate action while consuming sport and in their everyday lives. This chapter conceptualizes the term sport eco-activism and presents a rich history of the early stages of this form of activism and its interaction with sport. Specifically, we provide historical context and examples of how athletes and activist sport organizations (e.g., Surfers Against Sewage, Protect Our Winters) have drawn attention to the impacts of climate change on sport. We also highlight how these entities encourage spectators and participants to change their behaviors and further advocate for collective climate action. In addition, we offer insights on future directions of eco-activism within sport and how such activists can best resonate with their target audiences to create positive change through sport.

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2016

Leon Ayo Sealey-Huggins

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the forms of activist organisation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP16 in Cancún and reveals their…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the forms of activist organisation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP16 in Cancún and reveals their attempts to create alternatives to a seemingly “depoliticised” response to climate change. The paper argues that existing attempts to challenge depoliticisation face problems in the form of governmental opposition, limitations on forms of organising, and internal conflicts between activists.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilises “scholar-activist” engagement with actors at alternative “popular” spaces established outside the COP16 in Cancún, Mexico. It draws upon extensive participant observation and in-depth interviews with 20 English-speaking activists.

Findings

Common among activists was a concern to try and model alternative forms of social relations, to the depoliticised and hierarchical forms found in the formal Conference of Parties, via forms of anarchist-influenced “prefigurative” practice. In spite, or perhaps because, of perceived challenges to attempts to organise their political praxis along non-hierarchical lines, many people were ambivalent about the scope of their action, revealing highly reflexive accounts of the limitations of these whilst simultaneously remaining pragmatic in trying to make the most of their involvement.

Originality/value

The paper helps us to better understand the potential to politicise climate change. Understanding the challenges faced by activists is important for trying to organise more effective political responses to climate injustice. It is suggested that we must understand activists’ responses to these challenges and limitations in terms of the pragmatism in response that allows them to continue to invest in activism in the face of unsuccessful actions.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 36 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 29 November 2023

Heather Alberro

Abstract

Details

Radical Environmental Resistance
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-379-8

Book part
Publication date: 8 March 2022

John Foran

Drawing on my own experiences at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a college professor of radical social change for 31 years who has been focused on the climate

Abstract

Drawing on my own experiences at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a college professor of radical social change for 31 years who has been focused on the climate crisis for the past 10, I explore the crisis of higher education with respect to this most pressing existential challenge of the twenty-first century and propose various approaches, actions, activities, and projects for both classroom teachers and networks of educators.

These include the UC-CSU NXTerra Knowledge Action Network, the UCSB-developed nearly carbon neutral conference, and engaging students in designing and implementing systemic alternatives outside the classroom in their own communities such as Eco Vista in the 23,000-person community of Isla Vista just adjacent to UC Santa Barbara, among others.

The essay will end with a vision of a new type of university, exemplified in the world-spanning Ecoversities Alliance, and dreamed of in Transition U and Eco Vista U, two prototypes that I have been involved in co-creating with students, staff, faculty and community members in Santa Barbara, California, and in the Transition US movement.

Details

Transformative Research and Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-695-8

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Article
Publication date: 17 June 2021

Jacob A. Miller

The purpose of this paper is to explain the US society’s insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explain the US society’s insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological communication. Specifically, the author’s analysis falls within the context of Luhmann re-moralized while focusing on particular function systems’ binary codes and their repellence of substantive US climate change mitigation policy across systems.

Design/methodology/approach

The author achieves this purpose by resituating Luhmann’s conception of evolution to forgo systems teleology and better contextualize the spatial-temporal scale of climate change; reinforcing complexity reduction and differentiation by integrating communication and media scholar John D. Peters’s (1999) “communication chasm” concept as one mechanism through which codes sustain over time; and applying these integrated concepts to prominent the US climate change mitigation attempts.

Findings

The author concludes that climate change mitigation efforts are the amalgamation of the systems’ moral communications. Mitigation efforts have relegated themselves to subsystems of the ten major systems given the polarizing nature of their predominant care/harm moral binary. Communication chasms persist because these moral communications cannot both adhere to the systems’ binary codes and communicate the climate crisis’s urgency. The more time that passes, the more codes force mitigation organizations, activist efforts and their moral communications to adapt and sacrifice their actions to align with the encircling systems’ code.

Social implications

In addition to the conceptual contribution, the social implication is that by identifying how and why climate change mitigation efforts are subsumed by the larger systems and their codes, climate change activists and practitioners can better tool their tactics to change the codes at the heart of the systems if serious and substantive climate change mitigation is to prevail.

Originality/value

To the author’s knowledge, there has not been an integration of a historical communication concept into, and sociological application of, ecological communication in the context of climate change mitigation.

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