Search results

The emergence of climate science denialism in the United States provides a challenge to STS theories of the relationship between scientific expertise and public policy because a situation of epistemic rift occurs: the capacity of scientific consensus to establish the grounds of political debate is broken, and the standard circulation of expertise from the scientists and funding from the state is interrupted. Three mechanisms for the containment of scientific expertise are studied: direct intellectual suppression of climate scientists, industry support of contrarian scientists and policymakers, and cutbacks on government research programs that support climate change. This situation politicizes climate scientists, who are drawn into the public sphere as a counterpublic to the effort to contain the circulation of their knowledge in the political field. Although the strategy of contained expertise has been effective in blocking climate legislation at the federal government level in the United States, it may be losing effectiveness, and an emergent alternative strategy based on adaptation may be coming to replace it. Factors that affect the reduction in the capacity to contain the circulation of scientific expertise are also analyzed.

Service learning is a pedagogical approach that primarily focuses upon achieving student learning outcomes through meaningful community engagement. While service-learning pedagogies provide “service” to community, the view of community partners from a deficit-oriented perspective can render service learning ineffective and, at worst, potentially harmful to the community served. This chapter presents a course that uses food as a civic lens through which to engage community, instructors, and students in CRITICAL-SERVICE-LEARNING where systemic inequities that contribute to community needs are focused upon, community partners are co-creators of course design, outcomes to student learning and community benefits are equitably considered, and collective knowledge and experience of stakeholders is valued.

This Introduction gives a historical and theoretical overview of this volume on Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age, which showcases original research in political sociology of science targeting the changes in scientific and technological policy and practice associated with the rise of neoliberal thought and policies since the 1970s. We argue that an existing family of field theoretic frameworks and empirical field analyses provides a particularly useful set of ideas and approaches for the meso-level understanding of these historical changes in ways that complement as well as challenge other theory traditions in sociology of science, broadly defined. The collected papers exhibit a dual focus on sciences’ interfield relations, connecting science and science policy to political, economic, educational, and other fields and on the institutional logics of scientific fields that pattern expert discourses, practices, and knowledge and shape relations of the scientific field to the rest of the world. By reconceptualizing the central problem for political sociology of science as a problem of field- and inter-field dynamics, and by critically engaging other theory traditions whose assumptions are in some ways undermined by the contemporary history of neoliberalism, we believe these papers collectively chart an important theoretical agenda for future research in the sociology of science.

Regionalism implying some form of city-region or metropolitan-level planning and governance has long been promoted for multiple reasons albeit with varied success. Experiencing a resurgence in 1990s, regional coordination and cooperation has proven effective in pursuing economic development and bolstering competitiveness. Unfortunately, other voices, such as those promoting regional scale land use planning and management to cultivate more sustainable urban form and settlement patterns became comparatively crowded out. With climate change-related environmental and ecological pressures mounting, the chapter suggests it is time to frame regions as socio-ecological rather than mere socio-economic spaces, thereby placing greater emphasis on ecosystems and ecological land management and a circular, regenerative economy. Using the city-region of Stuttgart (Germany) as exemplar, our contribution initiates an exploration into whether statutory regional planning in combination with various informal tools and a multi-level governance framework allows actors to begin to embed and implement these emerging ecological sustainability concepts.

The purpose of this paper was to examine smallholder farmers’ perceptions of climate change risks, adaptation responses and the links between adaptation strategies and perceived/experienced climate change risks in South Gondar, Ethiopia.

This paper used a convergent mixed methods design, which enables us to concurrently collect quantitative and qualitative data. Survey data was collected from 352 households, stratified into Lay Gayint 138 (39%), Tach Gayint 117 (33%) and Simada district 97 (28%). A four-point Likert scale was used to produce a standardised risk perception index for 14 climate events. Moreover, using a one-way analysis of variance, statistical differences in selecting adaptation strategies between the three districts were measured. A post hoc analysis was also carried out to identify the source of the variation. The findings of this paper are supplemented by qualitative data gathered through focus group discussions and key informant interviews of households who were chosen at random.

The standardised climate change risk perception index suggests that persistent drought, delayed onset of rainfall, early termination of rainfall and food insecurity were the major potentially dangerous climate change risks perceived by households in the study area. In response to climate change risks, households used several adaptation strategies such as adjusting crop planting dates, crop diversification, terracing, tree planting, cultivating drought-tolerant crop varieties and off-farm activities. A Tukey’s post hoc test revealed a significant difference in off-farm activities, crop diversification and planting drought-tolerant crop types among the adaptation strategies in the study area between Lay Gayint and Simada districts (p < 0.05). This difference reconfirms that adaptation strategies are location-specific.

Although many studies are available on coping and adaptation strategies to climate change, this paper is one of the few studies focusing on the linkages between climate change risk perceptions and adaptation responses of households in the study area. The findings of this paper could be helpful for policymakers and development practitioners in designing locally specific, actual adaptation options that shape adaptation to recent and future climate change risks.

The extraction of natural resources has long been part of economic development in small islands. The damage to environment and health is extensive, even rendering once productive islands virtually uninhabitable. Rather than providing long-term benefits to the population or to the environment, the culture of “extractivism” – a nonreciprocal approach where resources are removed and used with little care or regard to consequences – has instead left many in far more fragile circumstances, increasingly dependent on external income. The purpose of this paper is to show how continued extractivism in small islands is contributing to global climate change and increasing climate risks to the local communities.

Through a series of case studies, this paper examines the history of extractivism in small islands in Oceania, its contribution to environmental degradation locally and its impacts on health.

It examines how extractivism continues today, with local impacts on environment, health and wellbeing and its much more far-reaching consequences for global climate change and human health. At the same time, these island countries have heightened sensitivity to climate change due to their isolation, poverty and already variable climate, whereas the damage to natural resources, the disruption, economic dependence and adverse health impacts caused by extractivism impart reduced resilience to the new climate hazards in those communities.

This paper proposes alternatives to resource extractivism with options for climate compatible development in small islands that are health-promoting and build community resilience in the face of increasing threats from climate change.

Extractivism is a new concept that has not previously been applied to understanding health implications of resource exploitation thorough the conduit of climate change. Small-island countries are simultaneously exposed to widespread extractivism, including of materials contributing to global climate change, and are among the most vulnerable to the hazards that climate change brings.

Ascientific consensus has emerged indicating that the global climate is changing due to anthropogenic (i.e., human induced) driving forces. Our previous research reformulated the well‐known I=PAT (environmental Impacts equal the multiplicative product of Population, Affluence, and Technology) model into stochastic form, named it the STIRPAT model, and used it to assess the effects of population and affluence on carbon dioxide loads. Here we extend those findings by examining the impacts of population, affluence and other factors on the emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂), as well as the combined global warming potential of these two gases. We also assess the potential for “ecological modernization” or an “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) effect to curb GHG emissions. Our findings suggest that population is a consistent force behind GHG emissions, that affluence also drives emissions, that urbanization and industrialization increase emissions, and that tropical nations have lower emissions than non‐tropical nations, controlling for other factors. Contrary to what ecological modernization and EKC theorists predict, we find that to date there is no compelling evidence of a decline in emissions with modernization. These results support both the “treadmill of production” thesis and the “metabolic rift” thesis.

Studying Cuban urban agriculture is important because empirically investigating existing, innovative projects geared toward sustainability can illuminate the processes that facilitate and inhibit environmental reform. I assess the social costs and benefits, achievements, and ongoing challenges at one urban farm. I highlight the interconnection of societal institutions – including gender relationships and gendered economic structures – that can foster or undermine sustainability projects. My analysis of the social dimensions of environmental problems is based on Ariel Salleh’s theoretical work. She argues that women’s invisible reproductive labor mediates paid labor by maintaining the viability of such labor. My contribution is to add an empirical dimension to her work.

To assess the challenges of urban sustainability, I spent two months conducting participant observation and semi-structured interviews with workers at an urban farm in Havana, Cuba.

I find that culturally prescribed gender divisions of labor are entrenched in Cuban urban agriculture. Women continue to do most of the important, yet unacknowledged, domestic work that maintains the health of agricultural labor. Additionally, the heavier burdens women experience during the second shift restrict their ability to participate in local democratic decision-making processes, thereby limiting their capacity to modify oppressive cultural norms and maintaining the status quo.

Socially just environmental change does not automatically happen when the barriers of capitalism are removed, even if the society bases economic progress on increasing quality of life rather than profit. Instead, socially just environmental change must be a deliberate process that is constantly negotiated, reassessed, and prioritized.

This chapter considers the place of responsibility in confronting ecological sustainability and social equity problems in the food system. We present two illustrations addressing the following question: In what ways does responsibility present a way to close the metabolic rift in line with the vision of the global food sovereignty movement? First, using the example of Metro-Vancouver in Canada, we consider the ways in which urban people claim responsibility for land protection through the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands, with an associated responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. Second, we discuss how deepening relational responsibility in legal and regulatory frameworks might hold the corporate food regime accountable in the Canadian context to address their role in and responsibility for mitigating an increasingly risky world, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the responsibility of urban people to mobilise in solidarity with food movements, and against the corporate food regime in particular, will play a critical role in supporting the transition to sustainable and just food systems. This applies both to finding new ways to claim responsibility for this transition and to hold those actors that have disproportionately benefitted from the corporate food regime responsible. Such a reworking of responsibility is especially necessary as the context for food systems change becomes increasingly urbanised and risky.