Workshop on Sociological Perspectives on Global Climate Change

(2) Improving fundamental understanding of risk-related judgment and decision-making under

uncertainty (e.g., How do people and social groups develop an understanding of the various threats

presented by climate change? What organizational factors promote or impede behavioral change in

response to climate change information?)

(3) Improved understanding of how social institutions affect resource use

(4) Improving the understanding of socioeconomic change as context for climate change impacts and

responses, esp. technological change and land-use change

(5) Valuation of climate consequences and policy responses

Cross-Cutting Fundamental Priorities

(6) Observations, indicators and metrics for aspects of the human system that drive and are affected by

climate change. The “observational system” in place for climate research does not include observations of

the human drivers or of the human conditions that climate change may affect. Lots of data exist on human

well-being, but the data rarely include the geographic coordinates needed to link to environmental data.

(7) Non-linearities, feedbacks, and thresholds in system responses to climate change in a multi-causal

setting

(8) Scale dependencies and cross-scale interactions

Priorities for Action-Oriented Human Dimensions Research

(1) Understanding climate change vulnerabilities: human development scenarios for potentially affected

regions, populations, and sectors (various indicators of human population distribution, economic

activity, and well-being could be geocoded, and predictive models developed to estimate what will be at

risk at future times and places where climate change can be expected to produce hazardous events).

(2) Understanding mitigation potential: driving forces, capacities for change, and possible limits of

change (Technologists and economists assume that people will invest in energy efficiency, alternative

sources, etc.., when the technology is available and cost-effective—but actual behavior is more complex

than that. How do other factors combine with technology and economics to shape the ability to turn

around the drivers of climate change? How can they be used to help achieve mitigation goals?).

(3) Understanding adaptation contexts, capacities for change, and possible limits of change (To adapt

effectively to unavoidable climate change, people, organizations, and communities will have to change

their habits and standard operating procedures. Consider New Orleans in the face of Katrina. What are the

resistances to effective adaptation and how can they be overcome?).

(4) Understanding how mitigation and adaptation combine in determining human system risks,

vulnerabilities, and response challenges associated with climate change.