Sabrina McCormick
Michigan State UniversityWhat do we know: What does Sociology bring to the table for studying the human dimensions of global
climate change?
Sociology, and the social sciences more broadly, can provide critical insight to understanding how we can
slow climate change and sustain its impacts. The National Research Council points to four aspects of human
dimensions of global change: (1) human activities that alter the Earth’s environment, (2) the forces that drive
these activities, (3) the consequences of environmental changes for societies and economies, and (4) how humans
respond to these changes (Global NAS 2008). I am primarily interested in adaptation to the linked social and
geophysical processes involved in climate change, as well as the ways in which adaptive processes can work in
conjunction with the mitigation of warming. Although there is an endless array of sociological topics and research
approaches relevant to these processes, my interests revolve around institutions, social inequalities, social conflict,
and the social construction of health. I am primarily interested in using those theoretical frameworks as well as the
tools provided by disaster research, social movements, and medical sociology.
Research on disasters helps articulate how we respond to sudden changes caused by warming or problems
that grow over a prolonged period of time. While various such theories provide background and insight into
climate change, they may also need modification to answer new questions. Broadly defined, disasters are “...non-
routine events in societies or their larger subsystems (e.g. regions and communities) that involve conjunctions of
physical conditions with social definitions of human harm and social disruption (Kreps 2001: 3718).” Although
many facets of disaster research can contribute to our assessment of climate impacts, they are far too broad to
encompass here. I am primarily interested in how disasters incubate during today’s early phase of climate change
as risks go unnoticed or unaddressed. Researchers have established that in the period leading up to an illness crisis
or disaster, existing problems often considered systematically “normal” (Perrow 1984) go unaddressed. Beamish
(2002) argued that many of these problems in the incubation phase can be characterized as “crescive troubles”
that grow over an extended period of time and become recognizable only after government officials are trained
to detect their occurrence. In these ways, climate crises may be similar to chemical contamination that Erikson
(1992) has called a “new species of trouble.” Consequently, an event that acts as an “internal” or “external”
trigger generates an urgent threat by undermining not only the coping capacity of existing systems (Boin et al.
2005), but also the public trust in them. Such events exacerbate a structured set of social inequalities (Fothergill et
al. 1999).
What do we need to know: What are the major sociological research questions?
These inequalities are situated within and across communities. But what does disaster research tell us about the
communities impacted by disasters or about climate impacts specifically? Communities vulnerable to climate
change represent growing targets of vulnerability (Perrow 2007). Affected communities respond first to disasters
and crises, fundamentally shaping how crises expand or contract (Clarke 2003). Importantly, risk reduction for
them is potentially distinct from populations vulnerable to other types of disasters. The scale, multi-factoral
nature and temporal dimensions of climate-related disasters may vary significantly from other types. Community
responses may also be distinct depending on context. Research on health social movements (Brown et al. 2007),
and mobilization more generally, demonstrate that government framing (Zavestoski et al. 2004), media framing
(Flic 2004), pre-existing social movement framing (Snow et al. 1986), and trust or distrust of government officials
(Edelstein 2003; Brown and Mikklesen 1990; Zavestoski et al. 2002) determine how communities or movements