Timmons Roberts
College of William and MaryWhat do we know: What does Sociology bring to the table for studying the human dimensions of global
climate change?
Sociologists have a potentially huge role to play in applying insights from our respective areas to understanding
the massive social upheaval which looms ever closer. We need sociological insights to understand when norms
and values have shifted strongly in the past, and why they did. We need sociological theories and methods
to understand how knowledge and values influence beliefs and especially behaviors. We need to understand
corporate and alternative culture and the media, how they shape public understanding of risk and options for
action. We need to understand the role of public opinion in political demands. Sociologists can help us understand
how inequalities of race, class, gender and position in the world economy lead to differences in vulnerability to
climate change and in who will be able to respond and profit from the different phases of this disaster. We need
to understand the Public Relations industry, the shape of corporations and their past, current and likely future
responses. We need to understand the globalization of the world economy and where that leaves people in various
places and situations.
Looking ahead, we need to forecast what will happen if this or that type of natural disaster is overlaid
upon this or that social system of inequality and injustice. Most boldly, we need sociologists to get beyond
describing what is and begin envisioning what could be, and figure out how to use our tools to help make this new
society happen, and soon.
Sociologists have done some of this work, but so have geographers, political scientists, economists and
communications and interdisciplinary people. We need to look beyond our disciplinary walls and work together
with people across the academy and outside it, building social science capacity for the looming crisis.
What do we need to know: What are the major sociological research questions?
After decades of research, we now have quite good models of how the climate system works, and many very
educated guesses about how ecological systems are going to be affected and how they might respond.^52 In
both cases we can base these guesses on evidence of what happened in the past: tree rings and air bubbles in
Greenland’s ice sheets tell us what happened to global temperatures over centuries and millennia. Fossil records
tell us what happened when the climate shifted quickly and how many individuals and species died out. We also
have some absolutely sobering archaeological and historical records of what has happened to human societies
when the climate has shifted, including dead cities, collapsed civilizations, and some surprising adaptations.^53
What we entirely lack is a solid understanding of how our societies are going to respond to climate
change. A body of research is emerging on how developing nations and resource-dependent communities are
already beginning to adapt to climate change.^54 Britain’s Climate Impacts Program (UK CIP) has worked on the
interface between academia, governments, and business to attempt to understand how we can better respond to the
(^52) Many good sources summarize these findings. Good places to start are Mark Maslin’s 2003 Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford 2003), the 2007 IPCC report (UNFCCC 2007), and the 2006 Stern Report.
(^53) Elizabeth Colbert Field Notes from a Catastrophe. 2005; Jared Diamond Collapse 2005.
(^54) Neil Adger, Jouni Paavola, Saleemul Hug and M.G. Mace’s 2006 book Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change, Working Group II of
the 2007 IPCC report, and many others now have begun to build this literature.