- Fund workshops and summer institutes that facilitate the creation of interdisciplinary working groups to
train and encourage collaboration outside disciplinary boundaries. These institutes would bring sociologists
in contact with specialists in emerging cutting edge areas in other disciplines, including training opportunities
for “translating” research ideas and designing projects that combine disciplinary approaches.
Recommendations for Capacity Building and Infrastructure Development
Sociologists who study the environment bring some valuable tools to the table, since they often use both
quantitative and qualitative methods in their research. Sociologists also bring a critical approach and awareness
of global climate change as both a social and physical phenomena. Sociology’s mixed methods, multiple scales,
and varied data-gathering techniques make them well prepared to study global climate change. Despite the
utility of these methods, in discussions of a future agenda for sociological research on global climate change,
workshop participants found themselves repeatedly coming back to the issue of data. A primary concern was
the lack of datasets that include indicators relevant to climate change research. For example, few datasets
document how specific organizations, businesses, or communities contribute to climate change either in terms
of emissions or in their activism, nor is there systematic information on their mitigation response capabilities,
willingness to engage in adaptation policies, or adopt climate action plans. Participants identified a gap in
multi-level data that could allow the study of efforts to curb emissions on macro levels or that document micro
changes of individual consumption patterns or lifestyle choices. Participants reported a lack of spatially-rooted
data in current sociological research and often reiterated the importance of using datasets that incorporated both
social and biophysical variables. For example, datasets on land-use practices could provide information about
individuals’ attitudes and beliefs about their land and their everyday practices and decisions, or surveys, like
the General Social Survey, could geocode respondents to allow for spatial analysis of data. Data on social and
policy formation dynamics in different countries could be used to build a system to monitor and study their
changing responses to climate change impacts over the coming decades. Participants also noted a critical need
for data-based research that examines the relationship between global climate change and public health; scenario
development for health impacts; and strategies to reduce risks associated with nutrition, food security, and public
access to water. They emphasized the importance of research on public health based on measureable datasets, in
addition to conceptual critiques of the underlying structures that shape people’s access and right to medical care.- Include social scientists and social science data collection in ongoing or planned collaborative projects such
as those underway at Long Term Ecological Research Sites (LTERS), Urban Long-Term Research Areas
(ULTRA), and the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). - Include data collection on climate change in currently supported social science data infrastructure projects
such as the General Social Survey (GSS), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and the American
National Election Studies (ANES). - Organize follow-up workshops to bring together environmental sociologists with sociologists specializing
in models and tools to inform the study of climate change such as GIS specialists, demographers, network
analysts, and consumer culture researchers. - Develop an interdisciplinary Social Environmental Observatory Network (SEON) that will provide large-
scale funding and guidance to social scientists interested in building high quality, panel, international datasets
Part IV: Recommendations for Advancing
Sociological Research on Global Climate Change