The sociology of climate change consists of three different kinds of inquiry:  What are the societal causes or drivers of climate change?  What are the impacts of climate change on society?  How is society responding to the threat of climate change?   Those three inquiries can then be further divided into 25 smaller topics, as described in the video, “A Sociology of Climate Change.”

If you are asked to do research on any one of those 25 topics, click on its corresponding link, below.  The link opens a document that describes that topic in greater detail and suggests a strategy for doing the research, including a list of good resources.  (Before you click, it may help to watch this short video: “the website research tool.”)

 

Societal causes, or drivers, of climate change

  1 Causes — in the “green” updating of Classical Theory
  2 Causes — in today’s Environmental Sociology literature

Climate Impacts on society

  3 Extreme weather events
  4 Food
  5 Water
  6 Health and Illness
  7 Economic impacts at the level of the nation (U.S.)
  8 Political impacts
  9 Unequal impacts, globally, among nations
10 Unequal impacts, in the U.S., by State and by region
11 Unequal impacts, in the U.S., by race and by class
12 The potential for catastrophic impacts

Societal responses to climate change

13 Science:  discovery; communication; activism
14 Climate activism, the social movement
15 Climate denial, the counter-movement
16 Private sector actors, pro and con
17 Non-environmental “civil society” actors, pro and con
18 Traditional media – print (newspapers), network television
19 On line media – websites, blogs, social media
20 Public opinion
21 Policy – international, other nations (not the U.S.)
22 Policy – federal (U.S.)
23 Policy – state, local (U.S.)
24 Technological innovation (clean, renewable energy); green cities
25 Plan B:  geoengineering