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The carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) is a measure of social and environmental sustainability. Most commonly the CIWB has been analyzed at the global scale, but recent analysis has been done at the state level in the United States. Research at the macro scale neglects important factors such as race, but such factors can be assessed at the US state level. This paper uses state level data from 1997-2009 to analyze the CIWB, taking into account economic inequality, race, and sex differences. The findings suggest that education benefits both blacks and whites, and men and women, but that the positive impacts of education are smaller in magnitude for blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the carbon intensity of well-begin (CIWB) provides a way to simultaneously assess a country's sustainability in terms of both environmental and human well-being. This is a burgeoning area of inquiry with much focus on the role of economic development, yet the effects of other aspects of global integration are relatively unexplored for the CIWB. I utilize macro comparative sociological perspectives to investigate the extent to which theories of global integration help explain variation in countries' CIWBs over time. Specifically, I evaluate propositions drawn from neoinstitutional world society and world polity theory to assess the effects of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), environmental international nongovernmental organization (EINGOs), and international governmental organizations (IGOs). I use statistically rigorous longitudinal modeling techniques to analyze data from 81 countries for the period from 1990 to 2011. I also examine subsets of more and less developed countries and compare production and consumption based measures of the CIWB. I find world society / world polity integration is only associated with a reduction in the CIWB in more developed nations, and only when using the production measure for CO2 emissions. In less developed countries this form of integration is associated with an increasing CIWB. This research extends the scholarship on world society and world polity global integration and how effects can vary at different levels of development, and it contributes to a better understanding of the complexities of sustainability in an unequal global system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages macro level sociological theories, including treadmill of destruction and world society theories, to analyze the impacts of nation-states' military size and connection to the world polity on Kyoto Protocol Ratification. Results from survival analysis using Cox proportional hazards models indicate that higher levels of militarization, measured by military expenditure as a percent of central government expenditure, military spending as a percent of gross domestic product, and armed forces personnel as a percent of the total labor force, are associated with longer times until ratification and / or failure to ratify. Furthermore, the impact of world society connections, measured by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and environmental international nongovernmental organizations (EINGOs) are found to have either weak effect or no significant effect on ratification. Although the original Kyoto Protocol expired at the end of 2012 (a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon at COP18 in Doha), these findings are crucial for an accurate understanding of ongoing global climate change negotiations as a form of strategic geopolitical international relations where military and power considerations play a key role in the future of the planet and its inhabitants and where global cultural norms of environmental conservation may not be able to significantly impact international climate treaty negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]