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Interest in examining climate change adaptation has arisen in many disciplines in the past two decades; however to date, sociologists have given only sparse attention to the issue. This is both a missed opportunity for sociologists and a detriment to the study of adaptation. In this paper, we set out the following research agenda: bringing core concerns of sociology into the critically important conversation of how society will respond to climate change. We identify five broad themes in which sociologists can begin their work on adaptation: (1) structures and resource access, (2) social cohesion and future planning, (3) constraints of social stratifications, (4) power and agency in decision‐making, and (5) justice in process and outcomes. After summarizing existing sociological work on adaptation and detailing our research agenda, we draw examples from our own work in Bangladesh to illustrate how this agenda might be taken up. In doing so, we point to several places where sociological insights come into play in questions related to development, organizations, expertise, migration, gender, and labor. We believe a robust sociological analysis can produce a clarified, reparative, and just conceptualization of adaptation that will contribute to the growing global discourse on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diseases that are transmitted from vertebrate animals to humans are referred to as zoonotic diseases. Although microbial agents such as bacteria and parasites are linked to zoonotic events, viruses account for a high percentage of zoonotic diseases that have emerged. Worryingly, the 21st century has seen a drastic increase in the emergence and re-emergence of viral zoonotic disease. Even though humans and animals have coexisted for millennia, anthropogenic factors have severely increased interactions between the two populations, thereby increasing the risk of disease spill-over. While drivers such as climate shifts, land exploitation and wildlife trade can directly affect the (re-)emergence of viral zoonotic disease, globalisation, geopolitics and social perceptions can directly facilitate the spread of these (re-)emerging diseases. This opinion paper discusses the "intelligent" nature of viruses and their exploitation of the anthropogenic factors driving the (re-)emergence and spread of viral zoonotic disease in a modernised and connected world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2000, a controversial article about hormones and gender roles was published to stimulate debate about whether and how biological knowledge should be integrated in sociological research. Two decades later, this so-called biosociology debate is more relevant than ever, as biological knowledge has become widespread across societies and scientific disciplines. Hence, we as sociologists are regularly confronted with biological explanations that challenge our own explanations. Whether this happens in the scientific arena, the classroom, media, or even at social events, these situations often force us, individually, to take a stance on whether to meet such explanations with dialogue or opposition. One could therefore expect that sociologists have an interest in discussing these issues with their peers, but their lack of participation in the biosociology debate suggests otherwise. This paper explores possible reasons for this absence and how sociologists' views on biosociology are influenced by key agents – sociological associations and journals. Smith's "A Sacred project of American Sociology", and Scott's "A Sociology of Nothing" served as theoretical tools in the paper. A qualitative content analysis of presidential addresses of four sociological associations was conducted. The analyses suggest that sociologist avoid biosociology for widely different reasons, including fear that biosociology legitimizes oppression. This avoidance is probably reinforced by the leftish politization of the sociological discipline and the rightish politization of society. Overcoming obstacles to engagement in biosociology is required to safeguard the scientific integrity of sociology and enable sociologists to provide relevant contributions to research on the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Climate change and extreme temperatures pose increasing challenges to individuals and their health with older adults being one of the most vulnerable groups. The aim of this paper is to better understand the roles that tangible assets (e.g., physical or financial) and intangible assets (e.g., human or social) play in the way older adults adapt to extreme temperatures, the types of adaptive responses they implement, limits and constraints, as well opportunities for better adaptation. Rather than focusing exclusively on extremes of heat, or considering each type of asset in isolation, the important and novel contribution of this paper is to take an integrated and multi-seasonal qualitative and quantitative approach, that conjointly investigates all categories of assets in relation to the adaptations that independently-living older adults make to both extreme heat and extreme cold. Methods and findings: The paper examines the contribution of assets to adaptation to extreme temperatures among older adults living independently in their homes. An innovative mixed methods study with an inter-seasonal approach was implemented in Lisbon, Portugal with interviews and surveys during summer for extreme heat and winter for extreme cold. The ability of participants to adapt to extreme temperatures was found to be dependent on asset context and diversity, and the dynamics through which extreme temperatures enhanced or reduced the stock of assets available. As a result, participants engaged in activities of assets replacement, exchange or substitutions. Despite this, many participants recognised many constraints and limits to their ability to adapt and protect their health and well-being ranging from reduced income, high energy costs and lack of social networks. Opportunities for improving older adults’ adaptation were found to exist and strategies, action and investment have been identified by older adults which included life-long education, incentives to improve insulation and local activities. Conclusions: The paper suggests that the implementation of the proposed asset-based approach linking assets and adaptation to extreme temperatures, illustrates the key pathway that individuals, their families and carers, governments, policymakers, researchers and practitioners can follow to ensure effective adaptation and promote health and well-being. Supporting older adults’ adaptation to extreme temperatures is possible and can be complemented with efforts to reduce older adults’ vulnerability and building resilience to extreme temperatures. These findings pose concrete implications for policy and practice, including for example the need for implementation of measures and actions to reduce poverty, reduce energy costs, improve the quality of the housing stock and improve older adults’ social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the concepts of metabolism and metabolic rift as a framework, this paper examines carbon geoengineering technologies as a solution to climate change and explores if it is possible to mend an ecological metabolic rift without fundamental changes in the social metabolic order. Carbon geoengineering technologies have become a key component of scenarios to limit the extent of global warming and are being discussed as a means to sequester carbon and, therefore, mend the carbon cycle. However, most applications of carbon geoengineering thus far do not result in net negative emissions. Strategies to make operations profitable result in neutral or positive, rather than negative, emissions. While these strategies have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations, the current social order constrains their use and effectiveness. Instead of being applied as part of the solution to climate change, carbon geoengineering is being strategically promoted by the fossil fuel industry in ways that serve to reproduce and maintain the current social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses ethnographic data to engage a critical reflection on the tension between individual responsibility for the environment and inequality. While research has shown that the majority of sustainable consumers are middle and upper class, educated and white individuals, the study explores how the ethical injunction to ecological sustainability is being introduced to lower‐income neighbourhoods in France. It draws on the observation of a national programme which aims at supporting inhabitants of public housing estates in the process of greening their lifestyle in order to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The paper analyses how environmental responsibilization is specific in that it calls upon a responsibility towards others, towards the common good. Using the Foucauldian concept of 'subjectivation', it describes and analyses the moral work implied by such behaviour change programmes. It demonstrates that a negative representation of poor households and a moral framing of the responsibility for the environment lead to a moralization of their lifestyle under the heading of 'eco‐friendly behaviours'. A paradoxical result of such endeavours is that the social group with the least impactful lifestyle on the environment is the one which is moralized in the most intrusive and resolute manner. The article shows, however, that the tenants manage to resist the normalizing discourse on sustainable living, for reasons which are not anti‐environmentalist. This piece thus provides interesting results for sustainability studies as well as for the sociology of the regulation of underprivileged neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Cross-Cultural Research presents four papers each of which in their own way addresses the question of how Arctic populations tackle the high levels of unpredictability and risk associated with their environment. It takes as a starting point the evidence for and against aspects of disequilibrium between humans, animals, and their environment. The authors consider both contemporary and historical Indigenous Arctic populations and the dynamics of human–animal relations in the context of an ever-changing socioecology of the Arctic. Three overarching sources of disequilibrium are identified: (a) disruption in existing ecological networks due to climate and environmental upheaval, (b) effects of sociopolitical change (including migration and disease), and, finally, (c) changes to subsistence strategies. Based on contemporary field studies from across the Arctic, including the Ust'-Avam and Samoyed from the Taimyr Region in Russia, Sami in Finland, Yukagir and Chukchi from Siberia, and the historic Thule community from Greenland, the authors illustrate how, despite apparent disequilibria, there is nevertheless notable resilience evident in the coupling of human-environmental systems. Documenting past and present changes in local livelihoods, subsistence patterns, and sociocultural practices helps us understand the wider context in which these cultures persist. It also allows us to explore what factors are significant in supporting the long-term resilience of Indigenous communities, especially in the context of challenges, such as high levels of addiction, depression and suicide, facing contemporary arctic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce a scalable machine learning approach accompanied by open-source software for identifying violent and peaceful forms of political protest participation using social media data. While violent political protests are statistically rare events, they often shape public perceptions of political and social movements. This is, in part, due to the extensive and disproportionate media coverage which violent protest participation receives relative to peaceful protest participation. In the past, when a small number of media conglomerates served as the primary information source for learning about political and social movements, viewership and advertiser demands encouraged news organizations to focus on violent forms of political protest participation. Consequently, much of our knowledge about political protest participation is derived from data collected about violent protests, while less is known about peaceful forms of protest. Since the early 2000s, the digital revolution shifted attention away from traditional news sources toward social media as a primary source of information about current events. This, along with developments in machine learning which allow us to collect and analyze data relevant to political participation, present us with unique opportunities to expand our knowledge of peaceful and violent forms of political protest participation through social media data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holocene climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin is often cited as a potential driver of societal change, but the mechanisms of this putative influence are generally little explored. In this paper we integrate two tools–agro-ecosystem modeling of potential agricultural yields and spatial analysis of archaeological settlement pattern data–in order to examine the human consequences of past climatic changes. Focusing on a case study in Provence (France), we adapt an agro-ecosystem model to the modeling of potential agricultural productivity during the Holocene. Calibrating this model for past crops and agricultural practices and using a downscaling approach to produce high spatiotemporal resolution paleoclimate data from a Mediterranean Holocene climate reconstruction, we estimate realistic potential agricultural yields under past climatic conditions. These serve as the basis for spatial analysis of archaeological settlement patterns, in which we examine the changing relationship over time between agricultural productivity and settlement location. Using potential agricultural productivity (PAgP) as a measure of the human consequences of climate changes, we focus on the relative magnitudes of 1) climate-driven shifts in PAgP and 2) the potential increases in productivity realizable through agricultural intensification. Together these offer a means of assessing the scale and mechanisms of the vulnerability and resilience of Holocene inhabitants of Provence to climate change. Our results suggest that settlement patterns were closely tied to PAgP throughout most of the Holocene, with the notable exception of the period from the Middle Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age. This pattern does not appear to be linked to any climatically-driven changes in PAgP, and conversely the most salient changes in PAgP during the Holocene cannot be clearly linked to any changes in settlement pattern. We argue that this constitutes evidence that vulnerability and resilience to climate change are strongly dependent on societal variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory planning networks made of government agencies, stakeholders, citizens and scientists are receiving attention as a potential pathway to build resilient landscapes in the face of increased wildfire impacts due to suppression policies and land-use and climate changes. A key challenge for these networks lies in incorporating local knowledge and social values about landscape into operational wildfire management strategies. As large wildfires overcome the suppression capacity of the fire departments, such strategies entail difficult decisions about intervention priorities among different regions, values and socioeconomic interests. Therefore there is increasing interest in developing tools that facilitate decision-making during emergencies. In this paper we present a method to democratize wildfire strategies by incorporating social values about landscape in both suppression and prevention planning. We do so by reporting and critically reflecting on the experience from a pilot participatory process conducted in a region of Catalonia (Spain). There, we built a network of researchers, practitioners and citizens across spatial and governance scales. We combined knowledge on expected wildfires, landscape co-valuation by relevant actors, and citizen participation sessions to design a wildfire strategy that minimized the loss of social values. Drawing on insights from political ecology and transformation science, we discuss what the attempt to democratize wildfire strategies entails in terms of power relationships and potential for social-ecological transformation. Based on our experience, we suggest a trade-off between current wildfire risk levels and democratic management in the fire-prone regions of many western countries. In turn, the political negotiation about the landscape effects of wildfire expert knowledge is shown as a potential transformation pathway towards lower risk landscapes that can re-define agency over landscape and foster community re-learning on fire. We conclude that democratizing wildfire strategies ultimately entails co-shaping the landscapes and societies of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the role of sociology in climate change research and policies. Climate change can be regarded as one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. It has attracted attention from several disciplines, with the physical sciences regarded as dominating climate change research. Apparently, despite that climate change is inherently a social problem, sociologists have been slow in tackling it, at both theoretical and policy levels. Even so, available literature contains assorted and interesting sociological contributions and insights. As such, this paper posits that sociologists are interested in climate change issues, have a lot to offer and they can draw from a number of sub-fields. For instance, using sociology of sustainable consumption sociologists can tackle how societies can re-organise consumption patterns and habits, sociology of education provokes more intriguing research into the construction of climate change science, knowledge and solutions and feminist sociology can extend robust research into how the material and discursive dimensions of climate change are profoundly gendered. Importantly, critical sociology provides a repertoire of concepts and novel methods that can be deployed in climate change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformations inherently involve systems change and because of the political nature of change, are subject to contestation. A potentially effective strategy to further transformative change that builds on interdisciplinary, multiactor, and multiscalepractices and values is the use of foresight. Foresight covers a wide range of methods to systematically investigate the future. Foresight exercises offer collaborative spaces and have the potential to conceptualize and even initiate transformative change. But there is no clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of foresight in this regard. This explorative paper builds on foresight and sociology and interrogates the role of foresight in transformative change, building on four cases. These cases are embedded in different contexts and characterized by different organizational approaches and constellations of actors. Nevertheless, they share the common goal of transformative food systems change. By reflecting on the processes that play a role in foresight workshops, we analyze what created conditions for transformative change in these four empirical cases. We have operationalized these conditions by distinguishing layers in the structuring processes that influence the impact of the foresight process. Based on this analysis, we conclude that there are three roles, ranging from modest to more ambitious, that foresight can play in transformative change: preconceptualization of change; offering an avenue for the creation of new actor networks; and creation of concrete strategies with a high chance of implementation. Furthermore, contributing to future design of foresight processes for transformative change, we offer some crucial points to consider before designing foresight processes. These include the role of leading change makers (including researchers), the risk of co-option by more regime-driven actors, and the ability to attract stakeholders to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social vulnerability to climate change is increasingly being acknowledged, and proposals to measure and manage it are emerging. Building upon this work, this paper proposes an approach to social vulnerability assessment using new empirical definitions of Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) components and new mechanism to aggregate and account for causal relationships among these components. To develop this index, the authors propose a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, which are all based on local environmental professionals and community members. A means to develop an appropriate primary dataset, through application of a specifically designed household survey questionnaire, is underpinned by the results of a Delphi survey, an in-depth interview and focus group discussions. The data collection and analysis, including calibration and calculation of the SVI, is demonstrated through application in a case study city in central coastal Vietnam. The calculation of SVI at the fine-grained local scale provides high resolution in vulnerability assessment and also obviates the need for secondary data, which may be unavailable or problematic, particularly at the local scale in developing countries. The research reveals inherent limitations of existing SVIs but also indicates the potential for their use in assessing social vulnerability and making decisions associated with responding to climate change at the local scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its Working Group 1 report, the first comprehensive assessment of physical climate science in six years, constituting a critical event in the societal debate about climate change. This paper analyses the nature of this debate in one public forum: Twitter. Using statistical methods, tweets were analyzed to discover the hashtags used when people tweeted about the IPCC report, and how Twitter users formed communities around their conversational connections. In short, the paper presents the topics and tweeters at this particular moment in the climate debate. The most used hashtags related to themes of science, geographical location and social issues connected to climate change. Particularly noteworthy were tweets connected to Australian politics, US politics, geoengineering and fracking. Three communities of Twitter users were identified. Researcher coding of Twitter users showed how these varied according to geographical location and whether users were supportive, unsupportive or neutral in their tweets about the IPCC. Overall, users were most likely to converse with users holding similar views. However, qualitative analysis suggested the emergence of a community of Twitter users, predominantly based in the UK, where greater interaction between contrasting views took place. This analysis also illustrated the presence of a campaign by the non-governmental organization Avaaz, aimed at increasing media coverage of the IPCC report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific community has recognized the importance of integrating farmer’s perceptions and knowledge (FPK) for the development of sustainable pest and disease management strategies. However, the knowledge gap between indigenous and scientific knowledge still contributes to misidentification of plant health constraints and poor adoption of management solutions. This is particularly the case in the context of smallholder farming in developing countries. In this paper, we present a case study on coffee production in Uganda, a sector depending mostly on smallholder farming facing a simultaneous and increasing number of socio-ecological pressures. The objectives of this study were (i) to examine and relate FPK on Arabica Coffee Pests and Diseases (CPaD) to altitude and the vegetation structure of the production systems; (ii) to contrast results with perceptions from experts and (iii) to compare results with field observations, in order to identify constraints for improving the information flow between scientists and farmers. Data were acquired by means of interviews and workshops. One hundred and fifty farmer households managing coffee either at sun exposure, under shade trees or inter-cropped with bananas and spread across an altitudinal gradient were selected. Field sampling of the two most important CPaD was conducted on a subset of 34 plots. The study revealed the following findings: (i) Perceptions on CPaD with respect to their distribution across altitudes and perceived impact are partially concordant among farmers, experts and field observations (ii) There are discrepancies among farmers and experts regarding management practices and the development of CPaD issues of the previous years. (iii) Field observations comparing CPaD in different altitudes and production systems indicate ambiguity of the role of shade trees. According to the locality-specific variability in CPaD pressure as well as in FPK, the importance of developing spatially variable and relevant CPaD control practices is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional public good experiments participants receive an endowment from the experimenter that can be invested in a public good or kept in a private account. In this paper we present an experimental environment where participants can invest time during five days to contribute to a public good. Participants can make contributions to a linear public good by logging into a web application and performing virtual actions. We compared four treatments, with different group sizes and information of (relative) performance of other groups. We find that information feedback about performance of other groups has a small positive effect if we control for various attributes of the groups. Moreover, we find a significant effect of the contributions of others in the group in the previous day on the number of points earned in the current day. Our results confirm that people participate more when participants in their group participate more, and are influenced by information about the relative performance of other groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urgency of climate change mitigation calls for a profound shift in personal behavior. This paper investigates psycho-social correlates of extra mitigation behavior in response to climate change, while also testing for potential (unobserved) heterogeneity in European citizens' decision-making. A person's extra mitigation behavior in response to climate change is conceptualized—and differentiated from common mitigation behavior—as some people's broader and greater levels of behavioral engagement (compared to others) across specific self-reported mitigation actions and behavioral domains. Regression analyses highlight the importance of environmental psychographics (i.e., attitudes, motivations, and knowledge about climate change) and socio-demographics (especially country-level variables) in understanding extra mitigation behavior. By looking at the data through the lens of segmentation, significant heterogeneity is uncovered in the associations of attitudes and knowledge about climate change—but not in motivational or socio-demographic links—with extra mitigation behavior in response to climate change, across two groups of environmentally active respondents. The study has implications for promoting more ambitious behavioral responses to climate change, both at the individual level and across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy brings to light the tenuous U.S. model of natural disaster management. Climatic extremes, like Sandy, are projected to increase in magnitude and frequency, calling upon societies to adapt appropriately to imminent threats. In this paper, we describe the knowledge and policy disconnect exposed by Sandy between what we submit are four key elements of adaptive capacity: resources, institutions, knowledge and innovation of technology. Our synthesis of multi-disciplinary expert knowledge and admonition from civil engineers, climatologists, and urban planners demonstrates the significance of mobilizing knowledge to design robust socio-ecological systems. We contrast the U.S. model to the Dutch system of climate adaptation to emphasize the feasibility, value, and effectiveness of adopting robust adaptive capacities, rather than policies steeped in reactionary responses. Such strategies that integrate coordination and imagination from members across society are imperative in translating scientific foresight into institutional action. The solution we offer is not only material for a more action-based discussion, but also provides an illustration of crafting policy that enhances adaptive capacities of socio-ecological systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

While there is a recognised need to adapt to changing climatic conditions, there is an emerging discourse of limits to such adaptation. Limits are traditionally analysed as a set of immutable thresholds in biological, economic or technological parameters. This paper contends that limits to adaptation are endogenous to society and hence contingent on ethics, knowledge, attitudes to risk and culture. We review insights from history, sociology and psychology of risk, economics and political science to develop four propositions concerning limits to adaptation. First, any limits to adaptation depend on the ultimate goals of adaptation underpinned by diverse values. Second, adaptation need not be limited by uncertainty around future foresight of risk. Third, social and individual factors limit adaptation action. Fourth, systematic undervaluation of loss of places and culture disguises real, experienced but subjective limits to adaptation. We conclude that these issues of values and ethics, risk, knowledge and culture construct societal limits to adaptation, but that these limits are mutable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]