Book review - Climate Change and Society

Will Eadson

doi:10.3351/ppp.0006.0003.0006

Abstract

At a British Sociological Association workshop in January 2011 the question of how to make sociology more influential in policy circles arose. John Urry, sitting on the event's panel, put forward the opinion that a genuine crossover text on climate change and society would go a long way to embedding sociological insights into thinking on climate change. It was perhaps fortuitous then that Urry already had a book that aimed to do such a thing on the road to publication: Climate Change and Society was published just a few months later in May 2011.

Highlights

Urry is not the first eminent sociologist to pronounce on issues of climate change, having been preceded by Anthony Giddens’ The Politics of Climate Change (2009)
Urry frames the debate through a concern for non-linear systems as opposed to what he critiques as the ‘gradualist’ approach of economistic understandings of climate ‘futures’. This works through both his understanding of climate science and of societal systems, in particular in discussing the importance of social innovation to determining societal futures and the importance of ‘tipping points’ that can lead to the People, Place & Policy Online (2012): 6/3, pp. 167-169 p. 168
Urry argues for a new capitalist epoch – and here Urry falls for his own critique of modern sociology as overly fond of epochalism – that of resource capitalism: ‘only resource capitalism is remotely feasible as providing the conditions for reversing to a low carbon economyand-society’ (p. 109)

Summary

Introduction

Urry is not the first eminent sociologist to pronounce on issues of climate change, having been preceded by Anthony Giddens’ The Politics of Climate Change (2009). Much of the book is concerned with summarising (though not always explicitly referencing) on-going discussions in the social sciences with regard to climate change: most prominently social practice and transitions theories.

Results

Conclusion