8.6 Chapter Summary
Avery Temple and Kimberly Puttman
Climate change is a social problem impacting both people and the planet. Like other social problems, climate change reveals a conflict in values. These conflicts of culture and worldview are deeply rooted in the practices of capitalism and colonialism perpetuated by Western worldviews and values that have been established through colonialism.
Sociologists and environmental activists use the theories and practices of environmental racism, environmental justice, critical environmental justice, and ecofeminism to make sense of why climate change is happening so rapidly. These theories also suggest effective opportunities for action. Youth, Indigenous people, and their supporters are leading the way with collective action for social justice.
As we look back at the Jordan Cove Energy Project, where we began this chapter, we now see how unexpected this victory is. To stop the energy company, local residents, ranchers, fishermen and women, Indigenous elders, youth, and everyday people like you and me had to come together. They had to promote a common vision of clean renewable energy and the projected costs and risks of a pipeline. They had to convince local and state government officials that the pipeline was not in the best interests of the people who lived in that area and the people who might benefit from cheap energy.
The stakes were high, and their victory was uncertain. Working together, they succeeded in protecting the piece of the planet they call home.
Essential Ideas
Learning Objective 1: Why is climate change a social problem as much as an environmental problem?
Climate change is a social problem first because the activities of humans are the major contributor to creating the climate crisis. Second, we see conflicts in values between colonialist capitalism and more sustainable ways of living. Third, we know that climate disasters and environmental challenges impact groups unequally based on their social location. Finally, solving the climate crisis requires changes in laws, policies, and practices throughout the world, interdependent solutions that create environmental justice.
Learning Objective 2: How does colonization contribute to the environmental crisis?
Colonization as a social and economic system extracts resources from the people and lands of colonized areas to contribute to the wealth and power of the colonizers. This extractive form of economics prioritizes making profits over sustainable care for people and land. This economic system is still at play today, even though few colonies are left in the world.
Learning Objective 3: How do differences in Indigenous and Western worldviews contribute to the climate crisis and offer opportunities for innovative solutions?
Indigenous culture and worldview values communities and relationships. The land is sacred and must be cared for. Western culture values the individual and profit. The land is a resource that can be used to make profit. Because Indigenous cultures choose practices that nourish the land for generations, they offer solutions for healing our earth.
Learning Objective 4: How can an understanding of the intersections between race, class, gender, and other social locations help explain the causes and consequences of climate change?
As we consider the climate crisis, we see environmental racism and gendered impacts of environmental issues. For example, poor women in Nigeria can’t farm like they used to, and their families are sick because of gas flaring. People who were poor and disproportionately Black couldn’t evacuate New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina because they didn’t have cars. Canadian farm families are already feeling the effects of climate change, and female farmers are picking up extra work. In all of these cases, social location matters to environmental justice.
Learning Objective 5: Are all human groups equally responsible for causing the climate crisis?
All human groups are not responsible equally for the climate crisis. One of the causes of the climate crisis is CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. In general, people from industrialized countries use more fossil fuels and produce more CO2. However, less industrialized countries have fewer resources to guard against the effects of climate change, so people in those countries are harmed more. That’s partially why global climate agreements include provisions for transferring technology and money from more developed countries to less developed countries (although those promises aren’t always honored).
Learning Objective 6: Are changes in individual behavior or collective action more important in supporting environmental social justice?
This is actually a trick question. Both individual agency and collective action are critical to ending the climate crisis. We need worldwide agreements like the Paris Agreement to set standards and targets for changing our collective behavior. We need feminists, youth, and Indigenous people to remind us how important this is with their social movements. And we need individual actions of recycling bottles, using less plastic, and being satisfied with less to solve the climate crisis. Environmental Justice is social justice for all of us.
Key Terms Review
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Key Terms List
capitalism: an economic system based on private ownership and the production of profit.
climate change: the long-term shift in global and regional temperatures, humidity and rainfall patterns, and other atmospheric characteristics
colonialism: the domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation
conspicuous consumption: the purchase of expensive luxury goods or services as a display of one’s wealth and status.
critical environmental justice: a theory which considers how all forms of structural inequality put targeted communities at risk of environmental harm, and how all forms of inequality essentially violate the human right to live in a healthy, safe, and thriving environment.
culture: the shared beliefs, values, and practices which are socially transmitted within a social group
cultural universals: patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies
ecofeminism: a theory that argues that the domination of women and the degradation of the environment are consequences of patriarchy and capitalism.
enculturation: the process of learning culture
environmental justice: an intersectional social movement pioneered by African Americans, Indigenous peoples, Latinx, lower-income, and other historically oppressed populations fighting against environmental discrimination within their communities and across the world
environmental racism: any environmental policy or practice which disadvantages people or communities based on race.
extreme weather events: An extreme weather event is defined by the severity of its effects or any weather event uncommon for a particular location.
greenhouse effect: imbalance between the energy entering and leaving the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in a rise in global temperature
Indigenous peoples: Indigenous peoples have in common a historical continuity with a given region prior to colonization and a strong link to their lands
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK): the on-going accumulation of knowledge, practice and belief about relationships between living beings in a specific ecosystem that is acquired by Indigenous people over hundreds or thousands of years through direct contact with the environment, handed down through generations, and used for life-sustaining ways.
worldview: the collection of interconnected beliefs, values, attitude, images, stories, and memories out of which a sense of reality is constructed and maintained in a social system and in the minds of individuals who participate in it.
Discuss and Do
- Environmental Activism: What organizations are working for environmental justice in your community?
- What do they do? How do you see individual agency and collective action at work?
- Why do you admire the actions they take?
- How could you get involved?
- Or, get involved and tell us what you learned.
- Climate Activists: Introduce a climate justice activist: describe them, particularly their social location, and their work. You can choose a person introduced in the video: Indigenous Activists, or another activist. How does their contribution reflect inequality, interdependence and social justice?
- Climate Justice and Abolition: Imagine a future in which your needs are met, you and your loved ones are safe, and you are able to spend your time how you wish. What would be different? What kind of world would we need in order to achieve this for everyone?
- Culture, Worldview and Climate Change: How do culture and worldview contribute to causing climate change and to ending it? This is a great opportunity to dive into these stories of worldview that may be new to you: “What I Learned from Coyote” “As I had shared with Coyote.”
- Culture, Worldview and Climate Change: Climate Maps are ways of seeing the world. Compare the same region in Google Earth, Native Land Digital or History of the World Every Year. Who is telling the story? Why are the borders and boundaries different? How might this impact worldview and climate change?
- EcoFeminism: Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change. They may also have a unique response. The section on ecofeminism has several deeper sources: Gender inequality is showing up… in climate change [YouTube Video], Ecofeminism: Encouraging Interconnectedness with Our Environment in Modern Society[Article], Ted talk EcoGrief and Ecofeminism, and The Clan of the One-Breasted Women [Story]. How does gender impact the causes, consequences of climate change and the actions of climate justice?
- Climate change and Social Location: What does it mean to say “Those who contribute the least, suffer the most?” when we talk about environmental justice?
- The Politics of Climate Change: Some people argue that climate change isn’t real. Others argue that climate change is the most pressing issue for our time. What do you think? How would sociologists explain why this conflict is so divisive?
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Summary
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Summary” by Avery Temple and Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
a social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or our physical world
the long-term shift in global and regional temperatures, humidity and rainfall patterns, and other atmospheric characteristics
any environmental policy or practice that disadvantages people or communities based on race.
an intersectional social movement pioneered by African Americans, Indigenous peoples, Latinx, lower-income, and other historically oppressed populations fighting against environmental discrimination within their communities and across the world
a theory that considers how all forms of structural inequality put targeted communities at risk of environmental harm and how all forms of inequality essentially violate the human right to live in a healthy, safe, and thriving environment.
a theory that argues that the domination of women and the degradation of the environment are consequences of patriarchy and capitalism.
the actions taken by a collection or group of people, acting based on a collective decision
full and equal participation of of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs
the combination of factors including gender, race, social class, age, ability, religion, sexual orientation, and geographic location that define an individual or group in relationship to power and privilege
the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.
the total amount of money and assets an individual or group owns
the ability of an actor to sway the actions of another actor or actors, even against resistance
a socially constructed category with political, social, and cultural consequences, based on incorrect distinctions of physical difference
a social expression of a person’s sexual identity that influences the status, roles, and norms of their behavior.
a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities
purposeful, organized groups that strive to work toward a common social goal