(ENV1a) Environmental Sociology I

This session invited papers applying sociological perspectives to the study of environmental issues, and environmental sociological analyses of societal issues. In the midst of a global social movement cohering around the climate crisis, political and socio-economic debates over extractive industries, and related policy discussions, there exists opportunities for sociologists to contribute to understandings of the environment as a social construct, a political entity, a physical place/space, a component of social structure, and more. Tags: Environnement

Organizer: Ken Caine, University of Alberta; Chair: Ken Caine, University of Alberta

Presentations

Rob Shields, University of Alberta

Terraforming Canada: the engineering of Eeyou Istchee

This paper reports 2 axes of research about Eeyou Istchee (Eastern James Bay). First, the scientific profiling of the natural environment which reflects institutional, commercial and instrumental forces that produce a cartogrpahy of resources and natural dispositions that repress lived experience, traditional and local knowledge to allow the region to be unilaterally opened up to global resource and energy economies. Second, the resulting terraforming of this planetary region through flooding, watershed management and river redirection on a complete and total scale without public consultation transgresses democratic norms. Although both the process and impacts are understudied in the above scientific literature, because it has been judged a commercial and political success in Quebec, the case of the James Bay region offers insights into the potential remaking of other environments.

Nicolas Viens, University of British Columbia

Decarbonization, hegemonic projects, and the green growth policy-planning network: the case of Québec

Since 2010, grassroots-led socio-ecological movements in Québec, Canada played a key role in overturning carbon extractivist proposals. Building on their successes, these groups now aim to move energy transition debates toward a broader conception of transition that includes radical social justice and post-capitalist alternatives. Meanwhile, corporate actors and the state enlisted major environmental NGOs and union federations into various technocentric “green growth” projects. These hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles define how transition unfolds in the province, yet few have studied how actual social actors organize to carry out these divergent responses to the climate crisis. We develop a structural analysis of the green growth policy-planning network in Québec. Starting from five organizations at the core of transition debates, we analyze the network of board interlocks they are embedded in. We describe the overall structure of the network and its main corporate, civil society, and individual actors. Analysis outlines the possibility of a new power bloc forming, positioned around the green growth project and the cleantech sector, close to achieving dominance in Quebec, that would threaten deeper decarbonization efforts. Thus, despite the recent ban on petroleum extraction, like elsewhere, energy transition in Quebec still faces deep social and ecological contradictions.

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Non-presenting authors: Jean-Philippe Sapinski, Université Moncton; Audrey Laurin-Lamothe, York University; Éric Pineault, UQAM

JP Sapinski, Université de Moncton

The corporation in environmental sociology

Dans cette présentation, je soutiens que les sociologues de l’environnement doivent considérer l’entreprise comme une institution sociale fondamentale dans leurs analyses. Les entreprises - au pluriel - sont un sujet quotidien de discussion et de critique, et sont évidemment un objet d’attention particulière de la part des médias et dans le discours populaire. Les groupes militant.es construisent depuis longtemps des campagnes efficaces qui ciblent des entreprises spécifiques. Pourtant, l’entreprise - au singulier - est-elle vraiment un élément central de l’analyse sociologique en environnement ? Un rapide tour d’horizon des publications en sociologie de lenvironnement est instructif. Dans les deux principales revues de langue anglaise de la sous-discipline, Society and Natural Resources et Environmental Sociology , une recherche du mot-clé « corporation » (en anglais, au pluriel et au singulier) dans les résumés des articles publiés entre 2012 et 2023 renvoie respectivement à sept articles sur 1184 pour la première, et à quatre articles sur 337 pour la seconde. Les éditions les plus récentes des manuel principaux de la sous-discipline clés reconnaissent bien les entreprises comme situées au cœur de la crise environnementale. Cependant, leur couverture de l’entreprise en tant que sujet d’ étude spécifique en sociologie de l’environnement varie considérablement. J’expliquerai dans cette présentation que, contrairement à l’attention minimale accordée à l’entreprise dans la sous-discipline, la sociologie de lenvironnement ne doit pas se contenter de pointer du doigt les entreprises pour leur rôle dans la destruction des écosystèmes, du sol, de leau et de latmosphère dont nous dépendons toustes, mais se doit de produire une véritable analyse sociologique de cette institution sociale, qui est à l’origine de cette destruction, et ce pour trois raisons : (1) Lentreprise est l’institution médiatrice de la relation métabolique entre l’humain et l’environnement sous le capitalisme avancé ; (2) Considérer l’entreprise comme l’institution sociale cruciale qu’elle est bel et bien permet avance la compréhension théorique des processus socio-écologiques qui sont l’objet de la sociologie de lenvironnement; (3) La mise en lumière de ces processus soutient directement les mouvements socio-environnementaux qui travaillent à mettre un terme à la destruction systématique des écosystèmes qui ne semble pas connaître de répit a ce jour. La présentation débutera par un aperçu historique de la manière dont l’entreprise s’est imposée comme institution centrale du capitalisme. Je détaillerai ensuite la fonction médiatrice de l’entreprise dans le métabolisme social qui lie les humains à leur environnement biogéochimique. Puis, je partagerai quelques remarques sur le discours que les entreprises construisent pour légitimer et même glorifier ce rôle médiateur. Je conclurai en discutant comment ce changement de paradigme recadre aussi l’attention sur les propositions transformatrices porteurs d’un avenir différent, d’un projet de monde sans l’entreprise.

Raymond Murphy, University of Ottawa

The accelerating treadmill of fossil-fuelled practices: A transition to sustainability or to long-run downward mobility and social conflict?

Why are fossil fuels stuck at eighty per cent of global energy despite impressive rollouts of wind and solar energy and increased efficiencies? Renewable energy has not replaced carbon polluting energy but instead is being added to it. This investigation documents that the reason is the accelerating treadmill of energy demand powering fossil-fuelled practices whose enormous scale nullifies advances in efficiency and clean energy, making mitigation of climate change exceedingly difficult. Humans are running faster innovating efficiency and green energy just to stay in the same place of emissions. The paper investigates the under-researched deep causes of human-caused climate change, namely the increasing demand for discretionary, energy-intensive practices resulting from affluence. Proportionality of greenhouse-gas emissions by emitters is central in the study. The paper constitutes an additional step in attribution by specifying how much emissions can be attributed to particular social practices and their huge growth. Since carbon dioxide pollution remains in the atmosphere over a century, layer after layer is being added to the atmosphere annually. Ever more attractive fossil fuel practices are being innovated. As countries develop and populations become more affluent, their discretionary energy demand and fossil-fuelled practices increase. China’s experience confirms affluence is driving emissions. In 1970, China was poor with relatively few fossil-fuelled activities and low emissions despite its massive population and fertility rate of 5.81. Over the next five decades its population growth slowed and fertility rate dropped to 1.30, among the world’s lowest. Now its population is decreasing but its emissions have swelled because it too constructed an accelerating treadmill of fossil-fuelled practices as affluence increased enormously. China became the world’s highest emitter with accelerating emissions despite decreasing population. Affluence does not mean only satisfying needs. It involves especially enjoyment of discretionary activities. Those related to human-caused climate change are predominantly powered by fossil fuels. Take an example of a clearly discretionary social practice. Cruising has grown massively, with 30 million people cruising in 2019. The energy these huge floating hotel-restaurants use to propel them and provide 24/7 air conditioning or heat, lighting, entertainment, meals, etc., is enormous. This comes from the cheapest, most polluting bunker fuel or diesel. A typical cruise ship carrying 2,500 passengers combusts 80,000 gallons of fuel a day. An estimate based on the carbon dioxide equivalent emitted by all cruise ships in 2017 divided by the number of passengers shows they emitted 820 kilograms per passenger (ten times average passenger weight). Passengers exit the ship after two weeks, but the carbon dioxide their cruise emitted remains in the atmosphere over a century. The wealthiest 0.54 % of the global population, 40 million people, emitted 14 % of greenhouse gases whereas the poorest 50%, 4 billion people, only emitted 10%. Eighty percent of the world’s population have been excluded from ever flying due to cost, yet 4 billion passengers fly annually. Aviation practices are monopolised by the remaining 20%, disproportionately by frequent flyers. So therefore, are emissions and monopolisation of the atmospheric emissions sink. A short return flight between London and Nice in commercial planes results in five times the average 90-kilogram passenger weight in emissions per passenger in economy class, 6 times the weight in more spacious business class, and 12 times the weight in most spacious first class. That flight in a small private jet of the wealthy emits 10,000 kgs of greenhouse gases. There were 22,000 private jets, many big ones, in operation in 2020. Demand for private jet ownership and charters is soaring, with daily flights averaging 11,500 in 2021. Superyachts of billionaires emit 7,020 tons of CO2 annually. The paper demonstrates the value of using the social practices, treadmill of production, and Weberian social closure frameworks to study energy demand and climate change and proposes more inclusive versions of each. It is an extension of my article “What is undermining climate change mitigation? How fossil-fuelled practices challenge low-carbon transitions” recently published in Energy Research and Social Science Vol 108 February 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103390 [1].