(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: Environment

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

In this presentation, I argue that environmental sociologists ought to consider the corporation as a social institution foundational to their work. Corporations – in the plural – are an everyday topic of discussion and criticism, and a lot of attention is paid to them in the media and popular discourse. Activists also certainly know how to target specific corporations to great effect. Yet, is the corporation – in the singular – really a core element of environmental sociological analysis? A quick survey of publications in environmental sociology is informative. In the two main journals in environmental sociology, Society and Natural Resources and Environmental Sociology , a search for the keyword “corporation” (plural and singular) in the abstracts of papers published between 2012 and 2023 returns respectively seven out 1184 articles for the former, and four out 337 articles for the latter. The latest editions of some key textbooks of the discipline do acknowledge corporations as key actors of environmental destruction. Yet, their coverage of the corporation as a topic of environmental sociological inquiry varies substantially. I will argue that, contrary to the minimal attention paid in the discipline, environmental sociology needs to move beyond pointing the finger at corporations for destroying the ecosystems, the soil, the water and the atmosphere we depend on, and produce an actual sociological analysis of the institution behind this destruction There are three reasons to do this : (1) The corporation is the institution that mediates the human-environment metabolic relationship under advanced capitalism; (2) Viewing the corporation as the crucial social institution that it is provides a much better theoretical understanding of the socioecological processes that are the object of environmental sociology; (3) Shedding light on these processes directly supports socio-environmental movements working to stop destruction. I will first give a historical overview of how the corporation became a central institution of the capitalist mode of production. Second, I detail how the corporation mediates human social metabolism. Third, I provide brief remarks on the discourse that corporations have constructed that legitimizes and even glorifies this mediation role. I conclude by discussing how emphasizing the corporation might conversely bring attention to alternative institutions and discourses that foreground a different, non-corporate future.

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].