Climate Change and Society

John Urry

Climate Change & Society

“A tour de force! Urry shows the centrality of the social – both to comprehend the meaning of the carbon catastrophe that besets us and, thereby, to discover the possibility of a post-carbon society. Essential reading for all.”
Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley

This book explores the significance of human behavior to understanding the causes and impacts of changing climates and to assessing varied ways of responding to such changes. So far the discipline that has represented and modeled such human behavior is economics.

By contrast Climate Change and Society tries to place the “social” at the heart of both the analysis of climates and of the assessment of alternative futures. Urry thus attempts to replace economics with sociology as the dominant discipline in climate change analysis. Sociology has spent much time examining the nature of modern societies, of modernity, but mostly failed to analyze the carbon resource base of such societies. This book seeks to remedy that failing. It should appeal to teachers and students in sociology, economics, environmental studies, geography, planning, politics and science studies, as well as to the public concerned with the long term future of carbon and society.

The Author

John Urry is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University.

Publication Details

        Publishing 13 May, 2011 • 216 pages

978-0-7456-5036-4 Hardback £55.00                                       978-0-7456-5037-1 Paperback £15.99

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