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

For More Information/ Interviews/ Review Copy Requests

Contact Amandine Decam, Polity Marketing Tel: 07825 678552 Email: amandine.decam@politybooks.com

Theory, Culture & Society - Special Issue on Changing Climates‏

I've recently been shifting through a few articles in the new  Theory, Culture & Society ( March/May 2010, Volume 27, No. 2-3) titled Special Issue on Changing Climates - Edited by Bronislaw Szerszynski and John Urry - see http://tcs.sagepub.com/current.dtl

Some great content here... see the following:
 
CONTENTS
 
Bronislaw Szerszynski and John Urry
    Changing Climates: Introduction
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 1-8. 

Bronislaw Szerszynski
    Reading and Writing the Weather: Climate Technics and the Moment of Responsibility
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 9-30. 

Nigel Clark
    Volatile Worlds, Vulnerable Bodies: Confronting Abrupt Climate Change
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 31-53. 

Myra J. Hird
    Indifferent Globality: Gaia, Symbiosis and ‘Other Worldliness’
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 54-72. 

Kathryn Yusoff
    Biopolitical Economies and the Political Aesthetics of Climate Change
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 73-99. 

Aaron M. McCright and Riley E. Dunlap
    Anti-reflexivity: The American Conservative Movement’s Success in Undermining Climate Science and Policy
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 100-133. 

Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts
    Climate Change, Social Theory and Justice
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 134-166. 

Melinda Cooper
    Turbulent Worlds: Financial Markets and Environmental Crisis
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 167-190.
John Urry
    Consuming the Planet to Excess
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 191-212. 

Erik Swyngedouw
    Apocalypse Forever?: Post-political Populism and the Spectre of Climate Change
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 213-232. 

Sheila Jasanoff
    A New Climate for Society
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 233-253. 

Ulrich Beck
    Climate for Change, or How to Create a Green Modernity?
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 254-266. 

Mike Hulme
    Cosmopolitan Climates: Hybridity, Foresight and Meaning
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 267-276. 

Elizabeth Shov
    Social Theory and Climate Change: Questions Often, Sometimes and Not Yet Asked
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 277-288. 

Brian Wynne
    Strange Weather, Again: Climate Science as Political Art
    Theory, Culture & Society 2010 27: 289-305. 

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World's megacities ripe for 'megadisaster'

According to the UN's humanitarian chief in a recent speech, some of the world's biggest cities are at growing risk of "megadisasters". He also warned that climate change was behind a rising number of natural catastrophes:

"We are going to see more disasters and more intense disasters as a result of climate change," said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.

"The trends in disasters particularly from climate change are of enormous concern. We can only expect that this trend is going to continue," he told journalists on the sidelines of a conference on reducing disaster risks.

Some 90 per cent of disasters are of climatic origin, caused by storms, floods, drought or other extreme weather conditions, according to the UN's weather agency.

Holmes said some of the world's biggest cities housing millions of people were highly exposed to disasters, being located in coastal areas that would be threatened by rising sea levels, or in earthquake zones.

Read more at 'World's megacities ripe for 'megadisaster''

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AFTER THE CAR - soon to be published

KINGSLEY DENNIS & JOHN URRY

After The Car

• A provocative exploration of a possible future without the car, from two leading sociologists.
• Examines the impact of global warming, global population increases and the peaking of oil supplies, among other things, on the future of how we travel.
• Argues that there will come a time in the future where, by necessity, the present car system will be‘re-designed’ and‘re-engineered’.
• After The Car will interest sociologists, policy makers, industry, as well as the general reader. It will be of interest to every ‘car user’.



It is difficult to imagine a world without the car, and yet that is exactly what Dennis and Urry set out to do in this provocative new book. They argue that the days of the car are numbered: powerful forces around the world are undermining the car system and will usher in a new transport system sometime in the next few decades. Specifically, the book examines how several major processes are shaping the future of how we travel, including:
• Global warming and its many global consequences
• Peaking of oil supplies
• Increased digitisation of many aspects of economic and social life
• Massive global population increases
The authors look at changes in technology, policy, economy and society, and make a convincing argument for a future where, by necessity, the present car system will be re-designed and re-engineered.

Yet the book also suggests that there are some hugely bleak dilemmas facing the twenty first century. The authors lay out what they consider to be possible ‘post-car’ future scenarios. These they describe as ‘local sustainability’, ‘regional warlordism’ and ‘digital networks of control’.

Some have described the 20th Century as the century of the car. Now the century has come to a close – and things are about to change.

publication details

8 May ~ 212 pages

978-0-7456-4421-9 Hardback £45.00 / $59.95

978-0-7456-4422-6 Paperback £14.99 / $19.95

the author

Kingsley Dennis was formerly Research Associate in the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University. John Urry is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and CeMoRe Director at Lancaster University

for more information/ interviews /review copy requests

CONTACT: Amandine Decam, Polity Marketing

Tel: 01865 476146

Email: afdecam@wiley.com

How to survive the coming century

Just how much 'mobility' will be enforced upon us through earth changes and global heating can never be truly estimated. The above image attempts to visualise a global world after a 4C temperature rise, by 2050. The above global changes are based on a recent New Scientist article called 'How to survive the coming century' which says that:

ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C.

Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only what this world of the future might be like, but how it could sustain a growing human population. They argue that surviving in the kinds of numbers that exist today, or even more, will be possible, but only if we use our uniquely human ingenuity to cooperate as a species to radically reorganise our world.

The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained. But maintaining the current global population of nearly 7 billion, or more, is going to require serious planning.

The article was written by Gaia Vince, a freelance science writer currently traveling the world - his thoughtful blog Wandering Gaia is worth reading too.


Read original article - 'How to survive the coming century'

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Observing Earth from Space

EarthTrends has an extensive post on earth-observation satellites that monitor climatic and environmental change:

More than two thousand satellites are currently in orbit. They measure the earth's surface characteristics, ocean currents, clouds and the gaseous content of the atmosphere. One of the oldest programs is Landsat. Run by both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat is still widely used today because it provides its data to researchers free of charge.

The Landsat program—a series of satellites that continuously record information about the earth's surface—has contributed to research on an enormous variety of land-use, ecosystem and development issues.

Landsat data have been used to study mitigation of deforestation and eutrophication; prediction of the effects of climate change; quantification of urban sprawl; and early-warning and response to extreme weather, natural disasters, and vector-borne diseases.

Read more at 'Observing Earth from Space: Landsat Data and Applications'

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Climate Road Trip: An Indian Movement for Change

As 2009 arrived with a bang, an Indian road trip set off in a bid for change:

As clocks ticked past midnight on December 31, signaling the start of the new year, a group of seven passionate individuals from India and around the world gathered in the eastern city of Chennai to begin an epic climate journey.

The team was embarking on a month-long road tour across India to raise awareness about local climate solutions and to empower Indian youth on one of the greatest challenges of our time: global climate change.

Representing an expanding network of youth and young professionals known as the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN), the travellers will traverse more than 3,500 kilometers through 20 cities to reach India's capital, Delhi, on February 4. They will be accompanied by a solar-powered electric band, Solar Punch, and will travel in a medley of alternatively powered vehicles, including solar plug-in Reva electric cars, a sustainably produced plant-oil powered truck, a solar-roofed jeep, and a waste vegetable oil-powered van.

The group's message is clear: climate change is real, but many of the solutions to this challenge already exist-with the greatest solution of all being the human capacity to act.

Read in full - 'Climate Road Trip: An Indian Movement for Change'

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How California Could Affect Car Choices

It seems in some circles that the recent directive from the Obama Administration on fuel efficiency is creating alarm among automakers:

President Obama's order to the Environmental Protection Agency to review whether to grant a government waiver that could allow California to pass tougher fuel economy and emission standards for automakers than the federal government could significantly change the vehicle choices consumers have in the next decade.

If the EPA grants California a waiver, the move would allow the state to require that vehicles achieve fuel economy equivalent to 35 miles per gallon by 2017, three years earlier than mandated by a federal regulation passed in 2007. The new fleet average would be 42.5 mpg by 2020.

California also would make it tougher in some ways for the auto companies to meet the state regulation than the federal one. That's because carmakers have been preparing to meet the new federal standard with future vehicle plans that include smaller engines, electric vehicles, and hybrids. But the phase-in of the California plan starting in 2011 and accelerating to 2017, they say, could force rapid price hikes on vehicles and slam automakers already hurting from the global recession. Under the rules, the auto companies would have to invest far more in new technology.

Read in full - 'How California Could Affect Car Choices'

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Gravity-mapping satellite will help predict climate change

Well, that's the plan! The Guardian reports on how scientists are preparing to launch a new satellite to make more precise measurements of the Earth's gravitational field and so help improve predictions about global warming:

The €330m (£265m) project aims to provide an extremely accurate map of the planet's gravitational field. Its main mission is to help climate scientists improve their predictions by enabling them to produce a more precise picture of the ocean currents.

By comparing the surface shape of the oceans with the undulations in the gravitational field, scientists can arrive at a more accurate picture of the oceans' currents - the flows that transport vast amounts of heat around the planet and so have a profound impact on the global climate.

The satellite will complete a map of the gravitational field once every 70 days and stay in operation for about 18 months.

Read more at - 'Gravity-mapping satellite will help predict climate change'

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Walking: Still Better Than Driving

So - is walking 12 times better for the climate than driving?

Here's a post that returns to the blogosphere debate about the climate impacts of walking vs. driving:

Apparently, some folks -- New York Times columnist and blogger John Tierney in particular -- were spreading the claim that a pleasant stroll to the store might actually release more GHGs than getting behind the wheel. Other bloggers picked up the meme, including one post with the headline: "Be Green: Drive."

The idea may sound absurd, but there's a legitimate insight behind it. Walking burns calories, which come from food -- and it takes an enormous quantity of fossil fuels to produce, process, and transport everything that we eat. Add in the other GHGs from agriculture -- everything from cow manure to emissions from synthetic fertilizers -- and you've got a potent global warming cocktail in every glass of milk.

Read original post - 'Walking: Still Better Than Driving'
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Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees

Here's a another innovative vision for dealing with a future of possible climate refugees:

According to the less alarming forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental Group on the Evolution of the Climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm . As a solution to this problem, architect Vincent Callebaut has come up with an ecotectural marvel that could serve as a future retreat for 50,000 inhabitants seeking refuge from rising waters due to global warming. The auto-sufficient, floating city/structure is covered in green walls and roofs, the top portion covered in grasses with the inner portion featuring a palm oasis, and the under portion serving as a bed for natural sea planktons and oceanic plants.

Vincent Callebaut called this project “Lilypad“



Read in full - 'Future Architecture: Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees'
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Quake breaks China's Firewall

Wired blog has a post that looks at how the recent China earthquake has led to a flurry of news and opinions being spread around the country in a way that was suppressed in 'normal' times. It reads that:

"Why were most of those killed in the earthquake children?" one post asked Thursday on FanFou, a microblogging site.

"How many donations will really reach the disaster area? This is doubtful," read another.

China is now home to the world's largest number of Internet and mobile phone users, and their hunger for quake news is forcing the government to let information flow in ways it hasn't before.

A fast-moving network of text messages, instant messages and blogs has been a powerful source of firsthand accounts of the disaster, as well as pleas for help and even passionate criticism of rescue efforts.

"I don't want to use the word transparent, but it's less censored, an almost free flow of discussion," said Xiao Qiang, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the China Internet Project, which monitors and translates Chinese Web sites.

China is well known for controlling the flow of information.

"We didn't know that hundreds of thousands of lives passed away during the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 until many years after the disaster took place," sociologist Zheng Yefu said in a commentary last week in the Southern Metropolis News.

But word about Monday's magnitude 7.9 quake spread quickly on Web sites and microblogging services, in which users share short bursts of information through text and instant messages. The services also publish the messages online.

Read article - 'China allows bloggers, others to spread quake news'
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Climate Change Could Force 1 Billion from Their Homes by 2050

The UK's Independent is running a post/article about how as many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming. Also, how steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels. Consider how this will affect mass migrations? A rise in environmental refugees?

Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the conference in London will be told. There could also be an effect on levels of starvation and on food prices as agriculture struggles to cope with growing demand in increasingly arid conditions.

Rising sea levels could also cause havoc, with coastal communities in southern Asia, the Far East, the south Pacific islands and the Caribbean seeing their homes submerged.

North and west Africans could head towards Europe, while the southern border of the United States could come under renewed pressure from Central America.

The conference will hear a warning from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that the developed world should start preparing for a huge movement of people caused by climate change.

The event, which is being organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), will also be addressed by a Kenyan farmer and a United Nations worker based in Sudan. They will give first-hand accounts of previously fertile land that has already become parched in recent years as the desert spreads.

Read post - 'Climate Change Could Force 1 Billion from Their Homes by 2050'
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Rise of the Carbon-Neutral City

BusinessWeek has a good run down of some of the higher-profile green city megaprojects in its article Rise of the Carbon-Neutral City. The post reminds us that 'several ambitious plans around the world envision green cities, but such projects raise as many questions as they promise to answer':

In the windswept deserts of Abu Dhabi, construction is under way on a green oasis planners say represents one of the most ambitious urban building projects ever. On Feb. 7, the United Arab Emirates-funded consortium behind Masdar City, a zero-carbon, zero-waste, self-contained community meant to house 50,000 people, finally broke ground, launching the first of seven building phases to be completed over the next eight years. All told, the $22 billion megaproject will include cutting-edge solar power and water treatment systems, nonpolluting underground light rail, and a small research university operated in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Foster & Partners-designed Masdar project (BusinessWeek.com, 12/13/07) is no doubt a bid to diversify the UAE's petroleum-rich economy as well as green the country's image. But more important, it is the latest in a growing list of high-profile, high-promise, environmentally friendly city design projects around the world. With mounting concerns over global warming and exploding urban populations, the race to design and build the model "green city of the future" is on. The sites proposed are of such scale and complexity that they represent a major new front in green innovation.

Read more at - 'Rise of the Carbon-Neutral City'

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Weather Engineering in China

TechReview have an interesting post on how the Chinese plan to modify the weather in Beijing during the Olympics, using supercomputers and artillery. Now the weather is becoming 'mobile' in the hands of new technology. Is this the beginning of terraforming in the light of dramatic earth changes, one wonders?

To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium that Beijing natives have nicknamed the Bird's Nest, the city's branch of the national Weather Modification Office--itself a department of the larger China Meteorological Administration--has prepared a three-stage program for the 2008 Olympics this August.

First, Beijing's Weather Modification Office will track the region's weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer, purchased from Big Blue last year, that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second. It models an area of 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) accurately enough to generate hourly forecasts for each kilometer.

Then, using their two aircraft and an array of twenty artillery and rocket-launch sites around Beijing, the city's weather engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium.

Finally...

Read on...in full - 'Weather Engineering in China'
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Climate to cause new mobility of relations

Is climate change relevant to a blog on mobilities? I think yes, for several reasons - one of those is that new geo-political relations will alter how mobilities are enacted between states and regions and will throw up new contested regions. Not to mention the socio-political ramifications on movement and the 'energy' of movement. Here are two very recent posts on the climate change issue and its socio-political effects that are stark and revealing:

i) Climate change may spark conflict with Russia, EU told

ii) Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist

See also this interesting piece on 'life after humans' - A lethal virus, humanity wiped out - then what?

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Cyclists' cellphones help monitor air pollution

NewScientistTech reports that mobile phones used by bicycle couriers are monitoring air pollution in Cambridge, UK, and beaming the data back to a research lab:

The technique is made possible by small wireless pollution sensors and custom software that allows the phones to report levels of air pollutants wherever they happen to be around town.

"Mobiles are everywhere, and now have a lot of computing power," says Eiman Kanjo, the computer scientist at Cambridge University, UK, leading technical development of the project. "They can provide an alternative to expensive custom hardware and report from places that otherwise aren't monitored."

Kanjo and colleagues gave local cycle couriers air-pollution sensors and GPS units that connect to their cellphones via Bluetooth. Custom software lets the phone constantly report the current air quality and location to servers back in the lab.

"They cycle around the city as usual and we receive the data over the cellphone network," says Kanjo. "We can find out what pollutants people are exposed to and where."

Read in full - 'Cyclists' cellphones help monitor air pollution'
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Opening of the Northwest Passage

In a startling piece of news BBCNews reports in 'Warming opens Northwest Passage' how the once fabled sea route, the Northwest Passage, a short cut from Europe to Asia through the Canadian Arctic, is now open to shipping for the first time since such records began, due to global warming. Now, you might think - 'what has this to do with mobilities?'. Well, these days little is moving faster than global climate change! And more importantly, just read below how much has moved!:

The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began, the European Space Agency (Esa) says. Historically, the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been ice-bound through the year. But the agency says ice cover has been steadily shrinking, and this summer's reduction has made the route navigable.

The findings, based on satellite images, raised concerns about the speed of global warming. Recent years have seen a marked shrinkage in its ice cover, but this year it was extreme, Esa says. It says this made the passage "fully navigable" for the first time since monitoring began in 1978.

"We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3m sq km (1,2 sq miles)," Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Danish National Space Centre said. He said it was "about 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006".

"There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100, 000 sq km (38,600 sq miles) per year on average, so a drop of 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) in just one year is extreme," Mr Pedersen said.

A drop of 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) in just one year??? that's one year's drop in what previously took 10 years.... now that is exponential shifts...

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