Climate change

what role for sociology?

Nico Stehr

pp. 343-354

in: Marian T. Adolf (ed), Nico Stehr, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

Lever-Tracy (2008) has called for sociologists to become more involved in the debates about climate change and the future of planet Earth. We support some of the points of her argument wholeheartedly. Nonetheless, we want to query four tenets of her article that seem particularly problematic to us. First, she argues that sociology has long been silent on climate change because sociologists are suspicious of naturalistic explanations and because they are sceptical of teleological arguments, or discourses that identify plans for the future. While this is partly true, we see other, more important processes at play that need examining.