Sociological Perspectives on Climate Change: American Realism and Pragmatism Versus European Constructivism and Agnosticism

Anthropogenic climate change (ACC) has been the subject of sociological analyses for over two decades.  Early on the large majority of sociological work employed constructivist approaches.  Scholars employing social problems theory analyzed the manner in which ACC was constructed as a major societal problem (emphasizing the role of issue entrepreneurs and media) while those operating from a sociology of science perspective analyzed the development, practice and limitations of climate science (ranging from micro-level analyses of climate models to macro-level analyses of the IPCC).  By 2000 the strong constructivist approaches came under criticism for their relativism and post-modern excesses in “deconstructing” ACC, and more moderate forms of constructivism came into vogue.  At the same time, not only did the evidence for ACC become stronger, but data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at various geographical scales (especially the national level) became available.  These latter developments, as well as advances in analytic techniques like GIS, have led to an increase in realist-based analyses of ACC by sociologists, as illustrated by the work of the American Sociological Association’s Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change.  Accepting the reality of ACC and adopting a pragmatic approach in which the best available data on GHG emissions and projected biophysical impacts are incorporated into sociological investigations, the Task Force provides analyses of the drivers and impacts of ACC as well as adaptation and amelioration efforts.  In contrast, European scholars continue to adopt an “agnostic” stance toward ACC, emphasizing constructivist analyses that do not “privilege” climate science and theoretical explorations that avoid employing empirical data.  The relative strengths and limitations of the pragmatic and agnostic approaches are examined, especially their abilities to enrich societal understanding of ACC.