Climate Crisis and the Democratic Prospect

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
States Of Emergency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The Media ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Environmental Democracy ◽  
Political Realm

Can contemporary democratic governments tackle climate crisis? Some say that democracy has to be a central part of a strategy to deal with climate change. Others say that experience shows it not to be up to the challenge in the time frame available—that it will require a stronger hand, even a form of eco-authoritarianism. This work seeks to sort out and assess the competing answers to a question that is not easily resolved. While the book supports the case for environmental democracy, it argues that establishing and sustaining democratic practices will be difficult during the global climate turmoil ahead, especially if confronted with permanent states of emergency. This inquiry undertakes a search for an appropriate political-ecological strategy capable of preserving a measure of democratic governance during hard times. Without ignoring the global dimensions of the crisis, the analysis finds an alternative path in the theory and practices of participatory environmental governance embodied in a growing relocalization movement, and a form of global eco-localism. Although these movements largely operate under the radar of the social sciences, the media, and the political realm generally, such vibrant socio-ecological movements not only speak to the crisis ahead, but are already well established and thriving on the ground, including ecovillages, eco-communes, eco-neighborhoods, and local transition initiatives. With the help of these ideas and projects, the task is to shift the discourse of environmental political theory in ways that can assist those who will face the climate crisis in its full magnitude in real terms.

Sustaining Democracy in Hard Times: Participatory Theory for Local Environmental Governance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Participatory Governance ◽  
Deliberative Politics ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Participatory Theory

This final chapter explores ideas previously taken up and relates them to political theory, democratic deliberative politics in particular. Up to this point, these ideas have been presented as theoretical contributions to both participatory governance and the relocalization movement. The discussion here seeks to extend the theoretical perspective more specifically to a number of important but relatively neglected traditions in democratic political theory, especially as they relate to ideas taken from the writings of Bookchin and Sale. This involves the theories of associative democracy, insurgent democratic politics, and participatory or democratic expertise. These theoretical orientations are provided as steps in search of a broader environmental political theory that can address the democratic struggles that are anticipated during the socio-ecological climate crisis ahead.

scholarly journals Social Movements Facing Authoritarian-Style Neoliberal Governments: Comparative Positioning Towards Violence in Indonesia and France

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 226
Author(s):  
Gabriel Facal ◽  
Gloria Truly Estrelita
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
Anthropological Approach ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Systemic Crises

Faced with global and systemic crises, neoliberal oriented governments are taking on more authoritarian forms of governance. By using the power of the media, justice, the police, and a set of government technologies, this authoritarian style manifests itself in alternating phases of low-key brutality and crises of ostentatious repression designed to frighten and demoralize opposition social movements. Confronted with these modes of government, the social movements adopt different tactics of mobilization, ranging from direct confrontation to forms of compromise and civil disobedience. With the climate crisis as well as the globalization of social struggles, these movements adopt new political strategies, which question the dichotomy between violence and non-violence. Using a historical and anthropological approach, this paper studies two cases in contemporary Indonesia and France. It shows that the objectives of the groups involved and the national socio-political and cultural background shape the local specificities of these strategies. The comparison, however, reveals similarities at both levels. It shows the persistence and even strengthening of class and oligarchy networks in the implementation of authoritarian-style neoliberal policies. It also points to the respective effectiveness of violent and non-violent tactics in the implementation of militant strategies.

scholarly journals Climate crisis and social work: lack of climate crisis education in social work curriculum

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasneem Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Natural Disaster Management

This paper argues that social work curriculum ignores the pressing matter of the ongoing global climate crisis. Using the theoretical frameworks of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, I propose four ways to deal with this curricular gap in social work, which are the following: 1) to insert ethical obligations on the part of social workers to address climate change and environmental justice within the social work code of ethics, 2) to expand the person-in-environment focus to include nature and environmental justice, 3) to embrace a transformative learning paradigm, and 4) to implement a mandatory course on natural disaster management.

scholarly journals Climate crisis and social work: lack of climate crisis education in social work curriculum

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasneem Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Natural Disaster Management

This paper argues that social work curriculum ignores the pressing matter of the ongoing global climate crisis. Using the theoretical frameworks of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, I propose four ways to deal with this curricular gap in social work, which are the following: 1) to insert ethical obligations on the part of social workers to address climate change and environmental justice within the social work code of ethics, 2) to expand the person-in-environment focus to include nature and environmental justice, 3) to embrace a transformative learning paradigm, and 4) to implement a mandatory course on natural disaster management.

Direct Action and the Climate Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-297
Author(s):  
Reed M. Kurtz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Systemic Change ◽  
Social Metabolism ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable

How should we conceptualize direct action against climate change? Although direct action is an increasingly significant tactic by the global climate movement, we lack understanding how direct action contributes to the systemic change necessary for addressing the crisis. Drawing upon critical theories of climate change as a crisis in the social reproduction of the metabolic relations between humans and nature in capitalism, I conceptualize direct action as attempts to intervene directly in the organization of the social metabolism, towards reorganizing these relations in a more socially just and ecologically sustainable manner. My framework thus expands and clarifies the scope and potential of direct action as a means of confronting the capitalist climate crisis, as evidenced by Greta Thunberg’s school strike for climate.

scholarly journals The European Media Portrayal of Climate Change: Implications for the Social Mobilization towards Climate Action

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8300
Author(s):  
Alexandre O. Tavares ◽  
Neide P. Areia ◽  
Sinead Mellett ◽  
Julia James ◽  
Diego S. Intrigliolo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Media Portrayal ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Media ◽  
Climate Crisis

Beyond other social actors, such as policymakers and scholars, common citizens are also expected to actively engage with climate change, by adopting sustainable actions and supporting environmental policies. However, and despite the actual growing of environment-related social movements, a kind of inertia still prevails in the social climate of our society. The media should play a key role in promoting, among common individuals, the adoption of new and more sustainable practices. However, it is argued that the media seems to be failing to effectively address the climate crisis. As such, this study aims to identify the main weaknesses of climate change media communication to further discuss possible opportunities of communication improvements. For that, 1609 news articles published between 2017 and 2018 in five European countries were analyzed in-depth, through quantitative content analysis. The news’ general characteristics, specifically reported themes, and the specificities of actors’ discourses were taken into account for the analysis. It was verified that the European media tends to report climate change by using distant (e.g., future-focused) and outcome (e.g., threatening messages) framings, based on non-resilient, scientific, and political narratives, whilst overlooking the role of civil society on adapting to climate change. These results demonstrate that instead of promoting society’s climate action, the media may be contributing to a widespread social apathy about the climate and the disengagement of individuals regarding environment-related matters. Evidence-based forms of improving the media’s communication on climate change will be further discussed.

scholarly journals Towards a Postcolonial Critical Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 089692052110039
Author(s):  
Meghan Tinsley
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Material Reality ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Ontological Framework ◽  
The Relationship

This article proposes postcolonial critical realism (PCR) as an ontological framework that explains the structuring relationship between racialized, colonial discourses and the social world. Beginning with the case study of the global climate crisis, it considers how scholars and activists have made sense of the present crisis, and how their discourses reflect and reproduce the climate crisis at large. To theorize the relationship between racialized, power-laden discourses and material reality, it derives five tenets of PCR: first, colonial discourses underlie, and interact with, material structures; second, coloniality is global and made visible through differential events and experiences; third, subaltern lived experiences reveal the nature of reality at large; fourth, coloniality is power-laden, sticky, and often invisible; and finally, decolonization must target all three domains of the social world and their interactions. The article concludes by considering how this framework might enrich anticolonial thought in the social sciences, as well as social movements.

scholarly journals A physical concept in the press: the case of the Jet Stream

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Fonseca ◽  
Gonzalo Miguez-Macho ◽  
José A. Cortes-Vazquez ◽  
Antonio Vaamonde
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Jet Stream ◽  
Safe Limits ◽  
The Media ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract. In recent years, science has hardened the discourse on the emergency of global warming, pointing out that the next decades will be decisive to maintain the stability of the climate system, avoiding a cascade effect of events that increase the average temperature above safe limits. The scientific community warns that there are different tipping points that could produce a chain reaction in the global climate. One of them is related to the Jet Stream. But despite the importance of this air current in atmospheric dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere and the changes it is experiencing in the context of global warming, the public is still not familiar with this kind of physical concepts, nor with much simpler others. As concerns about the climate crisis rise, knowledge remains stagnant. To advance in the learning of the science of climate change, in general, and of concepts such as the Jet Stream, in particular, specific scientific communication formats are required that can successfully tackle the difficult task of explaining such complex problems to the general public. These formats should be included in the media because they are the main source for information on climate change and because their characteristics allow taking on the challenge. In this article we present a communication proposal existent in a newspaper published in Spain. We argue that this communication format represents a good model to disseminate climate science, educate readers and even to make physical concepts such as the Jet Stream accessible. We believe that this format conforms to and complies with the enunciation of Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, which calls on the signatory countries to promote education and training on climate change.

scholarly journals The Use of Mass Media in the Social Welfare Area

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina-Maria Breaz ◽  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
The Social ◽  
Tv Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Short Presentation

In the present article there is a short presentation of the historical backdrop of the social partner calling globally and in our nation. Accentuation is set on network social help and the improvement of this arrangement of social assurance in the interwar period, the socialist time frame, and after the upheaval of December 1989. The phases of the improvement of the advanced education of social help with the area of Arad after the unrest are stamped. The paper presents the cause exercises completed by understudies at the UAV Arad under the direction of their educators and the media inclusion of these activities (by press and TV). Media inclusion has prompted a superior information on the calling and an expansion in the quantity of understudies who wish to take up this calling.

Environmental Democracy and Ecological Citizenship: From Theoretical Ideals to Practical Alternatives?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Time Frame ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Limited Time ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Theoretical Orientations ◽  
Ecological Citizenship ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Environmental Democracy

This chapter turns to the question of environment and democracy. It takes up two themes in environmental political thought: ecological citizenship and environmental democracy. Not only are these interrelated theoretical orientations advanced by environmental political theorists to counter the kinds of technocratic eco-authoritarianism discussed in the two previous chapters, they are presented as essential foundations of a sustainable way of life. The future of democratic governance in view of the climate crisis is thus seen to depend on the viability of the environmental democratic challenge. The discussion supports the premises of environmental democracy, but points to a pressing need to give more attention to the relationship of this theory to the realities of political power and the limited time frame now available for achieving such a challenging societal eco-transformation. The chapter approaches this through an examination of the literature on deliberative environmental democracy, ecological citizenship, citizen juries, and deliberative systems.

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