scholarly journals The divergent narratives and strategies of unions in times of social-ecological crises: fracking and the UK energy sector

2021 ◽  
pp. 102425892110412
Author(s):  
Halliki Kreinin
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Business Partnerships ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Climate Crisis

The issue of fracking highlights the variability of trade union approaches to the environment in the UK energy sector, as reflected in their narratives and strategic organising orientations. Stories alone cannot change the material interests underlying complex societal conflicts, yet transformative policies on the climate crisis cannot emerge without a coherent story about the environmental crises and possible solutions. This article uses unions’ positions on fracking as a proxy for opposing/supporting/hedging against climate action to see how divergent positions amongst the UK’s three biggest unions in the energy sector (UNISON, Unite and GMB) and the TUC are reinforced or challenged by internal union narratives and strategic foci. Drawing on four in-depth expert interviews and 148 union documents, the main union narratives and strategies are analysed and clustered. The article’s key insight is that unions’ specific narratives differ depending on a union’s orientation. Pro-fracking unions address the short-term immediate financial and material concerns of members and hence promote business partnerships, while anti-fracking unions develop broad-based grass-roots alliances to address the climate crisis. The key entry point for transformative coalitions lies in promoting a coherent and positive narrative about transformative change, in line with scientific evidence.

scholarly journals Big data for climate action or climate action for big data?

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172098203
Author(s):  
Maria I Espinoza ◽  
Melissa Aronczyk
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
User Data ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Depth Interviews

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and international organizational reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals Community Energy Companies in the UK: A Potential Model for Sustainable Development in “Local” Energy?

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Séverine Saintier
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Community Initiatives ◽  
Community Interest ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Energy Community ◽  
The Uk

The rise of renewable energy sources (RES) comes with a shift in attention from government and market energy governance to local community initiatives and self-regulation. Although this shift is generally welcome at domestic and EU level, the regulatory dimension, at both levels, is nevertheless not adapted to this multi-actor market since prosumers are not empowered and energy justice is far from achieved. The rise, in the UK, of Community Interest Companies (consumers and local actors’ collectives) in the energy sector provides an interesting perspective as it allows a whole system’s view. Research was conducted with six energy community organizations in the South West of England in order to evaluate their role and identity and assess whether this exemplar of “the rise of a social sphere in regulation” could be used as a model for a more sustainable social approach to the governance of economic relations. Findings illustrate that such organizations undoubtedly play an important role in the renewable energy sector and they also help to alleviate some aspects of “energy injustice”. Yet, the failure to recognize, in terms of energy policy, at domestic and EU level, the importance of such actors undermines their role. The need to embed and support such organizations in policy is necessary if one is to succeed to put justice at the core of the changing energy landscape.

scholarly journals Normal Island: COVID-19, Border Control, and Viral Nationalism in UK Public Health Discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 136078042110494
Author(s):  
Des Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Public Health Discourse ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Health Discourse ◽  
The Relationship

In this contribution, I present emergent analysis of a preoccupation with managing COVID-19 through border control, among non-Governmental public health actors and commentators. Through a reading of statements, tweets, and interviews from the ‘Independent Sage’ group – individually and collectively – I show how the language of border control, and of maintaining immunity within the national boundaries of the UK, has been a notable theme in the group’s analysis. To theorize this emphasis, I draw comparison with the phenomenon of ‘green nationalism’, in which the urgency of climate action has been turned to overtly nationalistic ends; I sketch the outlines of what I call ‘viral nationalism,’ a political ecology that understands the pandemic as an event occurring differentially between nation states, and thus sees pandemic management as, inter alia, a work of involuntary detention at securitized borders. I conclude with some general remarks on the relationship between public health, immunity, and national feeling in the UK.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Psychology of Denial Concerning Low-Carbon Behaviors: From Moral Disengagement to Generating Social Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Stoll-Kleemann ◽  
Tim O’Riordan
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
Moral Disengagement ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
High Carbon ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Behavioral Transformations

This paper reassesses the scope for shifting high-carbon personal behaviors in the light of prevailing insufficient political and regulatory action. Our previous research has shown that citizens regard such behavioral shifts as extremely daunting and create a number of psychological denial mechanisms that draw attention to the inaction of others, including governments. Further theoretical insights and relevant new findings have been attained from a more recent survey of more than 1000 German residents. This reveals that direct denial of anthropogenic climate change is replaced by a denial of responsibility for individual climate action. Ways of moral disengagement play a more dominant role, such as the diffusion and displacement of responsibility, although a majority is aware of—and very much concerned about—the climate crisis. More attention needs to be given for further reinterpretation of the role of moral disengagement to single out adequate strategies for different individuals and groups of people, such as making role models more visible to encourage social learning that could accelerate further necessary moral and behavioral transformations.

scholarly journals Identifying interventions with Gypsies, Roma and Travellers to promote immunisation uptake: methodological approach and findings

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Dyson ◽  
Helen Bedford ◽  
Louise Condon ◽  
Carol Emslie ◽  
Lana Ireland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Model ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Intervention Mapping ◽  
Intervention Development ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Social Ecological Model ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Background In the UK, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities are generally considered to be at risk of low or variable immunisation uptake. Many strategies to increase uptake for the general population are relevant for GRT communities, however additional approaches may also be required, and importantly one cannot assume that “one size fits all”. Robust methods are needed to identify content and methods of delivery that are likely to be acceptable, feasible, effective and cost effective. In this paper, we describe the approach taken to identify potential interventions to increase uptake of immunisations in six GRT communities in four UK cities; and present the list of prioritised interventions that emerged. Methods This work was conducted in three stages: (1) a modified intervention mapping process to identify ideas for potential interventions; (2) a two-step prioritisation activity at workshops with 51 GRTs and 25 Service Providers to agree a prioritised list of potentially feasible and acceptable interventions for each community; (3) cross-community synthesis to produce a final list of interventions. The theoretical framework underpinning the study was the Social Ecological Model. Results Five priority interventions were agreed across communities and Service Providers to improve the uptake of immunisation amongst GRTs who are housed or settled on an authorised site. These interventions are all at the Institutional (e.g. cultural competence training) and Policy (e.g. protected funding) levels of the Social Ecological Model. Conclusions The “upstream” nature of the five interventions reinforces the key role of GP practices, frontline workers and wider NHS systems on improving immunisation uptake. All five interventions have potentially broader applicability than GRTs. We believe that their impact would be enhanced if delivered as a combined package. The robust intervention development and co-production methods described could usefully be applied to other communities where poor uptake of immunisation is a concern. Study registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN20019630, Date of registration 01-08-2013, Prospectively registered.

scholarly journals Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Co-Production: A Social Practice Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7511
Author(s):  
Kimberley Slater ◽  
John Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Neighbourhood Scale ◽  
Constituent Elements

To address the challenge of achieving social learning in support of transformative change to sustainability, this paper develops an analytical framework that applies a social practice theory (SPT) lens to illuminate the constituent elements and dynamics of social learning in the context of transdisciplinary coproduction for sustainability transitions. Adopting an SPT approach affords a means of interpreting concrete practices at the local scale and exploring the potential for scaling them up. This framework is then applied to a real-world case at the urban neighbourhood scale in order to illustrate how social learning unfolded in a grassroots transdisciplinary coproduction process focused on climate action. We find that a social practice perspective illuminates the material and nonmaterial dimensions of the relationship between social learning and transdisciplinary coproduction. In decoupling these properties from individual human agency, the SPT perspective affords a means of tracing their emergence among social actors, generating a deeper understanding of how social learning arises and effects change, and sustainability can be reinforced.

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