Social adaptation to climate change

Abstract

The climate emergency is the social problem of the day. Macroscopic transformational changes like adaptation to climate change affect people through social structures: we can think of social structure as a prism that refracts macroscopic forces into unequal outcomes depending upon social networks, communities, organizations, race, class, and gender. Drawing on foundational works of environmental sociology and the social demography of migration, this lecture focuses on how sociology can contribute both to a better understanding of societal adaptation, and to more successful adaptation strategies.