The moral foundations of action on climate change in Trump's America
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Kent
Department Name: Sch of Anthropology & Conservation
Abstract
Abstract
Climate change and energy are polarising topics in Trump's America: while the grassroots movement clamouring for a rapid low-carbon energy transition continues to grow stronger, Trump's administration, dominated by climate sceptics, has promised an "America First Energy Plan" based on maximising fossil fuel reserves. Responding to this quickly unfolding situation, I will undertake fieldwork with the 'Better Future Project', a grassroots climate action organisation working across Massachusetts. Through my research, I seek to study how activists creatively use moral concepts, promote ethical sensibilities, and communicate visions of a 'good society' to engender action on climate change in the face of wider political hostility to their convictions.
Research Question
There is a growing, globally distributed social movement of grassroots activists, charities, NGOs, and indigenous groups seeking systemic responses to climate change and fossil fuel extraction [13]. In the United States there is a groundswell of grassroots activism on climate change and clean energy transitions across local, national and international scales. This includes youth climate-action groups and the US Climate Action Network, fossil fuel divestment and reinvestment campaigns, political alliances between first-nation indigenous communities, resistance to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, nationwide decentralised low-carbon energy projects, and the Climate Justice Alliance, a nationwide collaborative of around 40 organisations working to implement a 'just transition' to a low-carbon energy system and 're-localised' economy.
Through ethnographic fieldwork, this project will explore the moral underpinnings of the proposed solutions to climate change - e.g. lowering carbon emissions by divesting in fossil fuels, increasing renewable energy capacity, promoting energy efficiency, and reducing consumption. My research will ask: How do activists negate the expansion of fossil fuel production and consumption through protest, civil disobedience, litigation, lobbying etc.? How do they promote and engender what they consider to be viable, necessary and perhaps radical alternatives to the current energy system? What moral concepts (justice, responsibility, freedom, duty), ethical sensibilities (hope, possibility, disapproval), and visions of a 'good society' do they use? To answer these questions, I will examine: a) the specific ways in which climate change and energy 'come to matter' as issues of primary concern for particular actors; b) the specific forms of social, economic and political transformation promoted by activists as proactive responses to fossil fuel extraction and climate change [11]; c) strategies used by activists to promote wider engagement with climate change and convince others to 'take action' in particular ways; d) activists' practical responses to discourses perpetuated by the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry.
Climate change and energy are polarising topics in Trump's America: while the grassroots movement clamouring for a rapid low-carbon energy transition continues to grow stronger, Trump's administration, dominated by climate sceptics, has promised an "America First Energy Plan" based on maximising fossil fuel reserves. Responding to this quickly unfolding situation, I will undertake fieldwork with the 'Better Future Project', a grassroots climate action organisation working across Massachusetts. Through my research, I seek to study how activists creatively use moral concepts, promote ethical sensibilities, and communicate visions of a 'good society' to engender action on climate change in the face of wider political hostility to their convictions.
Research Question
There is a growing, globally distributed social movement of grassroots activists, charities, NGOs, and indigenous groups seeking systemic responses to climate change and fossil fuel extraction [13]. In the United States there is a groundswell of grassroots activism on climate change and clean energy transitions across local, national and international scales. This includes youth climate-action groups and the US Climate Action Network, fossil fuel divestment and reinvestment campaigns, political alliances between first-nation indigenous communities, resistance to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, nationwide decentralised low-carbon energy projects, and the Climate Justice Alliance, a nationwide collaborative of around 40 organisations working to implement a 'just transition' to a low-carbon energy system and 're-localised' economy.
Through ethnographic fieldwork, this project will explore the moral underpinnings of the proposed solutions to climate change - e.g. lowering carbon emissions by divesting in fossil fuels, increasing renewable energy capacity, promoting energy efficiency, and reducing consumption. My research will ask: How do activists negate the expansion of fossil fuel production and consumption through protest, civil disobedience, litigation, lobbying etc.? How do they promote and engender what they consider to be viable, necessary and perhaps radical alternatives to the current energy system? What moral concepts (justice, responsibility, freedom, duty), ethical sensibilities (hope, possibility, disapproval), and visions of a 'good society' do they use? To answer these questions, I will examine: a) the specific ways in which climate change and energy 'come to matter' as issues of primary concern for particular actors; b) the specific forms of social, economic and political transformation promoted by activists as proactive responses to fossil fuel extraction and climate change [11]; c) strategies used by activists to promote wider engagement with climate change and convince others to 'take action' in particular ways; d) activists' practical responses to discourses perpetuated by the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Thomas Bell (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES/P00072X/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2027 | |||
| 1937412 | Studentship | ES/P00072X/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/06/2021 | Thomas Bell |
| Description | The project provides unique perspectives on how grassroots social movements are at the forefront of changing public narratives about climate change, articulating systemic alternatives to fossil fuel extraction, and generating discourses concerning the need to center questions of justice and equity in response to the climate crisis. The project documents key developments in the US climate movement during 2018/2019, a period of significant growth both for the climate movement and in public concern about the climate crisis. This is particularly with respect to the Green New Deal, an emergent and highly important issue in US political discourse. Thanks to ethnographic engagement with social movement organizations directly involved in articulating visions in relation to the Green New Deal, the project is at the forefront of understanding the forms of social transformation that it embodies as well as the debates and tensions that it engenders. The project furthers social science understanding of the principles and tensions underpinning grassroots organizing and activism, especially given debates around different styles of organizing came to the fore during the research period. |
| Exploitation Route | Social movements are integral to achieving the widespread social, political, and economic transformations necessary to respond to the climate crisis, the consequences of which will become increasingly severe, and they will remain central to public discourse. It will continue to be imperative to pay attention to, and to lift up the concerns expressed in, the creative solutions to the climate crisis being developed from the bottom up and articulated by social movement actors in the public sphere. This is especially important when considering: (1) the ineffectiveness of governments at all levels to respond with the scale, urgency, and attention to justice and equity mandated by the climate crisis; and (2) the unique capacity of social movements to foreground justice and equity in the responses that they articulate. In short, researching the kinds of issues raised in the course of this project will continue to be a necessary aspect of trying to understand civic responses to the injustices and ecological breakdowns of the climate crisis. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Energy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Other |