Malcolm H Fairbrother

Does inequality erode social trust? Results from multilevel models of US states and counties

Previous research has argued that income inequality reduces peoples trust in other people, and that declining social trust in the United States in recent decades has been due to rising levels of income inequality. Using multilevel models fitted to data from the General Social Survey, this paper substantially qualifies these arguments. We show that while people are less trusting in US states with higher income inequality, this association holds only cross-sectionally, not longitudinally; since the 1970s, states experiencing larger increases in inequality have not suffered systematically larger declines in trust. For counties, there is no statistically significant relationship either cross-sectionally or longitudinally. There is therefore only limited empirical support for the argument that inequality influences generalized social trust; and the declining trust of recent decades certainly cannot be attributed to rising inequality.

Geoengineering, moral hazard, and trust in climate science: evidence from a survey experiment in Britain

Geoengineering could be taken by the public as a way of dealing with climate change without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents the results of survey experiments testing whether hearing about solar radiation management (SRM) affects people’s support for taxing polluting energy and/or their trust in climate science. For a nationally representative sample of respondents in Britain, I found that receiving a brief introduction to SRM had no impact on most people’s willingness to pay taxes, nor on their trust in climate science. Hearing about this form of geoengineering therefore appears unlikely to erode support for emissions reductions. Specifically for political conservatives asked first about paying taxes, moreover, hearing about SRM increased trust in climate science. These and other results of the experiments also provide partial support for the theory that conservatives’ lower trust in climate science generally stems from their aversion to regulatory action by the state.

Externalities: why environmental sociology should bring them in

The concept of externalities represents the core of environmental economics but appears much less in sociology and other social sciences. This article presents the concept of externalities and makes a case for its usefulness, noting reasons why environmental sociologists should like it and use it more than they do currently. The concept is closely tied to theories – of why environmental problems occur and how they can be addressed – which contradict influential perspectives in environmental sociology. But an externalities-centred approach to environmental issues is nonetheless highly sociological and consistent with current research in other subfields. From an externalities perspective, environmental problems and protection are intrinsically social, and often highly political, rooted in relations of injustice and/or distrust. Practically, the most promising solutions to environmental problems embody a balance of market liberalism and strong state regulation. Externalities should therefore be a constructively unifying concept for environmental research across the social sciences. The concept is also provocative; however, in that its diagnosis of environmental problems amounts to powerful advocacy for major policy changes – even if within capitalism and given continued economic growth.

ICT 4 Climate Change Adaptation Systemic and Generative Perspectives & Tools

The predicted manifestations of global climate change are diverse and extensive. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) offer great potential to enable and enhance climate change adaptation projects, programmes and activities. As yet these roles have received relatively little systematic consideration. In this paper we outline the nature of climate change adaptation contexts and present a set of prototype tools that aim to enable the identification and exploration of opportunities for ICTs to play positive roles across the full spectrum of climate change adaptation contexts. The tools are both generative and systemic—generative in enabling the creative identification of potential adaptation roles for ICTs, of all kinds, and systemic in providing a means of taking into account the complex interactions between the key elements of any climate change adaptation context. Further because of their systemic nature they can be iteratively applied enabling adaptive responses to the inevitable change within any climate change adaptation project. The paper provides an illustration of the generative use of the tools and finally explores key limitations in the initial work leading to suggestion for further development.