It's been quite a year!  

The fall semester included an amazing line-up of scholars studying environmental activism and protest from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.  However, due to funding constraints and COVID-19, the spring semester was very slow at the PSE.  

As the university responds to the pandemic and the economic fallout from it, it is unclear if resources will be available to continue to support our work.  More to come once normal business resumes at UMD.

In the meantime, I hope everyone stays safe and healthy.

​--Dana 

Welcome (almost) to 2019-2020 academic year!

This summer, the PSE went through a transformation--we have moved over two doors and are now located in 3138 and 3140 of the Parren Mitchell Art-Sociology Building.  

Our focus is also shifting somewhat.  For this year, we will be focusing a lot of our attention on activism around environmental issues and climate politics.  Our fall lineup of speakers in the Workshop in Society and the Environment reflects this shift in focus, so check it out!

Looking forward to seeing everyone when school resumes in a few weeks.

​--Dana 

It was a thought-provoking spring semester with lots of interesting discussion in our Workshop for Society and the Environment.  

Before we break for summer, I wanted to share some new work on climate activism, which comes out in Nature Climate Change today.  Hopefully, the PSE will begin a new project focused on studying the emergent youth climate movement.

In the meantime, have a good summer and we'll see everyone in the Fall!

- Dana
​

Happy 2019! 

This spring, the PSE will host an interdisciplinary group of scholars to talk about their work in our Workshop for Society and the Environment.  The topics range from climate journalism, socio-ecological resilience, carbon removal,  studying socio-environmental networks, and digital aesthetic experiences. As usual, the Workshop will take place on Wednesdays at 10:30 in ASY 1101.  Check out the full schedule here and I hope to see you there!

​--Dana

The Program for Society and the Environment is delighted to announce that two of our Fellows (and members of the Climate Constituencies Project research team) have successfully defended their PhDs!

Dr. Anya Galli Robertson defended her dissertation, "Disproportionality, Discourse, and the Debate Over Coal-Fired Power."  Anya has accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at the University of Dayton and will be moving there this summer.

Dr. William Yagatich defended his dissertation, "The Sociological Study of Expert Knowledge Work: Current Trends and Changes in the Study of Professions, Professionalization, and Professionalism."  Bill has accepted an offer to be a Postdoctorate Research Fellow at George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication and is starting immediately.

Good luck Anya and Bill!

Happy New Years Everyone!

My family and I have returned from Sweden and it's already like we never left...

I wanted to post this summary of what is to come at the Program for Society and the Environment in 2018.  We are resuming the Workshop in Society and the Environment and have a great interdisciplinary list of speakers scheduled.

Here's the schedule (more details about each speaker will be posted as we get closer to each date under Workshop on our site):

January 31– Johannes Urpelainen, Ph.D., Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment; Founding Director, Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy; Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “The Political Economy of Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon.”

February 28 – Joseph McCartney Waggle, Ph.D. Candidate, PSE Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland. “Scientists Say: A Case Study of Scientific Expertise in a Post-Modern Political Discourse.”

March 28 – Andrew Cheon, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “Developing Champions: Understanding the Global Expansion of National Oil Companies.”

April 25—Nancy Sonti, Ecologist, USDA Forest Service; Ph.D. Candidate, PSE Fellow, Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Maryland. “Neighborhood Perceptions and Use of Baltimore’s Forest Patches.”

I hope to see everyone at our first Workshop later this month!

--Dana

​ In the past few months, there has been a lot of talk about the science of climate change, with challenges  coming from inside the Trump Administration. In fact, the EPA Administrator has made his intentions to review the science very clear.  As a result, it is unclear how an administrative push to challenge the science is related to the perspective of the US climate policy network (or the policy actors who make the decisions about energy and climate policy in the United States).

As part of our Post-Election wave of the Climate Constituencies Project, we once again surveyed the top policy actors involved in climate and energy issues at the federal level and in four swing states: Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio.  In each, the ‘top policy actors’ were identified using a methodology adapted from our previous work, which has been published in Nature Climate Change, and Contexts.  This post-election survey began after the Trump Administration's first 100 days and closed at the end of June.  As part of it, we once again asked the top policy actors their attitudes about the science of climate change.  Responses were scored on a scale of 1-5 ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, mean scores from the pre-election wave in 2016 and the post-election wave in 2017 are reported in the table above. 

The results show that, although federal attitudes have gone down slightly, there continues to be an overwhelming level of consensus around the science of climate change among policy actors at the Federal level and in these four swing states.  As with our pre-election wave, there are no statistically significant differences in opinions on these questions across the four states and at the federal level.

- Dana R. Fisher (drfisher@umd.edu)

​Dr. Paul Stern is a senior scholar at the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Stern presented a recent research project titled “How can social science become more influential in energy transitions?” on April 5th. This work explores how social science can influence energy outcomes through social science energy research, or “SSER”. Dr. Stern distinguishes “pure” SSER from “applied” research that directly seeks to influence policy and energy outcomes. Highlighting public perceptions of technology and social consequences of energy policies are just some of the ways that social science can help to speak to energy research. This work is even more important in the current political climate, as the role of science in policy making is uncertain.
 
Dr. Stern argues that social scientists need to identify influential research topics with the potential to significantly affect energy use, while also focusing on problems that allow them to add explanatory value beyond what other disciplines can offer. Dr. Stern discussed the ways that social science has tended to focus on energy issues or behaviors that have limited potential for positive change in energy terms. Specifically seeking targets that have this greater potential can allow social science to have increased real-world influence.
 
This presentation helps us to consider the ways that social science could directly impact energy use and transition beyond “pure” research that reaches limited audiences. Through projects analyzing such topics as household behaviors, social aspects of emerging technologies, and behavioral components of organizational energy use, social science can inform a changing energy landscape. Following the April 22nd March for Science, this project contributes to an emerging discussion about the role of science in policy and social change.

On March 28 2017, President Donald Trump signed the “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” Executive Order. The order rolls back a slate of Obama Administration climate and environmental regulations including the Clean Power Plan, the moratorium on new coal mining leases on federal lands, the roadmap for national greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and the use of the “social cost of carbon” analysis in regulatory review. The setting for the press event—surrounded by coal miners at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency—signaled the end of what opponents called the “war on coal” and the beginning of a new era of regulatory freedom in which coal comes first in the national energy mix. Just before signing the order, President Trump turned to the coal miners behind him, saying “come on, fellas. Basically, you know what this is? You know what it says, right? You’re going back to work.”
 
Although the Trump Administration is telling a different story, coal won’t be making a full comeback.
​In this context, the discourse of “bringing back coal jobs” is more political than it is practical. 

​I’d love to write something about how science will fare in the Trump administration. I’d love to look forward to some semblance of equilibrium between the far-right ideology that got Trump elected and the mandate for innovation and progress in the sciences. I’d love to simply be able to say that science will survive the Trump administration.
 
But so far there’s no science to speak of in the administration at all.
 
There are 46 science and technology positions for which the President must send nominations to the Senate for confirmation. These range from commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the director of the Census Bureau, comprising many scientific different disciplines and levels of bureaucracy. All of these positions are meant to advise the administration — sometimes the President directly, as in the case of the empty chair of the Council on Environmental Quality — on the most important science-related issues facing the nation and the world today.