Environment, development, and globalization

00:43:07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MNJYXYZZrA

Ringkasan

TLDRIn this lecture, Dr. Andrew Jorgenson examines comparative international research on environmental change, development, and globalization. He discusses various theories of social and economic development and underscores the use of longitudinal methods to analyze global change trends. By looking at dependent variables like greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth, he illustrates longitudinal statistical modeling techniques. Dr. Jorgenson applies theories from environmental sociology to interpret empirical patterns, emphasizing the role of environmental sociology in interdisciplinary research. A significant part of his talk centers on the empirical analysis of development impacts on emissions, revealing consistent effects in high-income nations and increasing impacts in developing regions. Furthermore, he explores how globalization, through trade and investment, influences environmental inequalities between countries. Dr. Jorgenson also touches on sustainability science and examines whether high energy consumption is necessary for high human well-being, indicating that current sustainability discussions are deeply intertwined with sociological theories and methods. He concludes by advocating for the use of multi-level analysis in environmental research, highlighting future directions that involve facility-level data across nations.

Takeaways

  • 🌍 Comparative international research links environmental change with development and globalization.
  • 📉 Longitudinal methods are key for studying environmental trends over time.
  • 📊 The relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth is complex and varied across regions.
  • 📈 High-income nations have stable development impacts on emissions, while impacts are increasing in developing regions.
  • 🔄 Globalization contributes to international environmental inequalities.
  • 💡 Sociological theories provide crucial insights into interpreting empirical environmental data.
  • 🔍 Longitudinal studies reduce biases in hypothesis testing by repeating observations over time.
  • 🎓 Environmental sociology plays a pivotal role in interdisciplinary research on sustainability.
  • 🌱 High consumption isn't necessary for high human well-being, challenging conventional sustainability metrics.
  • 📅 Emerging research explores carbon intensity well-being, seeking to align development with sustainability.

Garis waktu

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    Dr. Andrew Jorgenson discusses comparative international research on environmental change, development, and globalization. He covers theories of development and globalization and describes using longitudinal methods to study global change. He highlights the analysis of greenhouse gas emissions in relation to economic growth and uses environmental sociology theories to interpret empirical data.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Jorgenson shares his approach to environmental sociology, emphasizing longitudinal statistical techniques in international comparative research. He notes the small but growing community studying these dynamics and aims to provide insights into socio-environmental questions. He acknowledges previous work done on socio-environmental theories and introduces newer, interdisciplinary work on sustainability.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Jorgenson explains structural globalization by comparing social interaction networks internationally. He notes how globalization is operationalized in various dimensions, including political and cultural. He uses historical data to illustrate trends and nuances in global trade and production, suggesting globalization's role in unifying economic indicators historically and in contemporary times.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    The lecture discusses challenges and methodological considerations in using longitudinal data to study global changes. Jorgenson advocates for these methods to address biases and develop rigorous testing frameworks. He centers on indicators like CO2 emissions to track environmental impacts and discusses how these methods offer conservative estimates beneficial for macro-level analysis.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    Jorgenson examines development and globalization's effects on the environment using longitudinal studies, highlighting results challenging initial assumptions. He discusses how development's impact on carbon emissions varies between the Global North and South, with stable emission rates in developed nations and increasing impacts in developing ones, addressing debates on globalization's environmental effects.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    The discussion touches on ecological unequal exchange and foreign investment's environmental impacts in developing countries. Jorgenson points to vertical trade as a driver of local environmental degradation, emphasizing that such processes create relationships contributing to global environmental inequalities. He mentions ongoing debates on these findings' implications.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Jorgenson explores global theories, including world society perspectives, assessing their measurable impact on environmental outcomes. He highlights research suggesting ties between global environmental regimes and reduced emissions or deforestation, but underlines the complexity of these relations and the contentious nature of quantifying their effects on a global scale.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:43:07

    Jorgenson introduces emerging sustainability research areas focusing on carbon intensity well-being, reducing environmental impacts while maintaining quality of life. Using longitudinal methods, he presents regional variance in sustainability metrics, stressing the importance of sociological insights in broader sustainability discussions and advocating for multi-level analysis in future studies.

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Peta Pikiran

Video Tanya Jawab

  • What theories does Dr. Jorgenson overview in his lecture?

    Dr. Jorgenson overviews theories on social and economic development and globalization.

  • What example does he use to demonstrate his analysis of longitudinal trends?

    He uses the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth to demonstrate longitudinal trend analysis.

  • How does Dr. Jorgenson demonstrate the use of theory in empirical patterns?

    He applies various theories from environmental sociology to real-world examples to show how theory can be used to interpret empirical patterns.

  • What is one of the primary focuses of the research Dr. Jorgenson discusses?

    The primary focus is on understanding the relationship between environmental change, development, and globalization using longitudinal methods.

  • What methods does Dr. Jorgenson highlight in his research?

    He highlights the use of longitudinal statistical modeling techniques for comparative international research.

  • What are some dependent variables discussed by Dr. Jorgenson?

    Some dependent variables include greenhouse gas emissions, ecological footprints, and other environmental impacts at a macro level.

  • What is the significance of his findings on high-income nations?

    Dr. Jorgenson finds that the effect of development on per capita carbon emissions is remarkably stable in high-income nations.

  • How does Dr. Jorgenson contribute to the discussion on sustainability and human well-being?

    He discusses emerging research that examines the relationship between environmental impact and human well-being, suggesting that high consumption of energy isn't necessary for high well-being.

  • What potential tensions does Dr. Jorgenson discuss related to globalization and environmental impact?

    He discusses how globalization might contribute to international environmental inequality and environmental degradation, particularly in developing nations.

  • What is Dr. Jorgenson's position at Boston College?

    He is a professor of sociology and environmental studies.

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Gulir Otomatis:
  • 00:00:00
    ♪ Music ♪
  • 00:00:06
    In this lecture, Dr. Andrew Jorgenson discusses
  • 00:00:08
    comparative international work that looks
  • 00:00:10
    at patterns and environmental change,
  • 00:00:12
    development, and globalization.
  • 00:00:14
    He overview several theories of social and
  • 00:00:16
    economic development and globalization
  • 00:00:19
    and then explains the use of longitudinal
  • 00:00:20
    methods to characterize global change.
  • 00:00:23
    He reviews several dependent variables that
  • 00:00:25
    are often used to characterize macro level
  • 00:00:27
    global change and uses the example of the
  • 00:00:29
    relationships between greenhouse gas
  • 00:00:31
    emissions and economic growth to
  • 00:00:33
    demonstrate analyses of longitudinal trends.
  • 00:00:35
    Finally, he applies several theories
  • 00:00:37
    from environmental sociology to the
  • 00:00:39
    example to highlight how to use
  • 00:00:41
    theory to interpret empirical patterns.
  • 00:00:43
    Hello everyone, again.
  • 00:00:45
    It's great to be here, this has been terrific.
  • 00:00:47
    I'm Andrew Jorgenson, professor of sociology
  • 00:00:49
    and environmental studies at Boston College
  • 00:00:51
    and today what I'm going to do you is I'm going
  • 00:00:53
    to do something a little different in a sense from
  • 00:00:56
    what the earlier presenters did this morning which
  • 00:00:59
    gave incredible talks and it's really hard to follow
  • 00:01:02
    up both of them, but I'm going to do my best.
  • 00:01:06
    Rather than going into great depth into one or two
  • 00:01:09
    studies, I'm going to give you a bit of an overview of
  • 00:01:12
    a few slices of sociological research on environment,
  • 00:01:17
    development, globalization and they're going to be
  • 00:01:19
    pretty narrow slices and what I'm going to specifically
  • 00:01:21
    do is I'm going to focus on work that uses longitudinal
  • 00:01:23
    statistical modeling techniques where we're doing
  • 00:01:27
    comparative international research, so the unit of
  • 00:01:29
    analysis in most of this work is a nation state and
  • 00:01:32
    one of the things I'd like to emphasize to is we're
  • 00:01:34
    not a huge community of sociologists that do this
  • 00:01:37
    particular type of environmental sociology, but we're
  • 00:01:39
    a growing community, but I do think that we have
  • 00:01:43
    an important role to play in doing sociological work
  • 00:01:46
    on environment, development, globalization, but
  • 00:01:48
    also I think we have some things that we contribute
  • 00:01:49
    to broader multi-disciplinary work on these sorts of
  • 00:01:53
    socio-environmental questions and so most of the
  • 00:01:56
    work I'm going to focus on today is really sort of
  • 00:01:58
    sociologically grounded and published in sociology
  • 00:02:00
    journals, but I want to give you an idea of how
  • 00:02:03
    we ask these sorts of questions and some of the
  • 00:02:07
    ways we try to come up with some tentative
  • 00:02:08
    answers to some of these questions, so I'll talk
  • 00:02:12
    a little bit about development and globalization.
  • 00:02:14
    Folks yesterday did excellent summaries of the
  • 00:02:18
    theories that I'm going to gauge that I can skip over
  • 00:02:20
    a lot of that which is terrific thank you for that
  • 00:02:22
    yesterday, and now that, the title that was in the
  • 00:02:26
    program is a little misleading; I'm not going to spend
  • 00:02:28
    a lot of time talking about multi-level studies because
  • 00:02:31
    I don't want to give it away, I'm going to talk about
  • 00:02:32
    multi-level analysis in the context of this work at the
  • 00:02:35
    very end, so I'm going to really focus on longitudinal
  • 00:02:37
    work, that before I do that though I do want to focus
  • 00:02:40
    on some relatively new work that's being done that
  • 00:02:43
    sort of merges these different ideas together and it's
  • 00:02:46
    sociologically sort of grounded, but it's work that I
  • 00:02:50
    and my colleagues are really trying to sort of engage
  • 00:02:53
    in the broader sustainability science community with
  • 00:02:55
    this new work that we're doing on sustainability that
  • 00:02:57
    focuses on relationships between environmental
  • 00:03:00
    impacts or environmental resource use relative to
  • 00:03:03
    human well-being and how socio-economic processes
  • 00:03:06
    might shape that kind of sustainability dynamic.
  • 00:03:08
    Okay, so a lot of this research though is sort of
  • 00:03:11
    interested in search of broad dynamics and this
  • 00:03:14
    is, I'm embarrassed to put up this map up after
  • 00:03:16
    we saw these incredible maps earlier today, but
  • 00:03:20
    this was my one and only attempt at making a
  • 00:03:23
    map about, well over 10 years ago and this is
  • 00:03:26
    just looking at this idea, there's this sort of long
  • 00:03:28
    standing argument out there about these ideas
  • 00:03:31
    about environmental load displacement or these
  • 00:03:33
    sorts of consumption environment degradation
  • 00:03:35
    paradoxes when we look at these relationships
  • 00:03:38
    between higher consuming, more affluent nations
  • 00:03:41
    relative to environmental impacts within their
  • 00:03:43
    borders and so this is just looking at, you know,
  • 00:03:45
    sort of spatially this general pattern, a very
  • 00:03:48
    simplified way of, in general as you probably
  • 00:03:51
    know, if we look at something like the ecological
  • 00:03:53
    footprint per capita of nations which are really
  • 00:03:55
    highly correlated with their levels of economic
  • 00:03:57
    development there tends to be a negative correlation
  • 00:04:02
    between that and deforestation within the borders
  • 00:04:04
    of those nations simultaneously and so this
  • 00:04:08
    sort of is an example of these kind of inverse
  • 00:04:11
    relationships that raised a series of questions.
  • 00:04:15
    First though, what is development?
  • 00:04:17
    Now I could spend all day long talking about
  • 00:04:19
    this; I'm part of also this sociology of
  • 00:04:22
    development community which there's been
  • 00:04:24
    kind of a revitalization within sociology of
  • 00:04:27
    development in recent years which is pretty
  • 00:04:28
    exciting and, you know, like other disciplines
  • 00:04:30
    that study development and other things were
  • 00:04:33
    involved in these, you know, big discussions
  • 00:04:34
    about well, what we do we mean by development
  • 00:04:36
    what is development conceptually how do we
  • 00:04:38
    measure this and well it's controversial and
  • 00:04:42
    there's a lot of different ways in which you
  • 00:04:43
    can conceptualize what development is and
  • 00:04:45
    how we can operationalize a development.
  • 00:04:48
    Take this concept and quantify it somehow and,
  • 00:04:51
    you know, the typical way that most folks do it
  • 00:04:53
    in research is by using measures of economic
  • 00:04:55
    development and so a lot of the work that I'm
  • 00:04:57
    going to present today, that's what we do, but
  • 00:04:59
    it's important to recognize that development is a
  • 00:05:01
    sort of multifaceted kind of construct and we can
  • 00:05:05
    look at things like human well-being measures as
  • 00:05:09
    a metric of development or some of these indices
  • 00:05:13
    like the Human Development Index as well and
  • 00:05:16
    some of you are probably familiar with some of
  • 00:05:18
    these from different disciplinary perspectives
  • 00:05:21
    some of the other sorts of definitions of what
  • 00:05:22
    development is and I highly recommend this, it,
  • 00:05:24
    this is in the new issue of the Annual Review
  • 00:05:26
    of Sociology that Jocelyn Viterna, and one of
  • 00:05:29
    her graduate students that has this excellent
  • 00:05:31
    annual review piece on the sociology of
  • 00:05:33
    development and they really get into sort of
  • 00:05:35
    the history of this field, which I think overlaps
  • 00:05:38
    quite a bit with environmental sociology.
  • 00:05:41
    Now structural globalization or globalization,
  • 00:05:44
    specifically structural globalization we've talked
  • 00:05:46
    about a bit yesterday, the work that I'm going to
  • 00:05:48
    talk about, the empirical work is really trying to
  • 00:05:52
    sort of link these ideas are structural globalization
  • 00:05:54
    with environmental outcomes because like the
  • 00:05:57
    development literature globalization is a very
  • 00:06:00
    fuzzy concept, it drives some of us nuts like
  • 00:06:02
    what in the heck do you mean by globalization
  • 00:06:04
    in the first place and I really, truthfully, and I'm
  • 00:06:07
    inspired by the work of Chris Chase-Dunn and
  • 00:06:09
    Charles Tilly who's a brilliant sociologist or was
  • 00:06:13
    a brilliant sociologist and others that try to think
  • 00:06:16
    of it from a structural sense and to think about,
  • 00:06:18
    it goes back to this, I think you used interaction
  • 00:06:20
    networks yesterday ecological interaction
  • 00:06:23
    networks was brought up yesterday, but from a
  • 00:06:25
    sociological perspective and we're talking about
  • 00:06:26
    structural globalization, we're talking about kinds
  • 00:06:28
    of social interaction networks and the way that
  • 00:06:31
    we try to operationalize is whether we're talking
  • 00:06:33
    about economic globalization or political globalization
  • 00:06:35
    or some form of cultural globalization is if they're
  • 00:06:38
    more social interactions between let's say nation
  • 00:06:40
    states relative to within nation states and that
  • 00:06:43
    means that globalization is increasing, but if
  • 00:06:45
    interactions within a society are increasing at
  • 00:06:48
    the same rate as interactions between societies
  • 00:06:49
    the doesn't mean that there's an increase
  • 00:06:51
    within globalization, this allows us to try to
  • 00:06:53
    operationalize this using quantitative measures.
  • 00:06:56
    You saw this slide yesterday, I'm going to throw it
  • 00:06:58
    up there again cause this is a very pathbreaking
  • 00:07:00
    analysis in sociology employing this idea of structural
  • 00:07:04
    globalization looking at trade globalization historically
  • 00:07:06
    and we see that there appears to be a long-term trend
  • 00:07:09
    surprise, surprise of the globalization of trade which
  • 00:07:12
    overlaps quite a bit if we look at the same sort of
  • 00:07:15
    process looking at the globalization of production
  • 00:07:18
    using other kinds of economic indicators.
  • 00:07:20
    So this has also been done to look at, let's say if
  • 00:07:23
    using foreign investment flows as sort of a proxy
  • 00:07:27
    for the globalization of production or just investment
  • 00:07:31
    globalization and if you do that you see a very similar
  • 00:07:33
    sort of process where there's somewhat of a cycle,
  • 00:07:35
    but there's a long-term trend that really shoots up
  • 00:07:38
    and this is also tied to, I should mention this long
  • 00:07:40
    standing debate within sociology about is some,
  • 00:07:43
    is this globalization thing something new or like an
  • 00:07:46
    ongoing historical process and this sort of research
  • 00:07:50
    would suggest that, well it's both, there's something
  • 00:07:53
    that's qualitatively and quantitatively new to it, but
  • 00:07:55
    it is also at the same time part of the sort of
  • 00:07:58
    long-term sort of unfolding processes as well.
  • 00:08:02
    This is a study out of the world society tradition and
  • 00:08:04
    I'm lumping this into a, as a global or globalization kind
  • 00:08:08
    of theory, but looking at these sorts of through time
  • 00:08:11
    the cumulative numbers in emergences of these different
  • 00:08:14
    kinds of governmental or civil society groups and other
  • 00:08:17
    sorts of related processes and, you know, the lines going
  • 00:08:22
    up, all these lines are going up, so this suggests, well
  • 00:08:26
    some would suggest that this is reflective of this sort of
  • 00:08:29
    emerging world environmental regime that's consistent
  • 00:08:32
    with this sort of emergent world society dynamic.
  • 00:08:35
    Now I'm not advocating for these measures, I'm not
  • 00:08:37
    suggesting these measures are great, but this is an
  • 00:08:40
    example of how sociologists have attempted to try to
  • 00:08:43
    quantify these sorts of processes and one of the
  • 00:08:46
    take-home points that I want you to get from this is,
  • 00:08:47
    this is not easy to do and we're still trying to figure
  • 00:08:50
    out how to do this better and perhaps these are not,
  • 00:08:53
    you know, getting back to some things I said yesterday,
  • 00:08:56
    there're, perhaps there're some pretty strong limitations
  • 00:08:58
    in using quantitative methods to try to study something
  • 00:09:01
    like globalization, you know, there are some limitations
  • 00:09:03
    to this, but at the same time, you know, we think
  • 00:09:06
    that they can provide some important contributions.
  • 00:09:10
    So a little bit about longitudinal methods, I'm not
  • 00:09:14
    going to do the dance again like I did yesterday to
  • 00:09:16
    try to sell you on longitudinal methods, but why
  • 00:09:19
    longitudinal methods when you're studying these
  • 00:09:21
    sorts of interrelationships, well development is it's
  • 00:09:24
    a process, right, it's not static; these forms of
  • 00:09:27
    globalization again are not static and environmental
  • 00:09:30
    change really isn't static either and so ideally in
  • 00:09:33
    order to study these interrelationships we want
  • 00:09:36
    to have a repeated observations on the same
  • 00:09:39
    cases for particular units of analyses and so
  • 00:09:42
    yeah if you needed to be convinced as to why
  • 00:09:45
    we might want to employ longitudinal methods
  • 00:09:47
    well here you go, but there's also some particular
  • 00:09:48
    methodological reasons that I think are really
  • 00:09:50
    important in terms of allowing us to do more
  • 00:09:52
    rigorous hypothesis testing since we're not using
  • 00:09:55
    experimental methods, you know, we're analyzing
  • 00:09:57
    secondary data we're using inferential statistics
  • 00:09:59
    and so by using longitudinal data we're allow,
  • 00:10:03
    we're able to better account for really omitted
  • 00:10:06
    variable bias, this notion of heterogeneity bias,
  • 00:10:09
    things that either we do, we might know that we're
  • 00:10:12
    missing that we don't have measures for, or things
  • 00:10:15
    that we don't know about yet, you know, this is this
  • 00:10:17
    process of using different kinds of fixed effects in
  • 00:10:19
    these models and so in simple terms when we're
  • 00:10:22
    doing something like a two-way fixed effects model
  • 00:10:25
    in a cross-national study where we have repeated
  • 00:10:27
    observations on many nations, this means that
  • 00:10:30
    in our fancy regression model, we have a dummy
  • 00:10:32
    variable for every country as well as a dummy
  • 00:10:34
    variable for every time point, okay, to account
  • 00:10:37
    for these things that are unique to each let's say
  • 00:10:40
    country that don't vary through time as well as
  • 00:10:43
    unobservable factors that are unique to each
  • 00:10:46
    time point that don't vary across cases, okay.
  • 00:10:49
    Now arguably that is going to explain a notable amount of
  • 00:10:53
    variation in your dependent variable which is going to lead
  • 00:10:56
    to perhaps more conservative estimates of the effects of
  • 00:11:00
    your independent variables on your dependent variable.
  • 00:11:02
    There's a lot of arguments within the methodological
  • 00:11:04
    literature about all of this, but I think that this is an
  • 00:11:09
    important thing to keep in mind from my point of view,
  • 00:11:12
    you know, early on in my career that goes back about
  • 00:11:15
    15 years, I started out doing all cross-sectional stuff and
  • 00:11:19
    then it got to a point where I could do more longitudinal
  • 00:11:21
    research and from my point of view I thought well this
  • 00:11:23
    allows me to be more conservative in my hypothesis
  • 00:11:26
    testing, asking similar sorts of questions, but being
  • 00:11:29
    able to do the research more rigorously and more
  • 00:11:31
    conservatively cause the last thing I want to do is
  • 00:11:36
    commit a type one error, yeah, falsely rejecting the
  • 00:11:39
    null hypothesis that's the last thing I want to do and I
  • 00:11:42
    think that using these methods helps me to lessen the
  • 00:11:46
    likelihood of committing a type one error, again it's
  • 00:11:49
    debatable I realize, but that's one of the, my selling
  • 00:11:53
    points on why I think these methods are important.
  • 00:11:55
    Okay, so in this literature though on environment
  • 00:11:59
    development globalization at the comparative
  • 00:12:02
    international level, these are some of the common
  • 00:12:04
    dependent variables in this emerging area of
  • 00:12:07
    literature and anthropogenic greenhouse gas
  • 00:12:10
    emissions especially anthropogenic carbon emissions
  • 00:12:13
    from the man, from the burning of fossil fuels and
  • 00:12:15
    manufacturer of cement and there's also a difference
  • 00:12:17
    between production-based emissions versus
  • 00:12:18
    consumption-based emissions too as well, but a lot
  • 00:12:22
    of us are analyzing CO2 data because they tend to
  • 00:12:25
    be more reliable for comparisons between nations as
  • 00:12:27
    well as comparisons through time, we're also looking
  • 00:12:31
    at other kinds of composite indicators like the ecological
  • 00:12:35
    footprint, there's a tradition in the environmental social
  • 00:12:38
    sciences to use ecological footprint for hypothesis testing,
  • 00:12:41
    there's also a huge literature debating the methodology
  • 00:12:43
    of the ecological footprint and I think that that literature
  • 00:12:46
    on the methodology suggests that we should be really,
  • 00:12:48
    really cautious when we're using ecological footprint
  • 00:12:51
    for hypothesis testing because it's this big kitchen sink
  • 00:12:54
    sustainability index that lumps a ton of stuff together
  • 00:12:58
    and if you haven't ever looked at it before spend some
  • 00:13:00
    time reading all of the fine print it's really impressive,
  • 00:13:05
    but it lumps together a lot of stuff and I'm personally
  • 00:13:08
    not all that comfortable anymore in using these very
  • 00:13:12
    lumped together measures, I'd rather use these more
  • 00:13:14
    direct measures like CO2 or other air pollutants,
  • 00:13:18
    industrial water pollution has been studied, the,
  • 00:13:21
    and specifically industrial organic water pollution by,
  • 00:13:26
    measure by biochemical oxygen demand, some folks
  • 00:13:29
    have done some research on synthetic pesticide and
  • 00:13:32
    fertilizer use and there's also been a tradition of
  • 00:13:35
    work within sociology that Tom has contributed to
  • 00:13:38
    greatly on deforestation and this one's tricky to do
  • 00:13:41
    longitudinal research cross-nationally on deforestation
  • 00:13:45
    because from a measurement perspective the ways
  • 00:13:47
    in which we measure forest cover at this level of
  • 00:13:51
    aggregation changes through time and also varies by
  • 00:13:55
    nation, so it's really tricky and challenging and really
  • 00:13:59
    difficult to do longitudinal research on deforestation,
  • 00:14:03
    but we try, some of us have tried to do it.
  • 00:14:05
    A little bit more about measurement though, actually
  • 00:14:06
    about some of the CO2 data, I usually spend a whole
  • 00:14:10
    lecture with this slide up when I teach undergraduate
  • 00:14:13
    courses in environmental studies to talk about a lot of
  • 00:14:16
    things, but one of them though is the importance in
  • 00:14:19
    how you can operationalize and measure an outcome
  • 00:14:22
    in let's see three different ways it's commonly done
  • 00:14:25
    to tell us very different things and so these are three
  • 00:14:28
    figures of looking at national level anthropogenic
  • 00:14:30
    emissions, total emissions annually per capita
  • 00:14:33
    emissions and emissions per unit of GDP and this is
  • 00:14:36
    just time series data, annual time series data for
  • 00:14:38
    foreign nations - Brazil, China, India, and the U.S.
  • 00:14:41
    I think the figures speak for themselves that the
  • 00:14:43
    time trends look different for the three, for the
  • 00:14:46
    four nations across these three measures.
  • 00:14:51
    There are important theoretical distinctions
  • 00:14:53
    it, with, from a sociological perspective in
  • 00:14:55
    terms of why you might want to use one
  • 00:14:57
    or another of these as a dependent variable.
  • 00:14:59
    A lot of inequality, international inequality scholars
  • 00:15:02
    within sociology are very interested in per capita
  • 00:15:04
    measures as a dependent variable, but from, really
  • 00:15:07
    from a climate change mitigation perspective this is
  • 00:15:09
    the most important one, if you think about it total
  • 00:15:13
    emissions, or arguably cumulative emissions is even
  • 00:15:16
    more important than this and so I'm going to show
  • 00:15:19
    you some examples of different studies that use
  • 00:15:20
    these different outcomes and I know that the
  • 00:15:22
    reading that I'd suggested that you read and I'm
  • 00:15:24
    sorry it's really long, if you tried to read the whole
  • 00:15:27
    thing, but in that particular study we employ all
  • 00:15:30
    three of these as dependent variables to try to do
  • 00:15:32
    a very sort of objective systematic analysis of
  • 00:15:38
    testing competing hypotheses between those
  • 00:15:40
    theories that you heard about yesterday - ecological
  • 00:15:42
    modernization theory and treadmill production theory.
  • 00:15:44
    And then again, if you use a standard measure
  • 00:15:47
    of development I think this is something that
  • 00:15:48
    most of us are familiar with and these are
  • 00:15:51
    adjusted for inflation, these GDP per capita data.
  • 00:15:54
    Some would argue that this is illustrative, this growing
  • 00:15:56
    gap between the Global North and the Global South,
  • 00:15:59
    but the scale of this also hides the fact that the GDP
  • 00:16:03
    per capita of some of these nations are going up as well.
  • 00:16:06
    I'm a little biased cause I'm a sociologist, so I like the
  • 00:16:08
    per capita measures, but sort of peering in more closely
  • 00:16:11
    on per capita CO2 and this is just looking at something
  • 00:16:13
    that you're probably familiar with, but to further,
  • 00:16:16
    to kind of underscore the point that if we look at
  • 00:16:18
    average per capita CO2 let's say for the kind of the
  • 00:16:21
    Global North versus the Global South through time,
  • 00:16:25
    we see that there is kind of a growing gap in per capita
  • 00:16:27
    carbon emissions and, you know, this is the sort of
  • 00:16:32
    dynamic that really motivates a lot of the research
  • 00:16:35
    that I and my colleagues do to try to understand
  • 00:16:38
    look there's this growing gap, but at the same time
  • 00:16:40
    per capita emissions is going up on average and
  • 00:16:42
    there's a lot of variation; this is just a measure of
  • 00:16:44
    central tendency and there's a ton of variation, but
  • 00:16:46
    we hear a lot about this type of growing gap dynamic
  • 00:16:49
    and also there's a lot of sociological research that shows
  • 00:16:52
    that the climate change sort of, the gridlock that takes
  • 00:16:56
    place in climate change negotiations is largely tied to
  • 00:16:59
    these notions of inequality between the Global North
  • 00:17:02
    and the Global South in terms of responsibility for
  • 00:17:05
    emissions, well I'll talk about this later cause there's
  • 00:17:09
    other inequality dynamics that contribute to climate
  • 00:17:12
    change challenges in the different meetings.
  • 00:17:17
    Okay, so environment and development theories,
  • 00:17:20
    I'm not going to say too much about this cause you
  • 00:17:22
    heard a lot about them yesterday, but one of the
  • 00:17:26
    things that some of us have been trying to do within
  • 00:17:29
    environmental sociology is we've been trying to take
  • 00:17:32
    these two rich theoretical traditions that you heard a lot
  • 00:17:34
    about yesterday and see if we can sort of formalize
  • 00:17:37
    hypotheses from these allegedly competing theories
  • 00:17:42
    to then test using these sorts of quantitative measures.
  • 00:17:48
    And so early on a lot of cross-sectional research
  • 00:17:52
    tried to do this and I think it did it and I did this
  • 00:17:55
    as well where again if you're looking at a snapshot,
  • 00:17:58
    you're really looking at correlations between
  • 00:17:59
    development and some sort of environmental
  • 00:18:01
    outcome and how can that really allow you to in any
  • 00:18:04
    way test either of these perspectives, it really can't.
  • 00:18:07
    And what would happen a lot of the earlier
  • 00:18:08
    work is you'd have these studies including
  • 00:18:10
    work that I had done that would report, okay,
  • 00:18:12
    here's a positive correlation between some
  • 00:18:14
    environmental bad in development, treadmill of
  • 00:18:16
    production wins ecological modernization loses
  • 00:18:19
    the end and then another study comes about.
  • 00:18:21
    Well, I mean you heard a lot yesterday about
  • 00:18:23
    that's not what these theories at all suggest.
  • 00:18:25
    Ecological modernization theory has not suggested
  • 00:18:28
    that there would be a negative correlation between
  • 00:18:30
    carbon emissions and development; the idea is that
  • 00:18:32
    through time it's possible through all these different
  • 00:18:34
    pathways that you heard about that overall through
  • 00:18:36
    time development might somehow decouple with
  • 00:18:40
    environmental bads or relative decoupling; it's not
  • 00:18:42
    that development is going to be beneficial for the
  • 00:18:44
    environment, but overall development is going to
  • 00:18:46
    have reduced environmental impacts through time
  • 00:18:49
    whereas a perspective like treadmill of production
  • 00:18:52
    theory would perhaps suggest the opposite, it, the
  • 00:18:54
    environmental impacts of development through time
  • 00:18:56
    are going to continue to be pretty strong and perhaps
  • 00:18:58
    might even increase in magnitude through time.
  • 00:19:01
    Now I realize that some of you may not agree
  • 00:19:03
    with how my colleagues and I and other folks
  • 00:19:07
    are operationalizing or formalizing these
  • 00:19:10
    theories to do this kind of hypothesis testing
  • 00:19:12
    and it's still an ongoing debate, I suppose.
  • 00:19:15
    Just a small slice of that paper that some
  • 00:19:19
    of you might have taken a look at where
  • 00:19:21
    we use the longitudinal methods and we
  • 00:19:24
    look at the relationship between development
  • 00:19:26
    and per capita carbon emissions, well this
  • 00:19:28
    is the per captia carbon emissions analyses
  • 00:19:29
    where we separate and look at sort of a
  • 00:19:33
    group of developed nations the Global
  • 00:19:34
    North in a larger sample of nations within
  • 00:19:37
    the Global South and we assess the extent
  • 00:19:40
    to which the effects of development on
  • 00:19:41
    per capita carbon emissions might change
  • 00:19:43
    through time and I'll be honest with you,
  • 00:19:45
    these findings surprised the heck out
  • 00:19:47
    of us and one of the things that really
  • 00:19:48
    surprised me was how incredibly stable
  • 00:19:51
    the estimated effect of development is
  • 00:19:52
    on per capita carbon emissions through
  • 00:19:54
    time for high-income nations; this freaked
  • 00:19:55
    me out, freaked out my colleagues.
  • 00:19:57
    It's been about two years making sure that
  • 00:19:59
    I had done some sort of silly or not so silly
  • 00:20:03
    methodological mistake, but based upon
  • 00:20:05
    tests of statistical significance these findings
  • 00:20:07
    hold across a whole lot of different kinds of,
  • 00:20:10
    sensitivity analyses these findings were quite
  • 00:20:12
    consistent, so we see here that on the one
  • 00:20:14
    hand these are elasticity coefficients, so this
  • 00:20:17
    number .757 means that 1 percent increase of
  • 00:20:20
    per capita GDP lead to a .757 percent increase
  • 00:20:23
    in per capita carbon emissions while taking
  • 00:20:24
    into account all this other stuff in the model
  • 00:20:27
    and there's a ton of other stuff in the model.
  • 00:20:29
    But you see that it's relatively stable, so
  • 00:20:31
    the effect isn't increasing, but it's not
  • 00:20:33
    decreasing, it's also a lot bigger than it is
  • 00:20:35
    in this other sample of nations, but if you
  • 00:20:38
    look at nations within the Global South,
  • 00:20:39
    we see that the estimated effect of
  • 00:20:41
    development on per capita carbon emissions
  • 00:20:42
    has, to some extent, increased through time.
  • 00:20:45
    The elasticity coefficient increased from
  • 00:20:47
    .388 to .471 over this, this time period.
  • 00:20:52
    Now our cut-off point here was 2005, a lot
  • 00:20:55
    has happened perhaps since 2005, maybe,
  • 00:20:58
    maybe not those are important empirical
  • 00:20:59
    questions and I have some graduate students
  • 00:21:01
    and colleagues that are kind of updating this
  • 00:21:03
    kind of analysis to ask some important
  • 00:21:04
    questions about well, what happened with
  • 00:21:05
    the world economic recession when you
  • 00:21:07
    look at relationships between development
  • 00:21:09
    and environmental impacts pre, during,
  • 00:21:12
    and perhaps post recent recession.
  • 00:21:17
    Okay, so what does this tell us
  • 00:21:18
    about that theoretical debate?
  • 00:21:21
    I don't know, I think it tell,
  • 00:21:23
    I'll let you all chew on that.
  • 00:21:26
    Okay, another study though that I think is really
  • 00:21:28
    interesting and this is an example of sociological
  • 00:21:30
    research published in a science venue Nature
  • 00:21:33
    Climate Change, so this is a study, have any of
  • 00:21:35
    you seen this study that Richard York published
  • 00:21:38
    a few years ago in Nature Climate Change?
  • 00:21:39
    And so what he did is he asks a related, but different
  • 00:21:42
    question than we did in our decoupling paper.
  • 00:21:45
    Where he looked at whether or not, well he calls it,
  • 00:21:48
    called it the asymmetric effects of growth and decline
  • 00:21:51
    on CO2 emissions and sort of using similar methods
  • 00:21:54
    and longitudinal data he found that he looked at
  • 00:21:58
    situations in which there's like a year of economic
  • 00:22:01
    growth and also situations in which, during a year
  • 00:22:05
    there's a decline in GDP per capita and to ask, well
  • 00:22:09
    are the effects symmetrical in terms of the effective
  • 00:22:12
    growth on CO2 versus decline and growth on CO2?
  • 00:22:15
    And he found that they're not, he found that for,
  • 00:22:20
    well I have highlighted in bold here for each 1 percent
  • 00:22:23
    of growth in GDP per capita CO2 emissions per capita
  • 00:22:26
    grew by .733 and this is for a, sort of a global sample
  • 00:22:29
    of nations and this wasn't separating nations into
  • 00:22:32
    different categories, but on the flip side though he found
  • 00:22:35
    that for, in situations where there was an average 1
  • 00:22:39
    percent decline in GDP per capita emissions per capita
  • 00:22:41
    declined by only .430 percent, so there's not sort of
  • 00:22:44
    a symmetry in this in terms of growth and decline.
  • 00:22:47
    I think this raises a lot more questions than answers
  • 00:22:51
    that it provides, but I'd love to hear your thoughts
  • 00:22:53
    on this, I'm sure Richard would as well.
  • 00:22:55
    I guess I did throw up one analysis of a state-level
  • 00:22:58
    analysis looking at similar types of relationships,
  • 00:23:01
    so this is one state-level analysis and I also wanted
  • 00:23:03
    to promote these folks, these are graduate students
  • 00:23:05
    and they did an awesome study, they were not my
  • 00:23:07
    graduate students, I wish they were, but I thought
  • 00:23:11
    this was really neat because they were able to obtain
  • 00:23:14
    U.S. state-level data of the same sorts of relationships
  • 00:23:17
    and looked at an anal-, a longitudinal analysis of
  • 00:23:20
    state-level fossil fuel energy use and looking at really
  • 00:23:24
    a variety of explanatory variables using the same
  • 00:23:27
    methodology and the environmental Kuznets curve
  • 00:23:30
    came up yesterday and so they were focusing also on
  • 00:23:32
    this notion of environmental Kuznets curve and what
  • 00:23:34
    they found is no evidence for environmental Kuznets
  • 00:23:36
    curve when you adjust for energy prices, which I
  • 00:23:39
    thought was pretty interesting and I just wanted to
  • 00:23:41
    throw this up there because this is suggestive that
  • 00:23:43
    you, these are scalable questions and there is sort of
  • 00:23:48
    a growing tradition within environmental sociology,
  • 00:23:50
    especially of younger generation scholars that are
  • 00:23:52
    doing these kinds of analyses at smaller scales,
  • 00:23:54
    which I think is really, really exciting and there's
  • 00:23:57
    sort of an emergence and more state level
  • 00:23:59
    data available on these sorts of things.
  • 00:24:01
    Okay, so let me move on a little bit
  • 00:24:03
    to some of these global theories.
  • 00:24:04
    I want to spend a little time talking about, thank you
  • 00:24:08
    Tom yesterday for doing a really wonderful job of
  • 00:24:10
    introducing kind of this stuff up here and thank you
  • 00:24:13
    very much Dana for introducing us too, so I won't
  • 00:24:17
    spend a lot of time talking about these, but what I am
  • 00:24:19
    going to do is I'm going to show how some folks have
  • 00:24:22
    tried to operational, operationalize these theories and
  • 00:24:26
    assess the extent to which they do or do not impact
  • 00:24:29
    the environment, okay, so this sort of idea of
  • 00:24:32
    environmental load displacements of different types
  • 00:24:35
    which is something that's talked about across disciplines.
  • 00:24:38
    A lot of folks in ecological economics are talking about
  • 00:24:40
    this, this is a big deal in political ecology, I mean this
  • 00:24:43
    is an idea that's been around for a long time and we
  • 00:24:45
    have different terms for defining this thing, but it's
  • 00:24:47
    really about environmental inequality, kind of global
  • 00:24:50
    or international environmental inequality between
  • 00:24:52
    the Global North and the Global South and so,
  • 00:24:55
    you know, I wasn't trained in environmental sociology
  • 00:24:57
    I was trained in international political economy by
  • 00:24:59
    folks that study the structure of the world economy
  • 00:25:02
    and so these are things that I've been interested
  • 00:25:04
    in for a long time and trying to understand how the
  • 00:25:07
    structure of the world economy might to some extent
  • 00:25:10
    facilitate and maintain these kinds of environmental
  • 00:25:13
    load displacements or environmental inequalities
  • 00:25:15
    between the Global North and the Global South and
  • 00:25:17
    so one of these or these two sort of perspectives
  • 00:25:22
    that are interrelated that sociologists have been
  • 00:25:24
    contributing to are ecological unequal exchange and
  • 00:25:26
    the transnational organization of production; they
  • 00:25:29
    both really sort of focus on how global production
  • 00:25:31
    and trade networks might sort of facilitate or maintain
  • 00:25:36
    these kinds of environmental load displacements and
  • 00:25:38
    Tom yesterday mentioned vertical trade, thank you,
  • 00:25:41
    cause the ecological unequal exchange stuff is largely
  • 00:25:43
    focusing on this idea of the vertical trade of particular
  • 00:25:46
    types of exports from the Global South to the
  • 00:25:49
    Global North, so it's not necessarily how much you're
  • 00:25:51
    trading, but it also matters where the stuff is coming
  • 00:25:54
    from and where it's going, to some extent, from this
  • 00:25:56
    perspective, but it's an important empirical question.
  • 00:25:59
    The transnational organization of production stuff
  • 00:26:01
    I mean you've probably heard about this if you've
  • 00:26:02
    ever watched The Story of Stuff video, you know,
  • 00:26:08
    on the internet this idea of transnational corporations
  • 00:26:13
    and that kind of stuff and so that sort of tied to this,
  • 00:26:15
    this idea and this is also tied to a longstanding debate
  • 00:26:18
    across disciplines trying to understand the environmental
  • 00:26:20
    impacts of foreign direct investment which is a highly
  • 00:26:23
    contentious debate that has existed in environmental
  • 00:26:26
    economics for quite some time and it's also existed within
  • 00:26:28
    sociology and so one of the ways in which we try to
  • 00:26:32
    understand or assess the extent to which this facilitates
  • 00:26:36
    environmental load displacement is by looking at how
  • 00:26:39
    foreign investment in different economic sectors
  • 00:26:41
    within especially developing nations might contribute
  • 00:26:44
    to domestic levels of environmental degradation.
  • 00:26:46
    Because it's been shown in a lot of research on
  • 00:26:49
    foreign investment as a dependent variable that not
  • 00:26:52
    all, but a non-trivial chunk of foreign investment in
  • 00:26:54
    the developing world comes from the Global North
  • 00:26:59
    not in a, you know, sort of in relative terms, but
  • 00:27:01
    also it's important to recognize that this is changing
  • 00:27:04
    through time, it's not so simple anymore, this isn't
  • 00:27:07
    necessarily a core-periphery type of relationship,
  • 00:27:10
    this is much more complicated than that and that's
  • 00:27:13
    touched upon increasingly so in this literature by
  • 00:27:15
    focusing on the horizontal and vertical sorts of
  • 00:27:18
    linkages in global commodity production and
  • 00:27:20
    trade networks too, and we're still trying to
  • 00:27:22
    figure out how to bring all of that in to these
  • 00:27:25
    kinds of macro-level quantitative studies.
  • 00:27:27
    Okay, the world society stuff, you heard about this
  • 00:27:31
    yesterday, you've probably read this slide already,
  • 00:27:34
    but this is, some would argue, another kind of
  • 00:27:37
    globalization theory and what I think is interesting
  • 00:27:41
    about this, and this came up in discussions yesterday,
  • 00:27:43
    that early on world society scholars that started
  • 00:27:46
    focusing on the world environmental regime looking
  • 00:27:48
    at this sort of stuff, their dependent variable wasn't
  • 00:27:51
    whether or not this was having any impact on the
  • 00:27:53
    environment; they were studying this process, but
  • 00:27:55
    then environmental sociologists like Buttel said hey,
  • 00:28:00
    that's really interesting, but we're kind of curious
  • 00:28:02
    whether or not this has any observable impacts on
  • 00:28:04
    the environment and so in recent years world society
  • 00:28:07
    scholars have tried to answer that critique and so
  • 00:28:11
    I'll show you how they've tried to deal with it.
  • 00:28:13
    First though in terms of the ecological unequal exchange
  • 00:28:18
    and environmental load displacement stuff, I wanted to
  • 00:28:22
    show you this slide because this is based upon a study
  • 00:28:24
    that I did a few years ago looking at this process of
  • 00:28:28
    the vertical flow of exports from the Global South to
  • 00:28:30
    the Global North and how it might contribute to growth
  • 00:28:32
    in per capita carbon emissions in developing nations.
  • 00:28:35
    Now that might change through time; in a nutshell
  • 00:28:38
    we see that during a, you know, a pretty large range
  • 00:28:42
    of time we see that there appears to be a growing
  • 00:28:45
    effect of the vertical flow of exports on growth in per
  • 00:28:48
    capita carbon emissions within developing nations.
  • 00:28:50
    I want to quickly, I ask that you sort of look at this
  • 00:28:53
    trend and look at these time points and then let me
  • 00:28:55
    just back up to this really fast and notice this time
  • 00:28:59
    trend; I, we think that they're pretty interrelated.
  • 00:29:04
    We think that this kind of global trade network,
  • 00:29:08
    production network dynamic is also partly explains
  • 00:29:12
    the increase in effective development on per capita
  • 00:29:14
    carbon emissions in developing nations; we don't
  • 00:29:16
    think that these are separate dynamics because we
  • 00:29:19
    know that global production and trade sorts of dynamics
  • 00:29:23
    contribute to economic development, they do, I mean
  • 00:29:26
    there's a lot of empirical evidence, but this suggests
  • 00:29:28
    that perhaps it contributes to environmentally,
  • 00:29:30
    overall environmentally harmful forms of economic
  • 00:29:34
    development; it doesn't have to, it looks like this at
  • 00:29:36
    this level of aggregation, that's a little bit of a defense,
  • 00:29:39
    in defense of ecological modernization, things could
  • 00:29:42
    occur a little differently in particular sectors or
  • 00:29:45
    particular facilities and I wanted to bring up this
  • 00:29:47
    example cause I think it's very interesting, this
  • 00:29:48
    is from a book co-authored by Timmons Roberts
  • 00:29:50
    who's a sociologist and Bradley Parks, who I believe
  • 00:29:53
    is an applied economist now working in the public
  • 00:29:55
    sector; I can't believe it's already been almost
  • 00:29:58
    10 years since this book came out, this is, I highly
  • 00:30:00
    recommend this book because they focus on climate
  • 00:30:04
    change, mitigation, adaptation, and responsibility like
  • 00:30:11
    who's most vulnerable, who's most responsible, and
  • 00:30:13
    who's most willing to do something about it from a,
  • 00:30:15
    sort of a critical sociological perspective and also
  • 00:30:18
    they do some stuff on risk too on climate-related
  • 00:30:21
    risks too which I think is pretty interesting.
  • 00:30:24
    But what they find too is they do a lot of things in
  • 00:30:28
    their work on looking at sort of drivers of emissions
  • 00:30:31
    and they look at a variety of emissions including
  • 00:30:34
    cumulative emissions through time which a lot of
  • 00:30:36
    folks think is really important, so lumping together
  • 00:30:38
    cumulative emissions for nations like over a 50-year
  • 00:30:40
    time period as well as those three other measures that
  • 00:30:43
    I talked about and they find that a really interesting
  • 00:30:47
    finding in terms of trade that applies to all four of
  • 00:30:50
    these CO2 measures and this is something that I think
  • 00:30:52
    is overlooked in their study; I think it's because it's the
  • 00:30:55
    bottom of their table in the book partly, and I've asked
  • 00:30:58
    Timmons about this and he even is like oh I forgot we did
  • 00:31:00
    that; I'm like, but it's so interesting because they find
  • 00:31:03
    though that in general and how they did this, this is just
  • 00:31:05
    looking at the amount of trade relative to the size of GDP
  • 00:31:08
    of nations, but they use some interactions and they find
  • 00:31:11
    that poor nations that participate more in international
  • 00:31:13
    trade this is sort of correlated with more CO2 across these
  • 00:31:17
    different ways of measuring CO2 while wealthier nations
  • 00:31:19
    that trade more emit less than those who traded less.
  • 00:31:22
    If we look at measures of foreign investment in different
  • 00:31:25
    sectors, let's say the secondary sectors manufacturing
  • 00:31:28
    foreign investment and this is something also that is
  • 00:31:30
    sort of a, it might seem trivial to you, but it's kind of a
  • 00:31:33
    big deal in the sociology of development literature more
  • 00:31:36
    broadly looking at the impacts of foreign investment
  • 00:31:38
    where there's a long tradition in sociology doing this, it
  • 00:31:40
    goes back to the dependency school that Tom Rudel
  • 00:31:43
    talked about yesterday where there's a huge debate
  • 00:31:46
    looking at whether or not foreign investment is good
  • 00:31:49
    for economic development, is it good for enhancing
  • 00:31:51
    human well-being, it's this big ongoing debate
  • 00:31:52
    and it got really ugly and the results were well it
  • 00:31:55
    depends, you know, it depends on a lot of stuff.
  • 00:31:58
    Well one of the things though that I think is important
  • 00:32:00
    in looking at relation, the environmental impacts of
  • 00:32:03
    foreign investment though that also is a limitation of
  • 00:32:05
    all that prior work is well, if we're going to look at
  • 00:32:07
    different environmental impacts of foreign investment,
  • 00:32:09
    we probably need to disaggregate foreign investment,
  • 00:32:12
    investment in different things like different sectors of
  • 00:32:14
    the economy eh, which is pretty difficult to obtain data
  • 00:32:20
    on this to do this type of longitudinal large-scale analysis,
  • 00:32:24
    but if we do that though we see that if we look at let's
  • 00:32:26
    say foreign investment and manufacturing, it appears to
  • 00:32:29
    have a non-trivial effect on growth in carbon emissions
  • 00:32:32
    in developing nations and a non-trivial effect on growth
  • 00:32:36
    in industrial organic water pollution as two examples that
  • 00:32:39
    are things that are tied to manufacturing sector activities.
  • 00:32:42
    That doesn't mean it has to be that way, this is just
  • 00:32:44
    sort of an overall observable empirical relationship that
  • 00:32:49
    we see across different model estimation techniques.
  • 00:32:52
    Now if we turn the page though and look at the
  • 00:32:54
    primary sector and if we look at primary sector
  • 00:32:57
    foreign investment, so this is investment in
  • 00:32:59
    agriculture, mining, logging, forestry, etc. and
  • 00:33:03
    then we also look at the same time the vertical
  • 00:33:05
    flow of primary sector exports from developing
  • 00:33:09
    nations to developed nations and this is from
  • 00:33:11
    an analysis of deforestation from 1995 to 2005
  • 00:33:16
    we see that both of these things, these are
  • 00:33:18
    standardized regression coefficients, so you can
  • 00:33:21
    compare the relative magnitude effects that both
  • 00:33:23
    foreign investment and the primary sector and
  • 00:33:25
    also the vertical flow of primary sector exports
  • 00:33:28
    appear to have non-trivial observable effects
  • 00:33:31
    on deforestation using these data that Tom has
  • 00:33:36
    a lot of concerns about as he should, but they're
  • 00:33:41
    the best data we have to do this kind of analysis,
  • 00:33:43
    but what's interesting though is this is while taking
  • 00:33:45
    into account how much you're exporting the
  • 00:33:47
    primary sector, also how large your primary sector
  • 00:33:50
    is relative to the size of your economy, so this
  • 00:33:53
    emphasizes though these sort of relational dynamics
  • 00:33:56
    of trade and production and extraction we think.
  • 00:34:00
    Okay, world society it's like I'm not trying to ignore
  • 00:34:04
    them, but I'm running out of time, but this is,
  • 00:34:08
    in recent years, a lot of world society, newer,
  • 00:34:10
    younger generation of world society scholars
  • 00:34:12
    like students of Frank and Schofer and Hironaka
  • 00:34:16
    back from that fame in 2000 ASR piece.
  • 00:34:18
    I've sort of answered the call and said, okay, well
  • 00:34:20
    let's try to figure out ways in which we can assess
  • 00:34:24
    whether or not this emerging world environmental
  • 00:34:26
    regime has any observable environmental
  • 00:34:28
    benefits; this work drives some folks nuts.
  • 00:34:32
    I and I want to throw that out there; I have a very
  • 00:34:33
    good colleague in my department, hi Brian Gareau,
  • 00:34:37
    who is very, who actually does environment and
  • 00:34:41
    development from more of an anthropological
  • 00:34:43
    perspective and so he does very in-depth
  • 00:34:46
    ethnographic work looking at how in these
  • 00:34:49
    sorts of world society dynamics on the ground,
  • 00:34:51
    well it's a long story, but he's critical of this sort of
  • 00:34:54
    stuff, but this sort of research though what they
  • 00:34:57
    do is they either use these composite measures
  • 00:35:00
    of world environmental regime, penetration where
  • 00:35:03
    they lump together and I don't mean that in a
  • 00:35:05
    flippant way, but they sort of add together these
  • 00:35:06
    different measures of environmental INGO presence,
  • 00:35:09
    environmental IGOs and these other sorts of things
  • 00:35:11
    or they use just one component of that like how
  • 00:35:15
    many environmental INGOs have members within
  • 00:35:17
    a given society and some of you prob-, I can
  • 00:35:20
    tell from the body language you're going huh,
  • 00:35:23
    now the thing is is I want to give them credit for
  • 00:35:25
    trying to figure this out and I think that there's
  • 00:35:28
    still some work to be done to figure this out, but
  • 00:35:31
    when you look at those sorts of measures arguably
  • 00:35:33
    as a form of political or cultural or civil society
  • 00:35:37
    globalization however you want to conceptualize
  • 00:35:39
    this world society perspective, they do see actually
  • 00:35:43
    Schofer and Hironaka found if they looked at
  • 00:35:45
    carbon emissions and deforestation for large
  • 00:35:49
    samples of nations, they found that this sort of
  • 00:35:52
    emer-, if, the more penetrated or embedded a
  • 00:35:55
    nation is penetrated, embedded in the world
  • 00:35:58
    environmental regime, that appears to be
  • 00:36:01
    negatively correlated with growth in carbon
  • 00:36:04
    emissions and negatively correlated with
  • 00:36:06
    deforestation and they suggest well this is
  • 00:36:08
    suggestive of the notion that becoming more
  • 00:36:12
    embedded in the world environmental regime
  • 00:36:14
    can have observable environmental impacts and
  • 00:36:16
    their explanation for this is incredibly complex,
  • 00:36:18
    these different sorts of pathways, right.
  • 00:36:21
    Now another recent study done by one of their former
  • 00:36:23
    students sort of spins this on its head and says, well
  • 00:36:26
    let's look at whether or not world environmental
  • 00:36:27
    regimes environmental impacts vary by whether
  • 00:36:30
    a country is in the core, the semi periphery, or
  • 00:36:32
    the periphery, which I think is a pretty interesting
  • 00:36:34
    thing ironically mentioned yesterday that world
  • 00:36:38
    society, father, the father of world society theory
  • 00:36:40
    also trained a lot of world system scholars, and now
  • 00:36:43
    they're sort of coming together which I like to see,
  • 00:36:46
    but Kristen, this is a very interesting study, so she
  • 00:36:49
    finds that the effects of world society immigration
  • 00:36:52
    on synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use varies by
  • 00:36:55
    whether or not a nation is in a core, semi periphery
  • 00:36:58
    or periphery and that it's more beneficial in the core
  • 00:37:02
    and less beneficial in the periphery which I think
  • 00:37:04
    raises a lot of interesting implications.
  • 00:37:08
    So I wanted to leave on a sort of, I thought this
  • 00:37:12
    was an area of emerging literature that you might
  • 00:37:14
    find interesting, hopefully you found this other
  • 00:37:15
    stuff interesting too, somewhat interesting.
  • 00:37:17
    So and this is something that is sort of a new area
  • 00:37:21
    of sociological work that is really multidisciplinary,
  • 00:37:23
    but it's sociologists trying to contribute to these
  • 00:37:25
    broader questions about sustainability, but one of
  • 00:37:27
    the things that's neat about this though is this is
  • 00:37:29
    sort of going back to full circle, some work that
  • 00:37:31
    was done by sociologists, I'm really proud to say
  • 00:37:33
    some sociologists got published in Science back
  • 00:37:35
    in the year I was born and so Mazur and Rosa in
  • 00:37:39
    this article in Science back in 1974 during this
  • 00:37:42
    period of time said, this is really interesting,
  • 00:37:44
    they were looking at levels of energy used versus
  • 00:37:47
    measures of human well-being across nations
  • 00:37:49
    and they made a really interesting point that
  • 00:37:50
    was considered very controversial at that time
  • 00:37:52
    that hey folks, nations don't have to overall
  • 00:37:55
    consume a lot of energy to maintain a relatively
  • 00:37:57
    high level of human well-being for their population,
  • 00:38:00
    you don't need a lot of energy to live well folks.
  • 00:38:03
    In 1974, that freaked a lot of people out and it
  • 00:38:05
    was pretty controversial and there's a lot of debate
  • 00:38:08
    about this back then and then this sort of fell off
  • 00:38:12
    of the radar of sociologists and Mazur and Rosa
  • 00:38:15
    didn't do much work on this for quite a while, but
  • 00:38:17
    in recent years though, some of us have been
  • 00:38:20
    sort of asking these questions again and trying
  • 00:38:22
    to operationalize this a little bit differently and use
  • 00:38:25
    some updated methods and this is really looking at
  • 00:38:28
    these measures of the carbon intensity well-being
  • 00:38:30
    or the ecological intensity well-being and this is
  • 00:38:32
    really a ratio between some sort of environmental
  • 00:38:34
    impact versus some sort of objective or subjective
  • 00:38:36
    measure of human well-being and so you can
  • 00:38:38
    sort of see here what this could look like and some
  • 00:38:41
    initial questions we're asking is, well if reducing
  • 00:38:45
    this ecological or carbon intensity well-being
  • 00:38:48
    is a pathway towards enhancing sustainability
  • 00:38:52
    broadly defined, how can societies get there?
  • 00:38:54
    Is development one way to do it?
  • 00:38:56
    And one interesting study that was done a few
  • 00:38:59
    years ago by Tom Dietz, who's an ecologist by
  • 00:39:01
    training, but hangs out with all of us sociologists
  • 00:39:04
    and is in a sociology department; they published
  • 00:39:07
    an article in Applied Geography a few years ago
  • 00:39:09
    and he was a longstanding friend and collaborator
  • 00:39:12
    with Gene Rosa who passed a few years ago, but
  • 00:39:15
    they asked this question though and they engaged
  • 00:39:16
    the environmental Kuznets curve tradition; they said
  • 00:39:18
    is there a Kuznets curve dynamic here, they found
  • 00:39:20
    the opposite, that there is no Kuznets curve when
  • 00:39:23
    you look at development and the ecological intensity
  • 00:39:25
    well-being rather than seeing this frowny face that
  • 00:39:28
    you would expect with the Kuznets curve, they
  • 00:39:30
    saw a smiley face sort of dynamic which is they
  • 00:39:34
    suggested the opposite, so this is your fancy
  • 00:39:37
    statistical analysis and this is a really hard to figure
  • 00:39:40
    out figured looking at the correlation between the
  • 00:39:45
    two, but it does sort of look like a smiley face.
  • 00:39:47
    And related to that though and sort of going
  • 00:39:50
    back to some methods that I talked about earlier
  • 00:39:52
    using longitudinal methods to assess whether or
  • 00:39:54
    not the effects of development on outcomes
  • 00:39:56
    change through time and a study that I did 2
  • 00:39:59
    years ago in Nature Climate Change, I asked
  • 00:40:01
    this question well, what about the effect of
  • 00:40:03
    development on the carbon intensity well-being?
  • 00:40:05
    What is it?
  • 00:40:06
    Does it vary by region, regional context?
  • 00:40:09
    And does it change through time?
  • 00:40:10
    And so this sort of graphs the findings and we see
  • 00:40:14
    that yeah there's some big regional differences and
  • 00:40:17
    these relationships also changed through time from
  • 00:40:19
    a sustainability perspective in the wealthiest nations,
  • 00:40:21
    well economic development does not appear to be a
  • 00:40:24
    pathway to reducing the carbon intensity well-being.
  • 00:40:26
    The effect isn't getting bigger, but it's not getting
  • 00:40:28
    smaller and nations in Latin America and in Asia
  • 00:40:31
    where these are among the most rapidly developing
  • 00:40:33
    nations that from a sustainability perspective this
  • 00:40:36
    trend is problematic, defining things this way and
  • 00:40:40
    nations within Africa we see this sort of stable flat
  • 00:40:45
    effect and then the trend starting to go up a little
  • 00:40:47
    bit which I think again like other things that I put up
  • 00:40:52
    here, I think that this raises a lot more questions
  • 00:40:54
    than it provides answers about what might be
  • 00:40:56
    explaining some of these sorts of regional level
  • 00:40:59
    dynamics, but this is an emerging area of sociological
  • 00:41:02
    research where we're really trying to contribute to
  • 00:41:04
    broader sustainability science discussions, bringing
  • 00:41:09
    in sociological theories and methods that we're
  • 00:41:12
    using in our work; the last thing I wanted to say
  • 00:41:14
    is multi-level analysis cause I've been talking about
  • 00:41:18
    longitudinal analysis because something that some,
  • 00:41:22
    a lot of folks in our discipline advocate for is that if
  • 00:41:25
    we're going to study environmental bads, arguably
  • 00:41:28
    we should be doing this at the nation-state level,
  • 00:41:31
    arguably our dependent variable should be at smaller
  • 00:41:33
    scales and for studying something like pollution or
  • 00:41:37
    carbon emissions, arguably we'd want to look
  • 00:41:40
    at things at the city or state or province levels
  • 00:41:42
    within nations or you'd want to look at facility
  • 00:41:44
    level outcomes as a dependent variable where
  • 00:41:48
    we're taking into account broader, contextual
  • 00:41:51
    factors at these higher levels of aggregation.
  • 00:41:53
    You might be asking yourselves well Andrew,
  • 00:41:55
    how come you folks haven't been doing this?
  • 00:41:57
    Well the shorter answer is we haven't had the
  • 00:41:59
    data to really do this kind of work this way
  • 00:42:01
    across many nat-, facilities across many nations.
  • 00:42:05
    The ni-, the take home point and this is sort of a
  • 00:42:08
    primer for something I'll talk about tomorrow,
  • 00:42:10
    some of us are now being able to obtain data to do
  • 00:42:12
    this at least looking at facility level outcomes across
  • 00:42:15
    thousands of facilities nested within over a hundred
  • 00:42:18
    nations around the world, so I'll talk about some of
  • 00:42:20
    this tentative work tomorrow in my lightning talk thing.
  • 00:42:25
    Plug for the Sociology of Development Journal,
  • 00:42:28
    it's been out for a year now that I am the
  • 00:42:30
    co-editor of, I promised I'd plug this, it's a
  • 00:42:33
    sociology journal, but highly multi-disciplinary,
  • 00:42:35
    we're very interested in sustainability research,
  • 00:42:38
    the kinds of work that a lot of you are doing and
  • 00:42:40
    it's published by University of California Press.
  • 00:42:42
    Please check it out and please consider
  • 00:42:44
    submitting your work to us.
  • 00:42:45
    Thanks so much.
  • 00:42:46
    ♪ Music ♪
Tags
  • environmental change
  • globalization
  • development
  • longitudinal methods
  • greenhouse gas emissions
  • sociology
  • economic growth
  • sustainability
  • inequality
  • multi-level analysis