Environmental time matters: When temporality is not entirely social

• In Event: Comparative-Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (Co-sponsored by Environmental Sociology Section)

Abstract

Climate change, natural selection, ecosystem dynamics and other environmental processes work according to complex temporalities that often do not line up with forms of temporality established in historical social science. This paper ratchets existing sociological conversations to better incorporate the unruly admixtures between social and environmental processes by developing the category of “environmental temporality.” This task is needed simply because sociologists too often under-estimate the multi-scalar incongruities between social and environmental time and, as a result, subsume environmental time within social forms of temporality, leading to misunderstandings as well as the furtherance of crises “on the ground.” A temporal ignorance regarding climate change and connected processes develops, blocking pathways to both understanding and recovery.

Author

• Jordan Fox, SUNY-Buffalo