Social science perspectives on climate change and development

University of Copenhagen

Xaquín S. Pérez-Sindín López

Category: Sociological theories

  • The Tragedy of the Commons

    The Tragedy of the Commons argument is that shared resources tend inevitably to be overused and ruined. This video explains the Tragedy argument and some of its flaws.

  • Astrophysicists Find That Cities Grow Just Like Galaxies

      We’ve all looked out at the night sky and wondered at how much the stars look like strings of cities. But there’s more than a passing resemblance—according to a team of astrophysicists who compared the two, there’s a much deeper connection at work. We aren’t just made of stars, we act like them too.…

  • Beauty is a social construction

    Nudes showing that beauty is a social construction. It depends on things that we learn such as attitude, body language or gestures. In other words, we are not born beautiful, we are just taught to be it, sometimes. I apologize to the narcisist, but this is it. See more nudes in original source here

  • Reflections on Inequality and large cities

    Interesting article on megacities and inequality entitled “Do cities widen the gap between rich and poor?” By Kristian Behrens and Frédéric Robert-Nicoud in World Economic Forum  Yet one pattern has gone largely unnoticed: inequality is especially strong in large cities. At least one-quarter of the increase in earnings inequality in the US during 1979-2007 is explained by…

  • “The Strength of Weak Ties” by Granovetter’s

    Granovetter’s paper “The Strength of Weak Ties” is a highly influential research, with about 30,000 citations according to Google Scholar (by October 2014). In 1969 Granovetter submitted it to American Sociological Review, but it was rejected. One of the reviewers stated: “…it should not be published. I respectfully submit the following among an endless series…

  • Energy, society and equity

    Very interesting new Energy & Society special issue by @DTyfield @johnurry via @TheSocReview. @DTyfield even mentions the work of who is one of my major references in environmental sociology: Ivan Ilich. His is the sentences: “only a ceiling on energy use can lead to social relations that are characterized by high levels of equity”

  • Greenwashing – a short documentary

  • Behaviour Change

    “Advertisers hope that if you can sufficiently change people’s feeling, that is, their attitudes toward a product, then the greater chance that people will go out and buy it, i.e. change their behaviour. Surprinsingly, the science doesn’t support this, in fact, there are countless studies that show that changing people’s attitude is not very effective…

  • What does social inequality mean? Here is a simple and clear explanation

    Easy, simple and very clear, this explanation of social inequality from this article “Growing inequalities in science“. One of the most common misconceptions regarding inequality consists of thinking that an unequal distribution of resources is the result of an unequal effort to achieve them. Although this might be the case in certain situations, when it…

  • Reflexiones sobre lo que daña las relaciones humanas

    Me ha gustado esta entrevista a la veterana doctora en sexología Shirley Zussman. En ella expone las lecciones que ella misma ha aprendido en la vida sobre el sexo, las relaciones de pareja y el amor. Todas ellas me parecen dignas de mención, pero tal vez una, la relativa a las nuevas tecnologías, haya capturado más mi…