Social change in the United States

Social Change in the United States

The emerging social and cultural changes taking place in societies around the globe - due to the spectre of dramatic global climate change and what that will present in the way of challenges - are, in many instances, being planned. The quality of the planning, whether adequate or not at this point is of great interest to citizens, communities, political leaders in states and in national government. That is simply because the social changes that are already happening and will occur will have a dramatic effect on future generations. And while many social changes in the past have occurred in reaction to events, the social changes that will result from climate change should be proactively planned. Meanwhile, there are those who believe that more planning should be done and that social scientists should be paying closer attention to those climate-based social changes.

For example, social scientist Ion Bogdan Vasi, assistant professor of Sociology at Columbia University, writing in the journal Sociological Forum (Vasi 2006), addresses the above-mentioned social changes in a scholarly but critical style. First he asserts that social scientists "have paid little attention to local actions" regarding needed social changes that can address global climate change. Vasi argues that while many scholars have studied and reported on how complex the climate crisis has become, and is likely to become "in the near future," few have focused on how local governments are planning for the social, economic and political challenges that lay ahead. Moreover, he continues, this issue could become "as important as the nuclear arms control issues was" in the last half of the 20th Century. Hence what interests him are the "processes that operate within organizations" - the "compatibility between innovations and organizational values, beliefs and needs" - is worked out in the planning process.

While he suggests that other social scientists haven't yet begun to critique and review the planning processes for the inevitable great social changes that are upcoming, Vasi is studying a group called Cities for Climate Protection (CCP). Vasi's research is very esoteric - he is actually studying the dynamics about how cities adjust to a planning process that anticipates social change - but he does bring some of his findings down to understandable level. He explains that within the planning mechanisms of a city there is not enough known about the "microprocesses" that help create results when innovative and organization values collide. Further, what should be understood more fully, he goes on, is how "innovative practices" become adopted if and when they are seen as "acceptable solutions to problems" that face communities. He believes a city's decision to embrace "new practices" is not always due to existing values and the new innovative ideas; and he concludes that many cities now recognize that protecting the local environment and providing social services (as climate change requires) is more important that "local economic growth."

In conclusion to this section of the paper, the answer to the question of why social change today tends to be planned is that there is an urgent need for communities to prepare for the changes that will occur as global warming continues to heat up the atmosphere. Vasi believes that local officials are slowing down the "growth machines" (real estate developers uniting with political power brokers) because "progressive policies" are being imposed. Those policies (seen in the CCP in particular) address the "complex environmental problem" of climate change. And they will, he believes, "spread faster" to those cities where environmental concerns and conservation have already been part of the social change movement. Change agents, Vasi continues, can "more easily" link the goal of reducing greenhouse gases to the local environmental situation than to "local economic growth."

One new movement that appears to be an example of this trend towards planned social change vis-a-vis the warming of the planet is the "SEE-Change Movement," which has applications to environmental and social change groups in the United States. An article in the journal Social Alternatives (Douglas 2997) points to the fact that "radical change" in the structures of global society (along with the world economy) and in the social responses to environmental "degradation" will result from climate change. And SEE-Change, a movement in Australia, which could be emulated in the U.S., claims it has a goal of "empowering" Australians to make good decisions on a local level since political leaders cannot be counted on to lead. The SEE-Change group was launched by Canberra biologist Stephen Boyden; his book the Biology of Civilization apparently provided the spark for this social change movement. The changes that need to be made, according to Boyden's book, can be accomplished through the development of "life centers."

Those life centers will fulfill three pivotal objectives, the article explains. One, they will bring concerned citizens together so they can converse and "explore the nature and scientific underpinnings of future challenges." Two, the life centers will give the local community a "venue" through which they can decide which social change actions are most appropriate. And three, these centers will, the article asserts, give communities a "new sense of engagement, empowerment and communal goodwill." Boyden calls activists who are part of SEE-Change "concerned and interested persons" (CIPs).

Eventually the CIPs got together and changed the name of "life centers" to "SEE-Change Centers," which, Douglas explains, promotes the idea that the organization is committed to "promoting change in Society" as well as in the economy and the environment. The whole point of this organization is that people need to be proactive and to plan for a sustainable future since counting on sluggish governments, politicians and bureaucrats is pointless. In the first eight months of SEE-Change's existence the group reached out to collaborate with already existing organizations. This effort led to individuals going out to shopping centers and distributing questionnaires, in effect, doing the grass roots organizing that social change movements must do to embrace a larger share of the population. Soon, college students were activated and the movement spread outside of Canberra.

Today, SEE-Change is expanding into more organization, including technology-friendly groups. These are people who can put their knowledge of solar energy, retrofitting buildings and houses, car pooling, sustainable vegetable growing, and more, to good use. Pivotal to the continuing growth of SEE-Change, the author writes, is the identification of people who are "sufficiently concerned" and willing to become "prime movers" in their respective suburbs. A coalition of young and older people could come together around this movement, albeit it has not been "comprehensively tested" (Douglas). That said, it is encouraging, the author concludes, that the SEE-Change concept is on solid footing, and may help the Australian society to avoid a world depicted in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth."