Power, evil and resistance in social structure: A sociology for energy research in a climate emergency

Sociology has provided useful insights, especially in this journal, into energy consumption trends and practices and how their climate-damaging effects can be mitigated. But in a climate emergency a bolder and more focused sociology is required, firstly, to help us understand why humanity continues to plunge toward climate catastrophe despite heightened scientific knowledge and moral awareness, and secondly, how this can be arrested. In this essay I suggest a useful approach is to revisit and revitalise Giddens' structuration theory. Climate damaging policies and practices can be seen as facilitated through specific social structures. For Giddens, certain actors have immense power to shape social structures for their own ends due to the resources they control, such as money, political power and public discourse. Niebuhr argued that we are mistaken if we think these actors will obligingly surrender their power when good moral and scientific arguments are put before them. Alexander, Bauman and others suggest the notion of evil helps clarify why such actors fiercely resist such challenges. Sociology needs to theorise the role of evil in social structure to inform us how destructive power can be wrested from those whose moral indifference brings them short-term rewards for destroying our life-friendly climate.