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Environmental Sociology by Jeremiah Bohr
Social Forces
For many households, energy consumption represents a non-discretionary portion of their budget an... more For many households, energy consumption represents a non-discretionary portion of their budget and directly relates to quality of life. As researchers continue to study the environmental impacts of energy behavior, it is important to explore how energy consumption relates to socioeconomic wellbeing. This paper examines the economic impacts of being energy-burdened in the United States, defined as spending at least 10% of household income on heating and electricity services; energy burdens are partially, but not entirely, driven by income, since energy needs and costs can vary substantially due to housing characteristics, utility rates, and other factors. Using panel data of US household income and energy expenditures during 1999-2017, this analysis demonstrates that energy-burdened households were at about 150%-200% greater risk of transitioning into or extending the duration of economic poverty over a two-year timeframe relative to non-burdened households. This analysis indicates that dedicating inordinate amounts of income to energy services can threaten a household's economic well-being over time, possibly by preventing a household from engaging in other economic activities or compounding existing economic hardship. These results emphasize the importance of energy assistance and energy efficiency for low-income households, drawing attention to how structures of energy consumption, the welfare state, and social stratification intertwine.
Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also movi... more Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also moving into the mainstream of the larger discipline. The twin goals of this paper are to introduce environmental sociologists to innovations in content analysis, specifically a form of text-mining known as topic modeling, and then employing it to identify key themes and trends within our diverse field. We apply the topic modeling approach to a corpus of research articles within environmental sociology, identifying 25 central topics within the field and examining their prevalence over time, co-occurrence, impact (judged by citations), and prestige (judged by journal rankings). Our results indicate which topics are most prevalent, tend to occur together, and how both vary over time. They also indicate that the highest impact topics are not the most prevalent, the most prestigious topics are not the most prevalent, and topics can be prestigious without exerting much impact. We conclude with a discussion of the capabilities computational text analysis methods offer environmental sociologists.
Do temperature anomalies affect political polarization over global warming? Amer-icans' attitudes... more Do temperature anomalies affect political polarization over global warming? Amer-icans' attitudes about global warming are affected by whether they reside in states experiencing unseasonably warm (or cold) temperatures versus those experiencing milder temperatures. Specifically, in terms of causal attribution, political polarization over global warming is more pronounced in states experiencing temperature anomalies. Using pooled data collected during 2013–2014, this study utilizes logistic regression to explore how temperature anomalies exacerbate the political polarization among Americans over perceptions of whether global warming impacts are immediately evident as well as the attribution of global warming to human activity. Results indicate that very cold or warm temperature anomalies from a 5-year baseline predict perceptions of global warming impacts and exacerbate existing political polarization over the causal attribution of global warming. These effects are particularly noticeable among Democrats. This analysis provides a contribution to understanding how temperature anomalies from the recent past shape the sociophysical context of global warming attitudes.
Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for ... more Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for major emitters of greenhouse gases. Presumably, this should win over some climate change deniers who align themselves with think tanks promoting free markets and economic growth. Yet climate change deniers and free market activists are as staunchly opposed to market-based climate policy as they are to any other form of climate mitigation. In order to understand why climate change deniers reject market-based policy proposals, an archive of free market environmental newsletters was analyzed for themes of economic opposition. This analysis revealed how climate change deniers rely upon the concept of a regulatory cartel to connect economic opposition to climate policy with attacks on scientific evidence. Because professional scientists do not operate under conventional private market incentive structures, neoliberal climate change deniers frame scientific knowledge as an attack on economic freedom when utilized to guide policy governing environment-economy relationships.
Previous research has identified the interaction between political orientation and education as a... more Previous research has identified the interaction between political orientation and education as an important predictor of climate change beliefs. Using data from the 2010 General Social Survey, this article looks at the moderating effect of party identification on income in predicting climate change beliefs in the U.S. Probing this interaction reveals that increased income predicts a higher probability of dismissing climate dangers among Republican-leaning individuals when compared with Independents and Democrats. Alternatively, increased income predicts a higher probability of ranking climate change as the most important environmental problem facing the United States among Democratic-leaning individuals compared with Republicans. The results indicate that income only predicts climate change beliefs in the presence of certain political orientations, with poorer Republicans less likely to dismiss climate change dangers than their affluent counterparts.
Sacrificing individual material interests for collective benefits involves trust that others will... more Sacrificing individual material interests for collective benefits involves trust that others will act in good faith. Inherent to situations concerning collective goods is the problem of the free rider that plagues collective action: the individual who maximizes their short-term interests at the cost of the greater good. Prior research in environmental sociology has identified various social structural factors predicting pro-environmental behavior and concern, while research on social dilemmas has explored the role of trust in determining cooperation in situations regarding collective goods. This research draws upon these areas of scholarship to examine the interaction between free rider fears with education, income, and ideology in determining the willingness of Americans to sacrifice individual interest for environmental protection through an analysis of 2010 General Social Survey data. Findings help differentiate the engagement of pro-environmental behavior from general environmental concern, with the fear of free riders particularly impacting the highly educated and ideological liberals.
As world leaders increasingly recognize the dual imperatives of mitigating carbon emissions and e... more As world leaders increasingly recognize the dual imperatives of mitigating carbon emissions and ensuring economic growth, emissions trading schemes have become popular policy options to pursue sustainable development goals. As the foremost program of sustainable development to date, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has held out hope that low-cost abatement in the global North could be achieved by channeling investments to the global South, creating a win-win situation of both mitigation and economic development. Unfortunately, the results of the CDM have shown an asymmetrical distribution of benefits in the global South despite contrary objectives. This paper argues that the investment climate promoted by the CDM excludes many developing nation markets from participation, thereby limiting one of the key benefits promised by CDM proponents. This is partly because the CDM encourages investors to seek projects that are doubly profitable, ones that demonstrate the potential to generate a profit independent of emissions credits, placing many nations at a structural disadvantage, as they are deemed too risky for sustainable development investment.
Bitcoin by Jeremiah Bohr
Bitcoin, a virtual currency that employs a novel technology that engenders trust and value in a d... more Bitcoin, a virtual currency that employs a novel technology that engenders trust and value in a decentralized peer-to-peer network, has exploded in use since it was first introduced in 2009. Yet, despite this explosive growth, researchers have barely started to investigate who uses Bitcoin, how and why they are used, and what the growth of virtual currency means for society. This paper examines Bitcoin as a currency, software platform, and community. It discusses the background of the virtual currency and presents the results of one of the first exploratory surveys to ask Bitcoin users and nonusers alike their opinions about Bitcoin and how these opinions relate to personal and cultural values. We examine how these views about Bitcoin are informed by attitudes towards money, technology, government, and social structure.
Many cryptocurrencies have come into existence in recent years, with Bitcoin the most prominent a... more Many cryptocurrencies have come into existence in recent years, with Bitcoin the most prominent among them. Although its short history has been volatile, the virtual currency maintains a core group of committed users. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of Bitcoin users. As a virtual currency and peer-to-peer payment system, Bitcoin may signal future challenges to state oversight and financial powers through its decentralized structure and offer of instantaneous transactions with relative anonymity. Very little is known about the users of Bitcoin, however. Utilizing publicly available survey data of Bitcoin users, this analysis explores the structure of the Bitcoin community in terms of wealth accumulation, optimism about the future of Bitcoin, and themes that attract users to the cryptocurrency. Results indicate that age, time of initial use, geographic location, mining status, engaging online discourse, and political orientation are all relevant factors that help explain various aspects of Bitcoin wealth, optimism, and attraction.
Papers by Jeremiah Bohr
Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also movi... more Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also moving into the mainstream of the larger discipline. The twin goals of this paper are to introduce environmental sociologists to innovations in content analysis, specifically a form of text-mining known as topic modeling, and then employing it to identify key themes and trends within our diverse field. We apply the topic modeling approach to a corpus of research articles within environmental sociology, identifying 25 central topics within the field and examining their prevalence over time, co-occurrence, impact (judged by citations), and prestige (judged by journal rankings). Our results indicate which topics are most prevalent, tend to occur together, and how both vary over time. They also indicate that the highest impact topics are not the most prevalent, the most prestigious topics are not the most prevalent, and topics can be prestigious without exerting much impact. We conclude with a discussion of the capabilities computational text analysis methods offer environmental sociologists.
Social Forces
For many households, energy consumption represents a non-discretionary portion of their budget an... more For many households, energy consumption represents a non-discretionary portion of their budget and directly relates to quality of life. As researchers continue to study the environmental impacts of energy behavior, it is important to explore how energy consumption relates to socioeconomic wellbeing. This paper examines the economic impacts of being energy-burdened in the United States, defined as spending at least 10% of household income on heating and electricity services; energy burdens are partially, but not entirely, driven by income, since energy needs and costs can vary substantially due to housing characteristics, utility rates, and other factors. Using panel data of US household income and energy expenditures during 1999-2017, this analysis demonstrates that energy-burdened households were at about 150%-200% greater risk of transitioning into or extending the duration of economic poverty over a two-year timeframe relative to non-burdened households. This analysis indicates that dedicating inordinate amounts of income to energy services can threaten a household's economic well-being over time, possibly by preventing a household from engaging in other economic activities or compounding existing economic hardship. These results emphasize the importance of energy assistance and energy efficiency for low-income households, drawing attention to how structures of energy consumption, the welfare state, and social stratification intertwine.
Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also movi... more Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also moving into the mainstream of the larger discipline. The twin goals of this paper are to introduce environmental sociologists to innovations in content analysis, specifically a form of text-mining known as topic modeling, and then employing it to identify key themes and trends within our diverse field. We apply the topic modeling approach to a corpus of research articles within environmental sociology, identifying 25 central topics within the field and examining their prevalence over time, co-occurrence, impact (judged by citations), and prestige (judged by journal rankings). Our results indicate which topics are most prevalent, tend to occur together, and how both vary over time. They also indicate that the highest impact topics are not the most prevalent, the most prestigious topics are not the most prevalent, and topics can be prestigious without exerting much impact. We conclude with a discussion of the capabilities computational text analysis methods offer environmental sociologists.
Do temperature anomalies affect political polarization over global warming? Amer-icans' attitudes... more Do temperature anomalies affect political polarization over global warming? Amer-icans' attitudes about global warming are affected by whether they reside in states experiencing unseasonably warm (or cold) temperatures versus those experiencing milder temperatures. Specifically, in terms of causal attribution, political polarization over global warming is more pronounced in states experiencing temperature anomalies. Using pooled data collected during 2013–2014, this study utilizes logistic regression to explore how temperature anomalies exacerbate the political polarization among Americans over perceptions of whether global warming impacts are immediately evident as well as the attribution of global warming to human activity. Results indicate that very cold or warm temperature anomalies from a 5-year baseline predict perceptions of global warming impacts and exacerbate existing political polarization over the causal attribution of global warming. These effects are particularly noticeable among Democrats. This analysis provides a contribution to understanding how temperature anomalies from the recent past shape the sociophysical context of global warming attitudes.
Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for ... more Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for major emitters of greenhouse gases. Presumably, this should win over some climate change deniers who align themselves with think tanks promoting free markets and economic growth. Yet climate change deniers and free market activists are as staunchly opposed to market-based climate policy as they are to any other form of climate mitigation. In order to understand why climate change deniers reject market-based policy proposals, an archive of free market environmental newsletters was analyzed for themes of economic opposition. This analysis revealed how climate change deniers rely upon the concept of a regulatory cartel to connect economic opposition to climate policy with attacks on scientific evidence. Because professional scientists do not operate under conventional private market incentive structures, neoliberal climate change deniers frame scientific knowledge as an attack on economic freedom when utilized to guide policy governing environment-economy relationships.
Previous research has identified the interaction between political orientation and education as a... more Previous research has identified the interaction between political orientation and education as an important predictor of climate change beliefs. Using data from the 2010 General Social Survey, this article looks at the moderating effect of party identification on income in predicting climate change beliefs in the U.S. Probing this interaction reveals that increased income predicts a higher probability of dismissing climate dangers among Republican-leaning individuals when compared with Independents and Democrats. Alternatively, increased income predicts a higher probability of ranking climate change as the most important environmental problem facing the United States among Democratic-leaning individuals compared with Republicans. The results indicate that income only predicts climate change beliefs in the presence of certain political orientations, with poorer Republicans less likely to dismiss climate change dangers than their affluent counterparts.
Sacrificing individual material interests for collective benefits involves trust that others will... more Sacrificing individual material interests for collective benefits involves trust that others will act in good faith. Inherent to situations concerning collective goods is the problem of the free rider that plagues collective action: the individual who maximizes their short-term interests at the cost of the greater good. Prior research in environmental sociology has identified various social structural factors predicting pro-environmental behavior and concern, while research on social dilemmas has explored the role of trust in determining cooperation in situations regarding collective goods. This research draws upon these areas of scholarship to examine the interaction between free rider fears with education, income, and ideology in determining the willingness of Americans to sacrifice individual interest for environmental protection through an analysis of 2010 General Social Survey data. Findings help differentiate the engagement of pro-environmental behavior from general environmental concern, with the fear of free riders particularly impacting the highly educated and ideological liberals.
As world leaders increasingly recognize the dual imperatives of mitigating carbon emissions and e... more As world leaders increasingly recognize the dual imperatives of mitigating carbon emissions and ensuring economic growth, emissions trading schemes have become popular policy options to pursue sustainable development goals. As the foremost program of sustainable development to date, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has held out hope that low-cost abatement in the global North could be achieved by channeling investments to the global South, creating a win-win situation of both mitigation and economic development. Unfortunately, the results of the CDM have shown an asymmetrical distribution of benefits in the global South despite contrary objectives. This paper argues that the investment climate promoted by the CDM excludes many developing nation markets from participation, thereby limiting one of the key benefits promised by CDM proponents. This is partly because the CDM encourages investors to seek projects that are doubly profitable, ones that demonstrate the potential to generate a profit independent of emissions credits, placing many nations at a structural disadvantage, as they are deemed too risky for sustainable development investment.
Bitcoin, a virtual currency that employs a novel technology that engenders trust and value in a d... more Bitcoin, a virtual currency that employs a novel technology that engenders trust and value in a decentralized peer-to-peer network, has exploded in use since it was first introduced in 2009. Yet, despite this explosive growth, researchers have barely started to investigate who uses Bitcoin, how and why they are used, and what the growth of virtual currency means for society. This paper examines Bitcoin as a currency, software platform, and community. It discusses the background of the virtual currency and presents the results of one of the first exploratory surveys to ask Bitcoin users and nonusers alike their opinions about Bitcoin and how these opinions relate to personal and cultural values. We examine how these views about Bitcoin are informed by attitudes towards money, technology, government, and social structure.
Many cryptocurrencies have come into existence in recent years, with Bitcoin the most prominent a... more Many cryptocurrencies have come into existence in recent years, with Bitcoin the most prominent among them. Although its short history has been volatile, the virtual currency maintains a core group of committed users. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of Bitcoin users. As a virtual currency and peer-to-peer payment system, Bitcoin may signal future challenges to state oversight and financial powers through its decentralized structure and offer of instantaneous transactions with relative anonymity. Very little is known about the users of Bitcoin, however. Utilizing publicly available survey data of Bitcoin users, this analysis explores the structure of the Bitcoin community in terms of wealth accumulation, optimism about the future of Bitcoin, and themes that attract users to the cryptocurrency. Results indicate that age, time of initial use, geographic location, mining status, engaging online discourse, and political orientation are all relevant factors that help explain various aspects of Bitcoin wealth, optimism, and attraction.
Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also movi... more Environmental sociology is a growing field producing a diverse body of literature while also moving into the mainstream of the larger discipline. The twin goals of this paper are to introduce environmental sociologists to innovations in content analysis, specifically a form of text-mining known as topic modeling, and then employing it to identify key themes and trends within our diverse field. We apply the topic modeling approach to a corpus of research articles within environmental sociology, identifying 25 central topics within the field and examining their prevalence over time, co-occurrence, impact (judged by citations), and prestige (judged by journal rankings). Our results indicate which topics are most prevalent, tend to occur together, and how both vary over time. They also indicate that the highest impact topics are not the most prevalent, the most prestigious topics are not the most prevalent, and topics can be prestigious without exerting much impact. We conclude with a discussion of the capabilities computational text analysis methods offer environmental sociologists.