Climate Change and Social Inequality: The Health and Social Costs of Global Warming

The physical and social dimensions of climate change -- The rise and role of social inequality in the production of climate change -- Maintaining inequality : the ideology of denial and the creation of climate change uncertainty -- The polluting elite and the political economy of climate change denial -- Anthropological lens on climate change -- Changing world of the indigenous Alaskan Yupik and Iñupiat peoples -- Water vulnerability and social equity in Ecuador -- On the bottom rung of a low lying nation : social ranking and climate change in Bangladesh -- Haiti : a legacy of colonialism, a future of climate change -- Mali: climate change, desertification, and food insecurity -- The consequential intersection of social inequality and climate change : health, coping, and community organizing

The year 2016 was the hottest year on record and the third consecutive record-breaking year in planet temperatures. The following year was the hottest in a non-El Nino year. Of the seventeen hottest years ever recorded, sixteen have occurred since 2000, indicating the trend in climate change is toward an ever warmer Earth. However, climate change does not occur in a social vacuum; it reflects relations between social groups and forces us to contemplate the ways in which we think about and engage with the environment and each other. Employing the experience-near anthropological lens to consider human social life in an environmental context, this book examines the fateful global intersection of ongoing climate change and widening social inequality. Over the course of the volume, Singer argues that the social and economic precarity of poorer populations and communities―from villagers to the urban disadvantaged in both the global North and global South―is exacerbated by climate change, putting some people at considerably enhanced risk compared to their wealthier counterparts. Moreover, the book adopts and supports the argument that the key driver of global climatic and environmental change is the global economy controlled primarily by the world's upper class, which profits from a ceaseless engine of increased production for national middle classes who have been converted into constant consumers. Drawing on case studies from Alaska, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Haiti and Mali, Climate Change and Social Inequality will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change and climate science, environmental anthropology, medical ecology and the anthropology of global health.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgement -- Introduction -- References -- 1. The physical and social dimensions of climate change -- Sources of the scientific evidence on climate change -- The human diseases of climate change -- Extreme weather -- Rising oceans -- The critical state of coral reefs -- Urban heat islands -- Too hot for crops -- Lesser-known impacts of climate change -- Conceiving the human role in a world in turmoil -- Anthropocentric or capitalocentric climate change -- References -- 2. The rise and role of social inequality in the production of climate change -- Social inequity: stratification and the making of injustice -- The history of stratification -- The business of development -- The industrial capitalist class: the polluting elite -- Who are the polluting elites? -- Environmental crime and punishment -- Eco-equity: climate change and social inequality -- References -- 3. Maintaining inequality: The ideology of denial and the creation of climate change uncertainty -- Science at risk -- Trust in science -- Culture and what we believe -- Taking climate change denial to school -- The knowledge of climate change deniers and of science -- References -- 4. The polluting elite and the political economy of climate change denial -- Denial from George W. Bush to the Tea Party -- Strategies of climate deception -- Strategies of climate war -- Funding climate change denial -- References -- 5. Anthropological lens on climate change -- Anthropological lens -- Ecological perspectives in the anthropology of the environment and climate change -- Cultural ecology: anthropologists and the environment -- The critical anthropology of climate and environmental change -- Conclusion -- References -- 6. Changing world of the indigenous Alaskan Yupik and Iñupiat peoples

The physical and social dimensions of climate change -- The rise and role of social inequality in the production of climate change -- Maintaining inequality : the ideology of denial and the creation of climate change uncertainty -- The polluting elite and the political economy of climate change denial -- Anthropological lens on climate change -- Changing world of the indigenous Alaskan Yupik and Iñupiat peoples -- Water vulnerability and social equity in Ecuador -- On the bottom rung of a low lying nation : social ranking and climate change in Bangladesh -- Haiti : a legacy of colonialism, a future of climate change -- Mali: climate change, desertification, and food insecurity -- The consequential intersection of social inequality and climate change : health, coping, and community organizing.