Acting on climate change concerns: lay perceptions of possibility, complexity and constraint

How citizens think about, and relate to, climate change and possibilities for addressing it are sociologically important questions, sharpened in the current context of extensive climate change concern. Social science approaches generally have shown the profound importance of context and the social embeddedness of lay perceptions. More specifically, theories of social practice focus analytic attention away from individuals and onto the economic, energy and social arrangements which drive people’s habituated carbon intensive everyday practices. However, there has been a growing interest in how citizens may, at junctures, be more or less reflexive, evaluative and critical of practices which they carry or adapt. Interested in how citizens engage with possibilities for addressing climate change, we report on new UK-based qualitative research and analyse participants’ accounts of (in)efficacy, responsibility, constraint and affect in acting on climate. We explore contextual variation in the meanings participants bring to acting on climate change, and affective aspects of acting, or feeling situated, ‘against the grain’ of normalised practices. The evidence offers insights into the diverse meanings people bring to the possibility of acting on climate and the ways in which such meanings are enmeshed with, but also often critically evaluative of carbon intensive practices.