In the Long Shadows of Inaction: The Quiet Building of a Climate Protection Movement in the United States

Susanne C. Moser

Global Environmental Politics, 2007, vol. 7, issue 2, pages 124-144

Abstract: Many observers perceive the US as an obstructionist force in global efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions. Federal leadership-despite rhetoric-remains absent even as the scientific consensus about the urgency of climate change and public acceptance of the reality of the problem are growing. This situation has created fertile ground for bottom-up political mobilization and action to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Using an actor-centered model of social movement evolution, this paper surveys the signs in civic society, the private sector, and at local and state government levels for the emergence of a climate protection movement in the United States. Diverse initiatives are networked and expanding, thus creating pressure for more federal action. This paper paints a more optimistic and realistic picture of actual efforts in climate protection in the United States, the immensity of the challenges remaining notwithstanding. (c) 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2007

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/glep.2007.7.2.124 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:7:y:2007:i:2:p:124-144

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/glep

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is edited by Peter Dauvergne

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().