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This article is derived from my 2024 ESS presidential address. I discuss my new book and how a sociological lens helps us to understand the process through which we can save ourselves from the climate crisis. After explaining why the state and the market have struggled to implement sufficient policies to address the climate crisis, I present the AnthroShift as a theory that explains how social actors reorient after risk pivots to open windows of opportunity for social change. I discuss why civil society is most likely to mobilize after there is a generalized sense of climate risk and summarize how climate activists are currently engaging in non‐violent civil disobedience as a first step in an expanded civil society sector that is likely to put pressure on the state and the market to help us save ourselves. I conclude by presenting three steps that can be taken to help us save ourselves from the climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do individuals make sense of the specific issues that motivate them when they participate in activism? Are there clear and consistent patterns of motivations among participants and organizers within a movement over time? This paper applies network methods to a unique dataset to understand the relationships and structure formed among the issues that activists cited as motivation for their participation in a series of climate-related demonstrations over a three-year period. We test whether these networks of issue motivations form coherent structures, and whether they reflect the growing emphasis on social justice within the climate movement. Our findings highlight the coherence in the structure of relationships among motivations to participate, especially the centrality of 'Equality' as a motivation within our sampled cycle of contention. • We summarize key findings from 4 surveys of Climate Resistance activists in 2017, 2019, and 2020 events. • We use entailment analysis to look at networks of motivations at each of these events. • We find stable relationships occur within and between samples supporting the notion of a 'relational culture' of motivations. • We discuss what these findings mean in terms of the literature and the future of the environmental movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does collective identity form in virtual spaces and what role do hashtags play? This paper takes advantage of a unique dataset that includes surveys from activists who organized the nationally coordinated climate strikes in the US that began in spring 2019 to answer these questions. Building on the research about collective identity formation online and the role that hashtags play, we employ social network analysis to assess how collective identity forms online over three waves of protests. In particular, we analyze how activists involved in the youth climate movement used hashtags to project their collective identities and create collective narratives. Our findings show how hashtags use varied over the period of our study, in some cases indicating the formation of a thin collective identity. They also show that there are patterns in the ways hashtags are employed by activists in the movement that suggest the formation of subaltern narratives among those affiliated with youth-led groups. Our paper concludes by considering how this finding helps us understand collective identity in virtual spaces and the role that hashtags play more specifically within social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How has the youth climate movement in the US grown since the Climate Strikes began and in what ways did it change as it grew? This article takes advantage of a unique dataset that includes surveys from activists who organized the nationally coordinated climate strikes in the US that began with Fridays for Future in spring 2019. Building on the research on alliance building and strategic coalitions, this article analyzes how the patterns of participation changed over the period of the study. We employ social network analysis to map the affiliation networks among the organizers of these events to assess the coalitions of groups involved and the shifting organizational landscape. Our analysis does not provide evidence that groups spanned the boundaries across movements, nor does it show that identity played a role in coalition building in this movement. Instead, by mapping out the coalition of organizations within this movement and how connections among them change over time, we see clear evidence that this youth-led movement was reoriented by adult-led organizations. Our article concludes by considering how these findings suggest the future trajectory of the youth climate movement and its role in a 'new climate politics' in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As activism including climate strikes have become a common occurrence around the world, it is important to consider the growth in climate change‐focused activism and participation in social movements as a specific type of civic engagement. Although studies have analyzed climate activism and the climate movement, there is limited research that integrates it into the broader literature on civic engagement and which considers how these forms of engagement are related to specific climate outcomes. Here, we take a first step in understanding the material outcomes of these efforts. Specifically, we provide an overview of climate‐related activism as a form of civic engagement, paying particular attention to the targets of this activism and its environmental outcomes in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Then, we focus on one of the most common tactics to gain momentum in recent years: the school strike, which has mobilized a growing number of participants around the world. We discuss how the Coronavirus pandemic has changed the climate movement with much activism moving online. We conclude by discussing the overall state of the knowledge about the outcomes of climate activism, as well as highlighting the need for careful research to measure its effects across scale. This article is categorized underPolicy and Governance > Private Governance of Climate ChangeThe Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Social Movements [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her recent piece, MacKendrick (2017) asks whether we are experiencing a “new wave of science activism” and outlines various visible and vocal forms of political action taken by scientists in recent months. Coming from a slightly different perspective, this piece looks at scientists as part of the broader Resistance—people working individually and in collectivities to challenge the Trump agenda. Building on analysis of data collected from a random sample of participants from the Washington, DC, March for Science, which took place in April 2017, I explore how participants at the March for Science compare to a broader sample of participants in the Resistance. Although they have some unique characteristics, my findings show that there are few statistically significant differences between participants in the March for Science and others participating in the Resistance. I conclude this piece by discussing the implications of these findings on scientists in the Resistance and science activism more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholars have examined the different pathways to participation in social movements, far less research has looked at the endurance of activists once they mobilize. This article specifically explores the relationship between the pathways to mobilization and retention. Our data show that both social ties and individual motivations play a role in mobilizing participants of social movements. Contrary to what one might expect, we find that those activists who were mobilized with personal connections were less likely to be working for the organization a year later versus those who came to the organization as strangers. We find instead that self-starters-- those canvassers who entered the canvass through their own volition--stayed on longer. Although those canvassers who came to the job through network ties were less likely to be working for the organization a year later, they were more likely to be engaged in other civic and political groups and they were more likely to be leaders of these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]