Research on children's learning in museums, children's attempts to change their parents' environmental practices, and how the different 'logics' of home and the workplace affect offshore oil workers' transfer of environmental practices between the two, all focus on the critical role of the family in environmental change. This Open Space piece reflects on how environmental practices are strongly influenced by the family and the other institutions with which the family interacts.
"Combating climate change will increasingly impact on production industries and the workers they employ as production changes and consumption is targeted. Yet research has largely ignored labour and its responses. This book brings together sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, historians, economists, and representatives from international and local unions based in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Together they open up a new area of research: Environmental Labour Studies. The authors ask what kind of environmental policies are unions in different countries and sectors developing. How do they aim to reconcile the protection of jobs with the protection of the environment? What are the forms of cooperation developing between trade unions and environmental movements, especially the so-called Red-Green alliances? Under what conditions are unions striving to create climate change policies that transcend the economic system? Where are they trying to find solutions that they see as possible within the present socio-economic conditions? What are the theoretical and practical implications of trade unions' "Just Transition", and the problems and perspectives of "Green Jobs"? The authors also explore how food workers' rights would contribute to low carbon agriculture, the role workers' identities play in union climate change policies, and the difficulties of creating solidarity between unions across the global North and South. Trade Unions in the Green Economy opens the climate change debate to academics and trade unionists from a range of disciplines in the fields of labour studies, environmental politics, environmental management, and climate change policy. It will also be useful for environmental organisations, trade unions, business, and politicians."--Publisher website
To date, most research on travel behavior has been limited to studying utilitarian appraisals of car users and users of public transport. Studies on affective experiences are usually limited to commuter stress. A survey among university employees revealed that in support of previous research, car commuters find their journey more stressful than other mode users. The main sources of this stress are delays and other road users. Users of public transport also "complain" about delays; however, this results in stress as well as boredom. Walking and cycling journeys are the most relaxing and exciting and therefore seem the most optimum form of travel from an affective perspective. The affective appraisals of the daily commute are related to instrumental aspects, such as journey time, but also to general attitudes toward various travel modes. These findings have implications for sustainable transport policy initiatives that aim to persuade people to abandon their car.
We present the life histories of two environmentally engaged unionists in South Africa, who were decisive for formulating the environmental programmes of their respective trade unions. Their experiences of participating in the resistance against apartheid in universities and factories taught them the necessity to connect different struggles and equipped them with the knowledge and ability to connect the fight for workers' rights with the fight against environmental degradation. Both activists experienced the difficulty of integrating 'the environment' politically and practically into a trade union agenda. The labour movement has traditionally experienced nature as a place outside of work to be enjoyed for recreation. While nature constitutes an indispensable condition for labour, it has been privately appropriated by Capital. For environmental policies to form an integral part of union agendas, nature needs to be wrestled away from its appropriation by Capital and understood as an inseparable ally of labour.
Les syndicats du Nord sont mieux dotés, plus riches, plus industrialisés et tendanciellement plus éloignés de l'environnement que leurs homologues du Sud, sans que cette observation soit une règle absolue. Placés dans des conditions plus difficiles, moins dépendants de l'industrie pour leur mode de vie, les syndicats du Sud adoptent plus facilement des positions de rupture envers l'ordre capitaliste. Les alliances avec les écologistes se trouvent aussi facilitées par le fait que cet écologisme est souvent agrarien, composé de mouvements qui considèrent la nature comme un outil de travail essentiel, à la différence des écologismes du Nord qui sont généralement plus urbains.