Department of Sociology University of Oregon
 

 

Living in Denial - Press and Reviews

 

Press and Reviews:

"The Everyday Denial of Climate Change" Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, July 5, 2012

"Social Scientists Try to Break the Climate Change Impass" Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2012

"No Rapture, but the End Days are Upon Us" Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2012

"Sociology Professory Draws Limbaugh's Ire" Eugene Register Guard, April 4, 2012

“Folk Vil beskytte seg selv litt” (People Want To Protect Themselves a Little Bit) December 2011 in Morgenbladet (Norwegian Weekly Newspaper)

“Why Isn't Climate Change on More Lips” December 14, 2011 by Kathy Seal in Miller-McCune

“How Do We Live With What We Know” November 2011 by Rebecca Altman, in Science and Environmental Health Networker

Sociology of Emotions Newsletter Book Review by Chris Hausmann

"Professor Carol Gilligan recommends Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, as one of the five best books her subject- Gender and Human Nature."

Living in Denial: Why Even People Who Believe in Climate Change Do Nothing About It. Kari Marie Norgaard's new book examines why those who know about climate change fail to act on that knowledge. By Christine Shearer Alternet and Left Eye on Books May 19, 2011

“On Birth Certificates, Climate Risk and an Inconvenient Mind” New York Times Dot Earth Blog April 28, 2011 Andrew Revkin

“Earth Day Discussion: The Plight of Polar Bears and the Phenomenon of Global Warming Denial” Capitol City Weekly, (Juneau Alaska) April 27, 2011

“A Town Called Bygdaby” Reviewed by Mike Hulme in Nature Climate Change April 10, 2011 (link to pdf)

Interview in Ecopsychology

”Klimathotet får oss att känna skuld” Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden's second largest newspaper) December 2, 2010

“Inspiring Change: First, Develop Strategies to Dislodge Denial” Behavior Change for Sustainability, Australian National Congress, September 16th, 2010

“Dollars, Sense and Climate Change” ISN Security Watch April 19, 2010

“The Psychology of Climate Change Denial” Wired Science December 9, 2009 “Q and A” on Wired.com

Endorsements

"At a time when most climate denial scholarship focusses on an extreme right-wing fringe, Norgaard's strikingly original and fascinating research invites us to see the many ways in which we are all in denial about climate change, and the profound challenges it poses to our identities and cultures. A rare and important book with powerful insights on every page."
— Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

“This is an original and extremely important intellectual contribution. The analysis of social responses to climate change information has primarily focused on individual values and beliefs. Norgaard's work moves beyond this individualistic focus and brings a social dimension to the analysis of climate denial. She demonstrates that climate denial is a social process in which collective actions are taken to restore a sense of equilibrium and social stability. This book advances our understanding of climate denial and lays the ground for new approaches to climate change communication.”
— Robert J. Brulle, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Drexel University

“Drawing on the way Norwegians deal with the reality of global warming, Kari Norgaard provides an incisive account of the way individuals' avoidance patterns reflect social norms of feeling, attending, and discourse. As such, this book is an important step in the development of our sociological understanding of denial.”
— Eviatar Zerubavel, Board of Governors Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, and author of Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology and The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life

“One of the great unanswered questions in politics is, why is there not more mobilization about more issues? People see all sorts of things they dislike; why don't they do more to change them? 'Free riding' is hardly a sufficient answer. Kari Marie Norgaard provides a much better, ethnographic account by looking at a remote town in Norway, whose citizens work hard to deny the threat posed by global warming. One of the most surprising findings is the amount of emotion work they do to keep from facing up to climate change. Unfortunately for our future, but fortunately for the power of this book, 'Bygdaby' is the world we all inhabit.”
— James M. Jasper, CUNY Graduate Center

“Kari Norgaard has written a rigorous and insightful account about a subtle and profound social problem that confronts the mitigation of climate change--namely, the cognitive and social tools used to deny or ignore a problem even when the populace agrees it should be addressed. The population of Bygdaby holds a solid national image of itself as a humanitarian, egalitarian, nature-loving people who love their snow. Yet they fail to even think coherently about climate change. This startling mismatch makes the storyline of the book quite engaging, and it will undoubtedly be recognized for making an important contribution by explaining how this mismatch is socially produced.”
— Peter Jacques, Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida

“Living in Denial is particularly interesting because of the ethnographic research methods employed, which are unusual in such a field as global climate change. We gain a rich understanding of how people react to information about climate change. This book shows why information-rich programs are inadequate to get the general populace to take action to address this most serious of issues.”
— Randolph Haluza-DeLay, Department of Sociology, The King's University College, Edmonton; co-editor of Speaking for Ourselves: Environmental Justice in Canada