Combining the theories and concepts of Norbert Elias with the empirical example of climate change, this article aims to extend and develop the concept of moral panic. The focus of the analysis is on the documentary An Inconvenient Truth — an exemplar of a more general trend in popular culture regarding the moralization and individual regulation of climate change. In the final sections of the article, Al Gore’s short-term campaign is related to more long-term social processes.
Aarts W., Goudsblom J., Schmidt K. and Spier F. ( 1995) Toward a Morality of Moderation: Report for the Dutch National Research Programme on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change . Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Social Science Research .
2.
Cohen S. ( 2002[1972]) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, 3rd edn. London: Routledge.
3.
Critcher C. ( 2003) Moral Panics and the Media. Buckingham : Open University Press.
4.
Critcher C. ( 2008) Moral panic analysis: Past, present and future . Sociology Compass2(4): 1127-44.
5.
Critcher C. ( 2009) Widening the focus: Moral panics as moral regulation . British Journal of Criminology49(1): 17-34.
6.
De Vries B and Goudsblom J (eds) (2002) Mappae Mundi: Humans and their Habitats in a Long-term Socio-ecological Perspective. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
7.
Dunning E. and Sheard K. ( 2005[1979]) Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players , 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
8.
Elias N. ( 1978) What is Sociology?New York : Columbia University Press.
9.
Elias N. ( 1995) Technization and civilization. Theory, Culture & Society12(3): 7-42.
10.
Elias N. ( 2000[1939]) The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, rev. edn. Oxford: Blackwell.
11.
Fletcher J. ( 1997) Violence and Civilization: An Introduction to the Work of Norbert Elias. Cambridge: Polity .
12.
Goode E. and Ben-Yehuda N. ( 1994) Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance . Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
13.
Gore A. ( 2006) An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.
14.
Gore A. ( 2007) An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming. (Adapted for young readers by Jane O’Connor.)London : Bloomsbury.
15.
Goudsblom J. and De Vries B. ( 2002) Conclusions: Retrospect and prospects. In: De Vries B and Goudsblom J (eds) Mappae Mundi: Humans and their Habitats in a Long-term Socio-ecological Perspective. Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 395-414.
16.
Guggenheim D. (Director) (2006) An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning [motion picture]. USA: Paramount Pictures.
17.
Haag A. ( 2007) Al’s army. Nature446(7137): 723-4.
18.
Hier SP ( 2002a) Conceptualizing moral panic through a moral economy of harm. Critical Sociology28(3): 311-34.
19.
Hier SP ( 2002b) Raves, risks and the ecstasy panic: A case study in the subversive nature of moral regulation. Canadian Journal of Sociology27(1): 33-57.
20.
Hier SP ( 2003) Risk and panic in late modernity: Implications of the converging sites of social anxiety. British Journal of Sociology54(1): 3-20.
21.
Hier SP ( 2008) Thinking beyond moral panic: Risk, responsibility, and the politics of moralization. Theoretical Criminology12(2): 173-90.
22.
Hunt A. ( 1999) Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
Hunt A. ( 2003) Risk and moralization in everyday life. In: Ericson RV and Doyle A (eds) Risk and Morality. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 165-92.
24.
McClure R. and Stiffler L. ( 2007) Federal way schools restrict Gore film. Seattle Post Intelligencer, 11 January. Available at: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/299253_inconvenient11.html
25.
McRobbie A. and Thornton SL ( 1995) Rethinking ‘moral panic’ for multi-mediated social worlds. British Journal of Sociology46(4): 559-74.
26.
Mellor F. ( 2009) The politics of accuracy in judging global warming films . Environmental Communication3(2): 134-50.
27.
Mennell S. ( 1990) Decivilising processes: Theoretical significance and some lines of research. International Sociology5(2): 205-23.
28.
Mennell S. and Goudsblom J. ( 1998) Introduction. In: Mennell S and Goudsblom J (eds) Norbert Elias: On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-45.
29.
Moore D. and Valverde M. ( 2000) Maidens at risk: ‘Date rape drugs’ and the formation of hybrid risk knowledges. Economy and Society29(4): 514-31.
30.
Nobel Prize ( 2007) The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007. Press Release, October 12. Available at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html
31.
Oreskes N. ( 2004) Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change. Science306(5702): 1686.
32.
Quilley S. ( 2004) Social development as social expansion: Food systems, prosthetic ecology and the arrow of history. Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift31(3): 321-47.
33.
Quilley S. ( 2009) The land ethic as an ecological civilizing process: Aldo Leopold, Norbert Elias, and environmental philosophy. Environmental Ethics31(2): 115-34.
34.
Rohloff A. ( 2008) Moral panics as decivilising processes: Towards an Eliasian approach. New Zealand Sociology23(1): 66-76.
35.
Rohloff A. ( 2011) Shifting the focus? Moral panics as civilizing and decivilizing processes. In: Hier SP (ed.) Moral Panic Studies: Problems, Politics and Possibilities . London: Routledge.
36.
Rohloff A. and Wright S. ( 2010) Moral panic and social theory: Beyond the heuristic . Current Sociology58(3): 1-17.
37.
Schmidt C. ( 1993) On economization and ecologization as civilizing processes . Environmental Values2(1): 33-46.
Sutton PW ( 2007) The Environment: A Sociological Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
40.
Ungar S. ( 1992) The rise and (relative) decline of global warming as a social problem. Sociological Quarterly33(4): 483-501.
41.
Ungar S. ( 1998) Bringing the issue back in: Comparing the marketability of the ozone hole and global warming. Social Problems45(4): 510-27.
42.
Ungar S. ( 2000) Knowledge, ignorance and the popular culture: Climate change versus the ozone hole. Public Understanding of Science9(3): 297-312.
43.
Ungar S. ( 2001) Moral panic versus the risk society: The implications of the changing sites of social anxiety. British Journal of Sociology52(2): 271-91.
44.
Van Krieken R. ( 1999) The barbarism of civilization: Cultural genocide and the ‘stolen generations’. British Journal of Sociology50(2): 297-315.
45.
Waddington PAJ ( 1986) Mugging as a moral panic: A question of proportion . British Journal of Sociology37(2): 245-59.