Colorado Arts and Science Magazine wrote an article about Leslie Irvine (Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder) and Cameron Whitley’s (Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Western Washington University) research on the loss of companion animals in the Marshall Fire that was overlooked by public officials and the news media. They found that “the wildfire…killed more than 1,000 companion animals who were trapped in homes”, however, two months after the fire only 16% of news stories published mentioned animals. Whitley and Irvine shed light on how these companion animals “…don’t fit into breaking news. But they shape everyday life for years…for people with animals, the disaster often continues for the rest of those animals’ lives—through toxic exposure, long‑term illness and ongoing [unrecognized] grief.”
Leslie Irvine & Cameron Whitley
The Conversation recently published an article by Emily Huddart (Associate Head and Professor of Sociology at University of British Columbia) and Tony Silva (Associate Professor of Sociology at University of British Columbia) on how political orientation impacts opinions on climate policy. Examining the range of climate opinions on the political right, they found that affective polarization drove the variation: “Negative feelings toward the left and positive feelings toward the right were by far the strongest predictors of climate policy attitudes.” Huddart and Silva explain that “If opposition to climate policy is rooted in social and political identity, then strategies for building support need to reflect that reality…this will mean finding core needs that Canadians have in common and seeking policies that can have climate benefits while meeting those core needs.”
The book Trash! A Garbageman’s Story by Simon Pare-Poupart made it onto a New York Times book list called The Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026. Pare-Poupant’s book investigates society’s relationship with garbage, drawing from his graduate study in sociology. It is “A Montreal garbageman’s sharp and funny memoir/exposé, in which he attempts to convince people to ‘stop imagining that your garbage magically disappears…’”
Simon Pare-Poupart
An article from Newswise by the American Sociological Association (ASA) announces the expansion of Context, “the quarterly magazine that makes cutting-edge sociology research accessible to general readers,” to an online-only fully digital publication. Editor David Grazian (Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania) explains that “With the move online, Contexts enters a new chapter—one that broadens our reach and deepens our ability to engage a public hungry for evidence-based perspectives on the most pressing social issues of our time.”
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