Despite all the news about an icy “polar vortex” currently gripping the United States, debates over climate change were quite heated at the United Nations Climate Summit.  In a recent interview addressing the protests at this year’s conference, Greenpeace Executive Director, Kumi Naidoo said, “Our message to our political leaders is that nature does not negotiate…You can’t change the science — we have to change political will.”  Recent figures indicate that greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are at an all-time high, and The World Meteorological Organization projects greenhouse gas emissions will be 12 billion tons higher in 2020.  Such an increase will likely result in a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius.  As greenhouse gas emissions rise, so are anxieties among many social scientists.

Sociological research suggests that the culture of organizations within the environmental movement itself is responsible for the lack of traction on addressing climate change.
Which countries are more likely to take a seat at the negotiating table? The following study offers some predictions based on a macro-level analysis of global inequalities between rich and poor countries.

 

After rising steadily over the past decade, suicides across the military have dropped by more than 22% this year. Military suicides began rising in 2006, reaching their highest record in 2009 before leveling off for two years. Defense officials have launched increased efforts to eliminate the stigma of getting help, but are still unsure about what exactly prompts soldiers to take their own lives. While this drop in suicide will be a relief to some, there is no indication whether this is a trend or a one-year anomaly.

Suicidal thoughts among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have been associated with a range of family concerns, strains of leaving for deployment, depression, and direct effects of war such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, perceived social support can help with these effects.
However, the socio-cultural environment is also a crucial element in understanding military suicide. It can act as a cause through the military’s fatalistic masculinity ideology by internalizing individual problems, but also as a solution when soldiers perceive social support for dealing with their strain.

As of late, the media has paid more attention to  the Miami Dolphins’ locker room than their play on the gridiron. Much of this interest stems from off the field controversies regarding two of the team’s players, Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. Shortly after news broke that Martin had left the team to deal with “emotional issues,” it was revealed that he had been on the receiving end of a series of over-the-top hazing practices by Incognito. The practices in question involved numerous voicemails and text messages with racial slurs and threats of violence against him and his family. After initial public backlash towards Incognito and his inappropriate actions, many prominent figures around the league, including his teammates, have come to his defense. They and others argue that while Incognito’s antics may seem excessive to the public, they are acceptable, even appropriate, within the context of a professional sports locker room.

The enactment of hegemonic masculinity in professional sport reproduces steep hierarchies and exacts emotional and physical cost.
Sport culture generates and affirms a masculinist social order both on and off the field.

Marvel Comics recently set the comic book world abuzz after announcing the rebirth of Ms. Marvel, one of their most-famed female superheros, as a 16 year old Muslim American suburbanite named Kamala Khan. Khan, a Jersey City resident born to Pakistani immigrants, has the power to shapeshift her body. While this isn’t the first time the world has seen a female Muslim superhero, or a Muslim American superhero, it does mark Marvel Comics’ first attempts at a series with a lead Muslim protagonist. This change will undoubtedly be welcomed by many in the Muslim American community given the mostly one-dimensional portrayal of Muslims in mainstream media and art since 9/11.

While portrayals of Islam and Muslims have always been rather shallow, research indicates that they have been particularly defamatory and offensive in recent decades:
Research also shows that post 9/11 discriminatory policy and stereotyping has had a profound negative influence on the identity formation of Muslim American youth and young adults:

Hanukkah starts tonight! Last month the first comprehensive study of American Jews in over ten years found a drastic decrease in Jews who identify with Judaism for religious reasons and an increase in those who identify with Judaism for ethnic or cultural reasons. While this can in some ways be explained by the overall decrease in religiosity among younger Americans, a sociological understanding of these findings would also look to the interaction between ethnicity and religion.

Ethnic identities are constructed by ethnic groups, but also by external forces such as the economic and political climate the ethnic group inhabits.
The lines between ethnicity and religion are often blurry and the phenomenon of identifying with a religious or ethnic group for purely symbolic reasons is not new.
The opposite is also true – holding beliefs without being a member of any particular church or religious group is on the rise.

The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic torch will boldly go where no torch has gone before: to the moon. Travelling by plane, train, car, reindeer sleigh, and spacecraft as part of the 39,000 mile relay involving 14,000 torch bearers, the Sochi flame relay will be the longest in the history of the Olympics. The torch will go to the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest, to the peak of the Mt. Elbrus, the highest in Europe and Russia, and to the International Space Station, for the first spacewalk in flame relay history. This makes us wonder: is this “faster, higher, stronger” performance inspired by the Olympic spirit or the Olympic sports industry?

Changes in the flame relay show the influence of the managerial revolution on Olympic affairs and provide new insights into globalization. For more on the controversial history of this transnational ritual, read:

In a confusing twist of legal back and forth, some of the strictest abortion regulations in the country have taken effect in Texas. The state’s proposed abortion restrictions, including limiting medication-induced abortions and requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges to a nearby surgical center, were initially struck down by a district court because the restrictions would effectively deny women the right to abortions. A full appeal will be heard in January, but these restrictions have caused a third of the clinics in Texas to stop offering the service until then.

While this is a legal battle on the surface, the debate surrounding abortion stems from longstanding and deeply conflicted cultural norms regarding sexual behavior, the care of children, family structure, and gender roles in society.
Despite variations in state restrictions on abortions, legislative restrictions have very little impact on a state’s abortion rate.

 

Last Thursday, the Senate voted to pass the Employment Non-discrimination Act. ENDA would make it illegal for the workplace to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. Workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age and disability is already illegal. If passed by the House of Representatives, this will be a major civil rights act, as twenty-nine states do not have any laws protecting LGBT individuals in the workplace.

Kathleen Hull’s chapter in the Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research addresses how gay and lesbian workers experience discrimination, and how public attitudes clash over anti-discrimination laws.
Organizational context such as sex composition and workplace culture affects the likelihood for sexual discrimination.
Gay employees were most likely to report discrimination in primarily heterosexual workplaces and organizations which lacked supportive policies and protective legislation.

Shopping while black is not a crime, but what happens when a store assumes the customer is always white?

ColorofChange.org has created a petition urging the NYPD to conduct a full investigation into over 50 arrests of young people, predominantly of color, outside of major department stores like Barney’s and Macy’s. Why hasn’t the “shop and frisk” trend gone out of style?  Theories on race and racism, as well as the application of such ideas through social experiments, may offer some useful insights.

To study the gap between actions and rhetoric, audit studies reveal patterns of discrimination in the working world which shape employment opportunities for many low-wage workers of color.
Some theorists view racial attitudes through a conflict perspective that suggests racism and prejudice is rooted in different social positions between groups.

A recent CNN article reports that relationships between EU officials and the US have been “severely shaken” on account of information leaked by Edward Snowden that the NSA monitored the personal cell phones of 35 world leaders, possibly including Germany’s Angela Merkel. The statement made by Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco raises the important question: Are we collecting information because we need it or just because we can?

While privacy and publicity are often portrayed as a tradeoff, the editors at Cyborgology demonstrate that in many cases, one is a necessary condition for the other.
Although we typically think privacy is “freedom from” government intrusion, some scholars say society makes it a “freedom to” choose whether or not to disclose personal information. From this perspective,  both social and technological solutions are needed to solve privacy issues.
Leading scholars show how many government practices are invented and learned to manage their populations.