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Scholars

Ryan Gunderson

Miami University

Based in

United States
North America

Ryan Gunderson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology and Affiliate of the Institute for the Environment and Sustainability at Miami University. Current research projects concern the potential effectiveness and political-economic dimensions of proposed solutions to environmental problems, climate change inaction, and the social and environmental impacts of technology. He is co-author of Climate Change Solutions: Beyond the Capital-Climate Contradiction (University of Michigan Press, 2020) and The Degrowth Alternative (Routledge, forthcoming)

Country(ies) of Specialty

United States

Focus areas of expertise

Greenwashing Climate policy and politics Geoengineering

How to Connect

Publications

Articles

Gunderson, Ryan. “Powerless, Stupefied, and Repressed Actors Cannot Challenge Climate Change: Real Helplessness as a Barrier Between Environmental Concern and Action.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (2022).

Stuart D, Petersen B, Gunderson R. 2022. “Articulating system change to effectively and justly address the climate crisis” Globalizations. August 31, 2022.

Megura, Matthew and Ryan Gunderson. 2022. “Better Poison is the Cure? Critically Examining Fossil Fuel Companies, Climate Change Framing, and Corporate Sustainability Reports.” Energy Research & Social Science 85:102388.

Gunderson, Ryan and Claiton Fyock. 2022. “Are Fossil Fuel CEOs Responsible for Climate Change? Social Structure and Criminal Law Approaches to Climate Litigation.” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 12: 378-385

Gunderson, Ryan, Diana Stuart, and Brian Petersen. 2021. “In Search of Plan(et) B: Irrational Rationality, Capitalist Realism, and Space Colonization.” Futures 134:102857.

Gunderson, Ryan and Sun-Jin Yun. 2021. “Building Energy Democracy to Mend Ecological and Epistemic Rifts: An Environmental Sociological Examination of Seoul’s One Less Nuclear Power Plant Initiative.” Energy Research & Social Science 72:101884.

Stuart D, Petersen B, Gunderson R. 2021. “Shared pretenses for collective inaction: the economic growth imperative, COVID-19, and climate change,” Globalizations. July 6, 2021:1-18.

Gunderson R, Fyock C. 2021. “The Political Economy of Climate Change Litigation: Is There a Point to Suing Fossil Fuel Companies?,” New Political Economy. August 17, 2021:1-14.

Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “The Degrowth Alternative: A Path to Address our Environmental Crisis?” Routledge: New York (November 2020).

Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “Materialized Ideology and Environmental Problems: The Cases of Solar Geoengineering and Agricultural Biotechnology,” European Journal of Social Theory (August 2020).

Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “Climate Change Solutions: Beyond the Capital-Climate Contradiction,” Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (July 2020).

Ryan Gunderson. 2020. “Dialectics Facing Prehistoric Catastrophe: Merely Possible Climate Change Solutions,” Critical Sociology (July 2020).

Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “Overconsumption as Ideology: Implications for Production and Climate Change,” Nature and Culture (June 2020).

Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “The climate crisis as a catalyst for emancipatory transformation: An examination of the possible,” International Sociology (May 2020).

Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Framing of Carbon Capture and Storage: Faith in Innovation, Value Instrumentalization, and Status Quo Maintenance,” Journal of Cleaner Production (April 2020).

Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, & Matthew Houser. 2020. “A Political-Economic Theory of Relevance: Explaining Climate Change Inaction,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (March 2020).

Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, & Brian Petersen. 2020. “Carbon geoengineering and the metabolic rift: Solution or social reproduction?Critical Sociology (February 2020).

Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, & Brian Petersen. 2019. “The Political Economy of Geoengineering as Plan B: Technological Rationality, Moral Hazard, and New Technology,” New Political Economy (2019).

Brian Petersen, Diana Stuart, & Ryan Gunderson. 2019. “Reconceptualizing Climate Change Denial: Ideological Denialism Misdiagnoses Climate Change and Limits Effective Action,” Human Ecology Review (December 2019).

Matthew Houser, Ryan Gunderson, & Diana Stuart. 2019. “Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change in Social Context: Toward a Political Economy of Relevance,” Sociologia Ruralis (October 2019).

Ryan Gunderson. 2019. “Work Time Reduction and Economic Democracy as Climate Change Mitigation Strategies: Or Why the Climate Needs a Renewed Labor Movement,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (March 2019).

Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, Brian Petersen, & Sun-Jin Yun. 2018. “Social Conditions to Better Realize the Environmental Gains of Alternative Energy: Degrowth and Collective Ownership,” Futures (May 2018).

Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, & Brian Petersen. 2018. “Ideological Obstacles to Effective Climate Policy: The Greening of Markets, Technology, and Growth,” Capital & Class (February 2018).

Ryan Gunderson, Brian Petersen, & Diana Stuart. 2018. “A Critical Examination of Geoengineering: Economic and Technological Rationality in Social Context,” Sustainability (January 2018).

Diana Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, & Brian Petersen. 2017. “Climate Change and the Polanyian Counter-Movement: Carbon Markets or Degrowth?New Political Economy (December 2017).

Ryan Gunderson & Sun-Jin Yun. 2017. “South Korean Green Growth and the Jevons Paradox: An Assessment with Democratic and Degrowth Policy Recommendations,” Journal of Cleaner Production (February 2017).