Global Warming And Lifestyle Choices: A Discussion Paper

In this conceptual paper, I discuss the lifestyle approach as a possible sociological contribution to the interdisciplinary discourse on climate change mitigation. The lifestyle approach could integrate sometimes contradicting results from micro-economics, social-psychology, cultural anthropology, as well as from social geography, and relate them to resource consumption. Even if the word “lifestyle†is very popular within environmental discourse, it has rarely been used in a sociological sense. Lifestyles are bundles of meaningful routines (not only consumption) embedded in everyday practices that have a cultural-symbolic as well as a material dimension. To assess the potential of behavioral change, it seems not to be sufficient to study the effects of values and attitudes on environmental behavior as separated from other social activities. Con-flicting goals and individual priorities have to be taken into account as well. Lifestyle changes are dependant on individual opportunities to choose between different options. People need financial, cultural, or social resources to realize their values in everyday life. I suggest an integrative life-style model, which reflects these levels. In the second part of the paper, I sketch its potential value in the case of car use. The system of automobility affects the chances of many people to create a meaningful life. It allows new lifestyles but it also limits the feasibility of other lifestyles at the same time. Environmental policy could support the creation of new, more sustainable life-styles by reducing the lock-in effect of automobility and reopening this socio-technological sys-tem. In this paper, lifestyles are treated as an interpretative scheme, but I also like to encourage further operationalization efforts.