Michael Briscoe

So 50% say they know it improves health and 65% said they would try it if they had evidence it improved health? Something isn't squaring there.

Michael Briscoe shares fascinating data on large language models and animal issues - how does AI feel about going vegan? surprisingly positive! #IAVS2025

And we’re off! Our 6th annual vegan sociology conference starts today, still time to join us for a fab suite of vegan sociologies of emotions and the senses #IAVS2025

A screenshot of the homepage of Contexts.org shows a new blog post titled "A Closer Look at Ideology *and* Truth on Campus: A Response to Eppard and Mackey." The image shows a lecturer in a campus lecture hall.

A screenshot from contexts.org shows the quote "Reflecting widely held ideologies back to the public would no doubt raise trust in academia, but this is not our mandate."

New! From @michaelbriscoe.bsky.social, a response to Eppard and Mackey's @contexts.org piece on liberal bias in academia: "A Closer Look at Ideology *and* Truth on Campus"

contexts.org/blog/a-closer-look

#sociology #highereducation #liberalbias

@caroljadams.bsky.social

What does this mean? Broader structural forces move the CIWB but presidential party does matter. Democrats do a bit better than Republicans at reducing CIWB but both parties need to do more to lower carbon emissions while improving human well-being.

The results of autoregressive distributed lag models from 1960-2023 show that shifts from a Republican to a Democrat president are associated with a 1% reduction in CIWB one year later, but I did not find evidence of long-run effects based on political party.

Critical perspectives argue that Democrats and Republicans are similar in upholding the status quo, neither making significant moves when it comes to the environment or human well-being. Others argue there are significant differences in how each party affects the environment and human well-being.

The CIWB is a ratio of carbon emissions to life expectancy - a measure of environmental stress needed to produce human well-being.

A lower CIWB is therefore a desirable outcome in terms of sustainability.

The carbon intensity of well-being and presidential politics in the United States, 1960–2023 The carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) captures the amount of stress that societies place on the environment to produce human well-being. This Brief Report provides a description of the CIWB in ...

I published a new paper in Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy on presidential politics and the carbon intensity of well-being in the US.

doi.org/10.1080/1548...

And the schools are only hiring specific kinds of music teachers. Piano specialty? Already got one of those. We're looking for someone who can play and teach violin.

ASA’s TRAILS is a peer-reviewed digital teaching resources library that’s free to ASA members. Check out the Crime and Criminology Resource Collection, featuring syllabi for courses on green criminology, sociology of murder, mass shootings, and more. https://bit.ly/40TkJee

💯

Felt inspired by your post and made an interactive graphic on Tableau Public showing cost of doing business and quality of life and the trend line.

public.tableau.com/views/CNBC20...

I write about these bad faith animal welfare arguments against renewable energy in chapter 4 of my new book. Fossil fuel production kills many more animals both directly and indirectly than renewables. At the same time, we can do more to reduce the impact of renewable energy production on animals.

Roadside zoos are animal welfare disasters — Species Unite Roadside zoos are a welfare nightmare for animals. They are typically small zoos where wild animals are confined in small cages and frequently forced to interact with visitors in stressful and unnatur...

It is tempting to visit animal "wildlife centers" or "sanctuaries" that offer you the chance to get close to animals. The problem is many of these organizations are actually roadside zoos more concerned with profit than animal welfare.

Read more in my new piece for @speciesunite.bsky.social

This sale is on just about everything including my new book, Stocks or Stakeholders. Use code DGBSUMMER25

brill.com/display/titl...

@dgb-philosophy.bsky.social

This is a work in progress as I continue to learn Tableau and the most effective ways to communicate this concept.

But the adjusted CIWB measure is perhaps easier to understand and use to set goals - something I discuss with my coauthors in our recent paper in Environmental Sociology (linked).

This visualization helps provide the tools to set those goals and see how countries have progressed since 1970.

The visualizations include unadjusted and adjusted measures of the carbon intensity of well-being. Adjusted measures are typically used in environmental sociological analyses because they help account for the different scales of carbon emissions and life expectancy.

This interactive visualization includes maps and line graphs of the carbon intensity of well-being for almost every country on earth from the years 1970-2023 (you can use the drop down menu to select countries, and sliders to view years on maps).

The data come from the World Bank.

I think the carbon intensity of well-being is one of the most useful sustainability measures. What's more important than reducing environmental impact and improving human well-being?

Being able to explore and interact with this measure helps people understand it. I've made a dashboard to do so -

This suggests the importance of moving beyond merely criminalizing bird hunting. In this region of Iran, at least, fostering social norms against illegal hunting is an important step to address this problem.

We found that informal deterrence (e.g. disappointing family) had a similar, and even slightly stronger, association with illegal hunting behavior than even formal deterrence (e.g. laws against hunting).

Fereydunkenar is a critical site for migratory birds and hunting poses a threat to endangered species there.

One of the key findings from our survey research and structural equation modeling is the strength of the association between social norms on illegal hunting intentions and behavior.

I was fortunate to work on this paper on illegal bird hunting in Fereydunkenar, Iran, with Seyed Ahmad Mir Mohamad Tabar, Maryam Sohrabi, and Meysam Farajpour,
now published in Environmental Sociology

doi.org/10.1080/2325...

By better understanding the drivers behind both CIWB and CISWB and what we call the carbon intensity of total well-being (CITWB) we can ensure people both live long and prosper while reducing the stress placed on the environment to achieve this.

We explain at the end of the paper how concrete goals can be set using both measures of the carbon intensity of well-being based on existing goals around carbon emissions, life expectancy and life satisfaction.

Approaching the CIWB in these two ways shows similarities but also some important differences - for example how GDP is associated with CIWB/CISWB in high-income countries.

This has implications for future research in environmental sociology but also for policymakers.