Drivers of Climate Change in Urban India [electronic resource] : Social Values, Lifestyles, and Consumer Dynamics in an Emerging Megacity / by Lutz Meyer-Ohlendorf
Imprint
Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer, 2019
XX, 271 p. 44 illus., 31 illus. in color. online resource
SUMMARY
This study transcends the homogenizing (inter-)national level of argumentation (‘rich’ versus ‘poor’ countries), and instead looks at a sub-national level in two respects: (1) geographically it focuses on the rapidly growing megacity of Hyderabad; (2) in socio-economic terms the urban population is disaggregated by taking a lifestyle typology approach. For the first time, the lifestyle concept – traditionally being used in affluent consumer societies – is applied to a dynamically transforming and socially heterogeneous urban society. Methodically, the author includes India-specific value orientations as well as social practices as markers of social structural differentiation. The study identifies differentials of lifestyle-induced GHG emissions (carbon footprints) and underlines the ambiguity of a purely income based differentiation with regard to the levels of contribution to the climate problem
CONTENT
Chapter1. Introduction: Climate change and lifestyle – the relevance of new concepts for socialecological research -- Chapter2. Approaches of measuring human impacts on climate change -- Chapter3. The research context: India and the megacity of Hyderabad -- Chapter4. Conceptualisation and operationalisation – A social geography of climate change: Social-cultural mentalities, lifestyle, and related GHG emission effects in Indian cities -- Chapter5. Results part I – Descriptive analysis of manifest variables and preparation of latent components for the lifestyle analysis -- Chapter6. Results part II – Income, practice, and lifestyle-oriented analysis of personal-level GHG emissions -- Chapter7. Discussion -- Chapter8. Final conclusions – Understanding inequalities in consumption-based, personal level GHG emissions
