Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Despite the individualism we are taught to believe in and follow, few projects are ever completed alone. The people of Bygdaby deserve special thanks for their time, answers, interest, and patience in responding to my questions. If I offer a view of Bygdaby that is critical, it is only because I have posed the hard questions of our times to this particular community, certainly not because people there are more deserving of criticism. Instead, Bygdaby and Norway are important precisely because people there are so sincere in their concerns for the wider world and engaged in so much political activity on its behalf. I am especially grateful to all who shared their thoughts and experiences in formal interviews and casual conversation. Warm thanks to Siren, Knut, Tor, Pål, and the members of the Bygdaby Utferdslag for their friendship and kindness. Thanks as well to the individuals in the United States who shared their perspectives on climate change via interviews, conversations, and examples and especially to the students whose voices enliven chapter 6. Much support has come from my “more than academic” community. At the University of Oregon, Sandra Morgen, Mia Tuan, John Foster, Jocelyn Hollander, and Paul Slovic provided valuable questions, insight, and reflections from their own standpoints and fields of expertise. The Center for Environment and Development at the University of Oslo generously provided me with institutional support, office space, and a community of colleagues in the early stage of my fieldwork. Barbara, Leontina, Megan, and members of the Social Sciences Feminist Network writing group gave excellent feedback on early chapter drafts, and Dianne Clark and Johanna Stoberock provided substantial assistance in the later stages. I appreciate the anonymous reviewers’ encouragement and thoughtful attention and especially the support and time given by my editor Clay Morgan, to Deborah Cantor-Adams, Annie Barva, and x Acknowledgments others who were instrumental at the MIT Press. Thanks as well to Sarah, Jennifer, and Deborah for lots of great listening and thoughtful support during the writing process. Funding for my time in the field came from the American Scandinavian Foundation. My colleagues at the University of California, Davis, generously allowed me to continue to think about and work on this project during my National Science Foundation–funded postdoctoral studies. Finally, my truly exceptional colleagues in the Department of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Whitman College provide community , inspiration, and solidarity on a daily basis. This project would never have happened without the support of a number of less visible people. Back in 1983, my grandmother handed me an advertisement for a study abroad program in Scandinavia and asked if I wanted to attend (I chose Norway because of the mountains ). When I arrived, my host family—Sissel, Svein, and Ida Pedersen— welcomed me into their home and community and patiently taught me both the Norwegian language and an appreciation for Norwegian ways of seeing and being that have forever informed my political imagination . Years later in another phase of life, this project took shape. Sam, my partner and husband, went with me to Norway. Sam has engaged with and supported my thinking with questions, observations, and enthusiastic encouragement all the way from my grim beginning in a rainy Oslo “summer” to the joy of skiing from hut to hut across Hardangervidda. Sam shared the struggles with Norwegian formality, dark winters, and unfamiliar language as well as the delights of meeting a new people, culture, and political structures. In the final writing phase, he spent many extra hours caring for and playing with our son, Cody. I am deeply grateful for his engagement with my ideas and his presence in my life. And these days no academic family can thrive on its own. Our family has a set of guardian angels in Gloria and Conrad, who spend time with Cody on a daily basis. I thank them for all their love and energy! Three of my grandparents died while I was in the process of writing. My last grandparent, my blood link to Norway, passed away just three days before I filed my dissertation with the University of Oregon. My grandparents have been part of my own connection to the past; in their passing, my world is changed. Each of my grandparents has influenced me significantly and thus contributed to this project: getting me to Acknowledgments xi Norway in the first place, sharing perspectives, and spending time with me as...