Knowledge Production for a Healthy Planet: The Evolution of Environmental Social Science and Environmental Activism

The state of environmental crises demands increased efforts to shift society away from its current course, which is doing damage to the biosphere at an alarming rate. This research uses computational methods to explore the evolution of environmental activism and environmental social science from 2005 to 2021, as well as the uses of social science in environmental activism and vice versa. Relying on online environmental magazines and academic journal abstracts, the primary methodologies employed are keyword frequencies, LDA topic models, and skip-gram word embedding models. Results show an increasing focus in both communities on climate change, social justice, and community-based solutions. The potential for increasing collaboration between environmental activists and environmental social scientists is discussed.