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Accumulated research findings show that women tend to express higher levels of concern toward technology and the environment than do men, but that the tendency is not universal. The findings are particularly clear-cut for local facilities and/or nuclear and other technologies that are often seen as posing nisks of contamination; findings appear to be more mixed for broader patterns of environmental concern. Although the differing patterns have been reported with enough consistency to be considered relatively robust, less progress has been made to date in explaining the underlying dynamics. Five main hypotheses can be identified. One hypothesis, the expectation that increased knowledge will lead to decreased concern, has received so little support, despite repeated examination, that it can be discarded. Another, that women tend to express greater concern than do men about the health and safety implications of any given level of technological risk, has received consistent support. The remaining 3 hypotheses require additional empincal examination.

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At least since the time of Popper, scientists have understood that science provides falsification, but not “proof.” In the world of environmental and technological controversies, however, many observers continue to call precisely for “proof,” often under the guise of “scientific certainty.” Closer examination of real‐world disputes suggests that such calls may reflect not just a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of science, but a clever and surprisingly effective political‐economic tactic—“Scientific Certainty” Argumentation Methods, or SCAMs. Given that most scientific findings are inherently probabilistic and ambiguous, if agencies can be prevented from imposing any regulations until they are unambiguously “justified,” most regulations can be defeated or postponed, often for decades, allowing profitable but potentially risky activities to continue unabated. An exploratory examination of previously documented controversies suggests that SCAMs are more widespread than has been recognized in the past, and that they deserve greater attention in the future.

Much research attention regarding climate change has been focused on the macrophysical and, to a lesser extent, the macrosocial features of this phenomenon. An important step in mitigation and adaptation will be to examine the ways that climate change risks manifest themselves in particular social localities. Certain social groups may be at greater risk, not solely because of their geographic location in a region of high climate sensitivity but also because of economic, political, and cultural characteristics. Combining the insights of economics and sociology, we provide an ideal-type model of northern forest-based communities that suggests that these communities may represent a particularized social context in regard to climate change. Although scientific research indicates that northern forest ecosystems are among those regions at greatest risk to the impacts of climate change, the social dimensions of these communities indicate both a limited community capacity and a limited potential to perceive climate change as a salient risk issue that warrants action. Five features of forest-based communities describe this context in further detail: (i) the constraints on adaptability in rural, resource-dependent communities to respond to risk in a proactive manner, (ii) the national and international identification of deforestation as a central causal mechanism in the political arena, (iii) the nature of commercial forestry investment planning and management decision-making, (iv) the potential by members of these communities to underestimate the risk associated with climate change, and (v) the multiplicity of climate change risk factors in forest-based communities.

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The value of the social sciences to climate change research is well recognized, but notable gaps remain in the literature on adaptation in agriculture. Contributions focus on farmer behaviour, with important research regarding gender, social networks and institutions remaining under-represented.