PhD student Parker Muzzerall
UBC Sociology PhD student Parker Muzzerall recently published his first sole-authored paper in Environmental Sociology.
In “Can a just transition achieve decarbonization? Explaining fossil fuel community opposition in the Canadian Oil Sands,” Parker uses interviews with oil and gas workers to reframe decarbonization and just transition policies as an issue of ontological security.
We spoke to Parker about his findings.
Can you summarize the study and its main findings?
Empirically, the study aims to better understand how those working in the epicenter of the Canadian oil and gas industry interpret and feel about policy proposals designed to support their community and industry through the energy transition. Theoretically, it offers a more nuanced explanation for why fossil fuel communities so often resist decarbonization policies even when economic support programs are in place to help them find new careers.
Through my interviews with oil and gas workers in Fort McMurray, I found that those living and working in the Oil Sands remain largely skeptical of renewable energy technologies and optimistic about the long-term viability of fossil fuels as a commodity resource. As a result, they were strongly opposed to the proposal for just transition policies aimed at supporting their community and industry through decarbonization. These practical concerns quickly gave way to more emotional ones, though, as my participants each expressed a strong sense of pride in their industry and community and feelings of anger, resentment, and exclusion towards those driving the energy transition.
This, I argue, demonstrates a threatened sense of ‘ontological security,’ which is just a very sociological way of describing the feeling of stability and continuity in one’s way of life. This threatened sense of security leaves my participants unable to see themselves reflected in the normative vision for a decarbonized future, which in turn drives those negative emotional reactions, creating animosity between my participants and proponents of the energy transition. This animosity breaks down dialogue and stands as a barrier to developing inclusive and effective transition policies.
How does this study fit into or connect with the other research that you’ve done? What motivated you to focus on this research gap?
This project connects with my previous work by aiming to empirically investigate and theorize the role of emotions in the energy transition. A lot of the literature on the energy transitions assumes a calculating rational-actor who will make energy decisions (e.g., whether to purchase an EV or install a heat pump) based on simple cost-benefit analyses or because of their political orientation. As a result, a lot of consumer-level energy policies focus on economic incentives, like rebates and tax breaks.
But people are not robots, and how we feel about different energy sources also shapes how likely we are to adopt or resist new energy practices. For example, in a previous paper co-authored with UBC Sociology Professor Dr. Emily Huddart and colleagues across Canada, our team conducted a meta-analysis of over 230 studies across 36 countries to show that climate emotions like concern and worry shape individual preferences for energy sources.
The unifying theme here is that emotions play a central role in shaping how the public interprets and responds to the energy transition, and my principle motivation was to offer an alternative explanation—one rooted in emotions—for why fossil fuel communities remain largely opposed to the energy transition.
Why did you choose to focus on Fort McMurray and the Canadian oil sands for this study?
Fort McMurray is such an interesting case for studying issues related to Canadian energy and the energy transition more broadly. The Oil Sands are the third largest fossil fuel reserve in the world and represent 97% of Canadian oil and gas production. As a result, it will be one of the most affected regions in the country as we seek to phase-out the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
At the same time, though, many of those who live and work in Fort McMurray have been there for over a decade or two and have a strong attachment to the family-oriented and amenity-rich community that Fort McMurray has become. This creates a challenging situation for policymakers looking to phase out Oil Sands production, which the community entirely relies on to sustain itself.
I was also just fascinated by the intransigence that patterns much of the relationship between Alberta and the rest of Canada. Alberta is often an outlier to broader national trends in public opinion, especially on issues related to energy and the environment. Instead of dismissing this as an outcome of political conservatism, I wanted to try and understand some of the cultural mechanisms underlying this tension.
What implications do your findings have for policymakers in Canada and beyond?
Because the idea of a just transition principally materializes into governmental policy, this project has several important implications for policymakers.
There are two main ones that I emphasize in the paper. First, we need to embed transition policies into a place-based approach to community development. The Canadian Federal Government, to date, has largely taken the approach of enacting national-level, one-size-fits-all programs, like the recent Sustainable Jobs Act passed in April of 2024.
But these types of programs overlook the deeply contextual nature of the energy transition. Oil and gas workers in Fort McMurray feel differently, and need different forms of support, than do natural gas workers in Kitimat or coal miners in Cape Breton. Without localized regional development plans that help fossil fuel communities envision themselves as sustainable and viable in a net-zero future, transition policies are likely to continue facing regional opposition.
The second implication is that energy transition programs must move beyond economic compensation models to include social programming, as well. Much of the policies enacted to support coal communities focus on economic compensation and retraining and relocation opportunities. But it is naïve to think that oil and gas workers living and working in Fort McMurray would be willing to move hundreds of kilometers away to build solar panels.
Instead, we need to ensure that fossil fuel communities are able to thrive in the absence of industry. The municipality of Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo is already pouring a lot of resources into building out their tourism sector, but more social programming will be required to ensure that those who wish to remain in Fort McMurray after oil and gas are able to do so.
The study is based on research that you collected for your master’s degree. How did it end up becoming your first sole-authored paper? What was that process like?
It was certainly an up and down process that would not have been possible without the training I received though the master’s program and the support I had from faculty members and fellow grad students at UBC.
I conducted the original analysis of the paper in Dr. Amin Ghaziani’s SOCI 515 class on qualitative data analysis and scholarly writing, and my supervisor, Dr. Emily Huddart, helped me design the project and really shepherded me through the writing, editing, and publishing process.
While this is my first solo-authored paper, I benefited immensely from the collegial and supportive environment here at UBC.
Will you be pursuing further research on decarbonization and ontological security for those in fossil fuel communities? (And/or: Where is your research headed next?)
My two current projects each continue to develop ideas or themes that appear in this work on Fort McMurray. In one project, I am working with Dr. Emily Huddart, along with Dr. Tony Silva, Dr. Josee Johnston (UofT), and fellow UBC Sociology PhD student Carly Hamdon to study how affective polarization is impeding decarbonization efforts in Canada. This study continues my interest in understanding the cultural and emotional dynamics of the energy transition.
In another, my dissertation research, I am taking a broader historical view to examine the relationship between culture and land-use change in rural communities. This project will focus on a de-industrialized coal community in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which has more recently become a regional hub for luxury tourism. This shift, from a coal community at the turn of the 20th century to a luxury tourism destination by the early 21st century, has brought significant changes to this small, remote, and rural community. This study continues my interest in how remote, single-resource communities adapt to both broad structural change (e.g., decarbonization) and more localized changes in land-use.
