Mike Hulme | University of Cambridge (original) (raw)

Books by Mike Hulme

Research paper thumbnail of Climate Change (Key Ideas in Geography)

Climate Change offers a unique guide to students and general readers alike for making sense of th... more Climate Change offers a unique guide to students and general readers alike for making sense of this profound, far-reaching and contested idea.
It presents climate change as an idea with a past, a present and a future. In 10 carefully crafted chapters, Climate Change offers a synoptic and inter-disciplinary understanding of the idea of climate change … from its varied historical and cultural origins, to its construction more recently through scientific endeavour, to the multiple ways in which political, social and cultural movements in today’s world seek to make sense of and act upon it, to the possible futures of climate, however it may be governed and imagined. The central claim of the book is that the full breadth and power of the idea of climate change can only be grasped from a vantage point that embraces the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. This vantage point is what the book offers, written from the perspective of a geographer whose career work on climate change has drawn across the full range of academic disciplines.

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Research paper thumbnail of Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer

Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer, 2019

'Contemporary Debates on Climate Change' (Routledge, December 2019) is an innovative textbook whi... more 'Contemporary Debates on Climate Change' (Routledge, December 2019) is an innovative textbook which tackles some of the difficult questions raised by climate change. For the complex policy challenges surrounding climate adaptation and resilience, structured debates become effective learning devices for students. This book is organized around fifteen important questions, and is split into four parts: What do we need to know? What should we do? On what grounds should we base our actions? Who should be the agents of change? Each debate is addressed by two leading academics who present opposing viewpoints. Through this format the book is not only designed to introduce students of climate change to different arguments prompted by these questions, but also provides a unique opportunity for them to engage in critical thinking and debate amongst themselves. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading and for discussion questions for use in student classes.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Future of Climate (extract from 'Weathered')

My latest book 'Weathered: Cultures of Climate' is published by Sage this week (17 November). I ... more My latest book 'Weathered: Cultures of Climate' is published by Sage this week (17 November). I attach here an abridged version of the final chapter (#12) of the book, titled 'The future of climate'.

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Research paper thumbnail of Weathered: Cultures of Climate (extract)

Weathered: Cultures of Climate opens up the many ways in which the idea of climate is given meani... more Weathered: Cultures of Climate opens up the many ways in which the idea of climate is given meaning in different human cultures and how it is used; how climates are historicised, known, changed, lived with, blamed, feared, represented, predicted, governed and, at least putatively, redesigned. These actions performed on or with the idea of climate emerge from the diverse cultural interpretations of humans’ sensory experience of the atmosphere’s restless weather. Weathered develops a case for understanding climate as an enduring, yet malleable, idea which humans use to stabilise cultural relationships with their weather. The discursive phenomenon of climate-change should therefore be understood as a ubiquitous trope through which the material, psychological and cultural agency of climate is exercised in today’s world. In this sense the phenomenon of climate-change is not a decisive break from the past. Neither is it a unique outcome of modernity. Climate-change should rather be seen as the latest stage in the cultural evolution of the idea of climate, an idea which enables humans to live with their weather through a widening and changing range of cultural and material artefacts, practices, rituals and symbols.

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Research paper thumbnail of Can Science Fix Climate Change? A Case Against Climate Engineering

""Climate change seems to be an insurmountable problem. Political solutions have so far had littl... more ""Climate change seems to be an insurmountable problem. Political solutions have so far had little impact. Some scientists are now advocating the so-called ‘Plan B’, a more direct way of reducing the rate of future warming by reflecting more sunlight back to space, creating a thermostat in the sky.

In this book, Mike Hulme argues against this kind of hubristic techno-fix. Drawing upon a distinguished career studying the science, politics and ethics of climate change, he shows why seeking to control global climate this way is undesirable, ungovernable and unattainable. Rather than seeking to solve climate change this way, Hulme proposes a re-framing of what is problematic about a changing climate. Science and technology should instead serve the more pragmatic goals of increasing societal resilience to weather risks, improving regional air quality and driving forward an energy technology transition. This ‘climate pragmatism’ offers a more plausible, affective and equitable response to climate change than does an illusory global thermostat.
""

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Research paper thumbnail of Exploring climate change through science and in society: an anthology of Mike Hulme's essays, interviews and speeches

There are many ways to understand the phenomenon of climate change . Anthropologists may seek it... more There are many ways to understand the phenomenon of climate change . Anthropologists may seek it by studying different human accounts of weather and agency, political scientists by studying the power relations revealed through climate negotiations between nation states. Earth system scientists are more likely to quantify and simulate the flows of energy, moisture and carbon dioxide through the planetary system. And historians will gain understanding by studying the historiography of climate change: who has written about it, when, why and how. This book offers another way of understanding climate change: by following the written and spoken words of one person who has dedicated several decades to the professional study of the phenomenon. At its simplest this is why Exploring Climate Change Through Science And In Society has been compiled: a collection of essays, articles, interviews and speeches dealing with climate change which I have published or delivered over the last 25 years. It is offered as an idiosyncratic window into the changing idea of climate change. "

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Research paper thumbnail of Why We Disagree About Climate Change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity

Climate change is not ‘a problem’ waiting for ‘a solution’. It is an environmental, cultural and... more Climate change is not ‘a problem’ waiting for ‘a solution’. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the way we think about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity’s place on Earth. This book provides a personal, yet scholarly, account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the globally diverse ways in which it is being understood. This novel account uses the different standpoints of science, economics, faith, psychology, communication, sociology, politics and development to help explain why we disagree about climate change.

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Papers by Mike Hulme

Research paper thumbnail of Climate, cartography, and the life and death of the 'natural region' in British geography

Journal of Historical Geography, 2023

During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, Oxford-based Scottish geographer Andrew ... more During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, Oxford-based Scottish geographer Andrew Herbertson constructed a framework for comprehending and categorising climate and its interrelations: natural regions. Along with a large circle of students and collaborators, Herbertson promoted natural regions as the conceptual keystone for geographical teaching and research. This article shows how natural regions theory conceived of climate as an object that was differently defined in different academic disciplines. Geography's climate, according to Herbertson and his supporters, was defined by its relations with other spatially distributed phenomena rather than being the quantifiable and isolable entity of modern climatology. Building on recent work in the history of cartography foregrounding map use and reception, the article also argues that natural regions were products of particular modes of map reading, comparison, and synthesis. Although maps were arguably the most influential medium for communicating natural regions, they also proved limited as bearers of the multiscalar version of climate that Herbertson and his successors sought to convey. Finally, the article explains how natural regions and associated conceptions of climate came to be sidelined in the mid-twentieth century as geographers foregrounded human agency in region formation and adopted climatology's definitions and analytical tools. Revisiting the life and death of theories of natural regions illuminates the contested significance of climate in the discipline of geography, and contributes to ongoing efforts to pluralise the history of climate sciences.

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Research paper thumbnail of Social scientific knowledge in times of crisis: What climate change can learn from coronavirus (and vice versa)

WIREs Climate Change, 2020

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Research paper thumbnail of Reflections on the Afterlives of a PhD Thesis

Area, 2022

Most readers of this essay will likely have written a PhD thesis, will be in the throes of writin... more Most readers of this essay will likely have written a PhD thesis, will be in the throes of writing one or perhaps will be aspiring to write one. There is a huge literature on the practice and experience of PhD research--on designing a thesis, on writing and research, on the student-supervisor relationship, on the doctoral student experience, and so on. In this essay, however, I reflect on a specific question less often asked: in what ways does a PhD thesis live on beyond the time when it can only be thought of as ‘work in progress’? I develop an answer to this question along four dimensions--the material, instrumental, epistemic and personal afterlives of a PhD thesis. For this reflection I use my own PhD thesis, awarded in 1985, as the case study. While the essay is therefore autobiographic, it is intended to provoke more general considerations about the longevity of PhD theses and their formative role for their authors and their authors’ subsequent careers. While a PhD thesis can be understood as having a variety of afterlives, those that matter the most are perhaps also those that are less easily recognised.

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Research paper thumbnail of A co-evolutionary approach to climate change impact assessment: Part I. Integrating socio-economic and climate change scenarios

Global Environ Change, 2000

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Research paper thumbnail of Mapping climate change knowledge: An editorial essay

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 2010

ABSTRACT For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

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Research paper thumbnail of Holocene book reviews : Desertification: natural background and human management: Monique Mainguet. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1991, 306 pp., DM228, hardback. ISBN 3 540 52519-X

Holocene, 1993

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Research paper thumbnail of Regional warming and malaria resurgence. Authors' reply

Nature, 2002

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Research paper thumbnail of A comparison of Lamb circulation types with an objective classification derived from grid-point mean-sea-level pressure data

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Research paper thumbnail of Global warming in the twenty-first century: an issue for Less Developed Countries

Science Technology and Development, 1990

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Research paper thumbnail of Environment Group Research Programme Research Findings No.11 An Exploration of Regional Climate Change Scenarios for Scotland

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate variability and crop yields in Europe: Reply to Porter, J.R. and Semenov, M.A

Nature, Aug 18, 1999

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate prediction: a limit to adaptation?

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Research paper thumbnail of Comprar Why We Disagree About Climate Change | Mike Hulme | 9780521898690 | Cambridge University Press

Http Www Libreriasaulamedica Com, 2009

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate Change (Key Ideas in Geography)

Climate Change offers a unique guide to students and general readers alike for making sense of th... more Climate Change offers a unique guide to students and general readers alike for making sense of this profound, far-reaching and contested idea.
It presents climate change as an idea with a past, a present and a future. In 10 carefully crafted chapters, Climate Change offers a synoptic and inter-disciplinary understanding of the idea of climate change … from its varied historical and cultural origins, to its construction more recently through scientific endeavour, to the multiple ways in which political, social and cultural movements in today’s world seek to make sense of and act upon it, to the possible futures of climate, however it may be governed and imagined. The central claim of the book is that the full breadth and power of the idea of climate change can only be grasped from a vantage point that embraces the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. This vantage point is what the book offers, written from the perspective of a geographer whose career work on climate change has drawn across the full range of academic disciplines.

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Research paper thumbnail of Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer

Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer, 2019

'Contemporary Debates on Climate Change' (Routledge, December 2019) is an innovative textbook whi... more 'Contemporary Debates on Climate Change' (Routledge, December 2019) is an innovative textbook which tackles some of the difficult questions raised by climate change. For the complex policy challenges surrounding climate adaptation and resilience, structured debates become effective learning devices for students. This book is organized around fifteen important questions, and is split into four parts: What do we need to know? What should we do? On what grounds should we base our actions? Who should be the agents of change? Each debate is addressed by two leading academics who present opposing viewpoints. Through this format the book is not only designed to introduce students of climate change to different arguments prompted by these questions, but also provides a unique opportunity for them to engage in critical thinking and debate amongst themselves. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading and for discussion questions for use in student classes.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Future of Climate (extract from 'Weathered')

My latest book 'Weathered: Cultures of Climate' is published by Sage this week (17 November). I ... more My latest book 'Weathered: Cultures of Climate' is published by Sage this week (17 November). I attach here an abridged version of the final chapter (#12) of the book, titled 'The future of climate'.

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Research paper thumbnail of Weathered: Cultures of Climate (extract)

Weathered: Cultures of Climate opens up the many ways in which the idea of climate is given meani... more Weathered: Cultures of Climate opens up the many ways in which the idea of climate is given meaning in different human cultures and how it is used; how climates are historicised, known, changed, lived with, blamed, feared, represented, predicted, governed and, at least putatively, redesigned. These actions performed on or with the idea of climate emerge from the diverse cultural interpretations of humans’ sensory experience of the atmosphere’s restless weather. Weathered develops a case for understanding climate as an enduring, yet malleable, idea which humans use to stabilise cultural relationships with their weather. The discursive phenomenon of climate-change should therefore be understood as a ubiquitous trope through which the material, psychological and cultural agency of climate is exercised in today’s world. In this sense the phenomenon of climate-change is not a decisive break from the past. Neither is it a unique outcome of modernity. Climate-change should rather be seen as the latest stage in the cultural evolution of the idea of climate, an idea which enables humans to live with their weather through a widening and changing range of cultural and material artefacts, practices, rituals and symbols.

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Research paper thumbnail of Can Science Fix Climate Change? A Case Against Climate Engineering

""Climate change seems to be an insurmountable problem. Political solutions have so far had littl... more ""Climate change seems to be an insurmountable problem. Political solutions have so far had little impact. Some scientists are now advocating the so-called ‘Plan B’, a more direct way of reducing the rate of future warming by reflecting more sunlight back to space, creating a thermostat in the sky.

In this book, Mike Hulme argues against this kind of hubristic techno-fix. Drawing upon a distinguished career studying the science, politics and ethics of climate change, he shows why seeking to control global climate this way is undesirable, ungovernable and unattainable. Rather than seeking to solve climate change this way, Hulme proposes a re-framing of what is problematic about a changing climate. Science and technology should instead serve the more pragmatic goals of increasing societal resilience to weather risks, improving regional air quality and driving forward an energy technology transition. This ‘climate pragmatism’ offers a more plausible, affective and equitable response to climate change than does an illusory global thermostat.
""

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Research paper thumbnail of Exploring climate change through science and in society: an anthology of Mike Hulme's essays, interviews and speeches

There are many ways to understand the phenomenon of climate change . Anthropologists may seek it... more There are many ways to understand the phenomenon of climate change . Anthropologists may seek it by studying different human accounts of weather and agency, political scientists by studying the power relations revealed through climate negotiations between nation states. Earth system scientists are more likely to quantify and simulate the flows of energy, moisture and carbon dioxide through the planetary system. And historians will gain understanding by studying the historiography of climate change: who has written about it, when, why and how. This book offers another way of understanding climate change: by following the written and spoken words of one person who has dedicated several decades to the professional study of the phenomenon. At its simplest this is why Exploring Climate Change Through Science And In Society has been compiled: a collection of essays, articles, interviews and speeches dealing with climate change which I have published or delivered over the last 25 years. It is offered as an idiosyncratic window into the changing idea of climate change. "

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Research paper thumbnail of Why We Disagree About Climate Change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity

Climate change is not ‘a problem’ waiting for ‘a solution’. It is an environmental, cultural and... more Climate change is not ‘a problem’ waiting for ‘a solution’. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the way we think about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity’s place on Earth. This book provides a personal, yet scholarly, account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the globally diverse ways in which it is being understood. This novel account uses the different standpoints of science, economics, faith, psychology, communication, sociology, politics and development to help explain why we disagree about climate change.

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate, cartography, and the life and death of the 'natural region' in British geography

Journal of Historical Geography, 2023

During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, Oxford-based Scottish geographer Andrew ... more During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, Oxford-based Scottish geographer Andrew Herbertson constructed a framework for comprehending and categorising climate and its interrelations: natural regions. Along with a large circle of students and collaborators, Herbertson promoted natural regions as the conceptual keystone for geographical teaching and research. This article shows how natural regions theory conceived of climate as an object that was differently defined in different academic disciplines. Geography's climate, according to Herbertson and his supporters, was defined by its relations with other spatially distributed phenomena rather than being the quantifiable and isolable entity of modern climatology. Building on recent work in the history of cartography foregrounding map use and reception, the article also argues that natural regions were products of particular modes of map reading, comparison, and synthesis. Although maps were arguably the most influential medium for communicating natural regions, they also proved limited as bearers of the multiscalar version of climate that Herbertson and his successors sought to convey. Finally, the article explains how natural regions and associated conceptions of climate came to be sidelined in the mid-twentieth century as geographers foregrounded human agency in region formation and adopted climatology's definitions and analytical tools. Revisiting the life and death of theories of natural regions illuminates the contested significance of climate in the discipline of geography, and contributes to ongoing efforts to pluralise the history of climate sciences.

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Research paper thumbnail of Social scientific knowledge in times of crisis: What climate change can learn from coronavirus (and vice versa)

WIREs Climate Change, 2020

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Research paper thumbnail of Reflections on the Afterlives of a PhD Thesis

Area, 2022

Most readers of this essay will likely have written a PhD thesis, will be in the throes of writin... more Most readers of this essay will likely have written a PhD thesis, will be in the throes of writing one or perhaps will be aspiring to write one. There is a huge literature on the practice and experience of PhD research--on designing a thesis, on writing and research, on the student-supervisor relationship, on the doctoral student experience, and so on. In this essay, however, I reflect on a specific question less often asked: in what ways does a PhD thesis live on beyond the time when it can only be thought of as ‘work in progress’? I develop an answer to this question along four dimensions--the material, instrumental, epistemic and personal afterlives of a PhD thesis. For this reflection I use my own PhD thesis, awarded in 1985, as the case study. While the essay is therefore autobiographic, it is intended to provoke more general considerations about the longevity of PhD theses and their formative role for their authors and their authors’ subsequent careers. While a PhD thesis can be understood as having a variety of afterlives, those that matter the most are perhaps also those that are less easily recognised.

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Research paper thumbnail of A co-evolutionary approach to climate change impact assessment: Part I. Integrating socio-economic and climate change scenarios

Global Environ Change, 2000

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Research paper thumbnail of Mapping climate change knowledge: An editorial essay

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 2010

ABSTRACT For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

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Research paper thumbnail of Holocene book reviews : Desertification: natural background and human management: Monique Mainguet. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1991, 306 pp., DM228, hardback. ISBN 3 540 52519-X

Holocene, 1993

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Research paper thumbnail of Regional warming and malaria resurgence. Authors' reply

Nature, 2002

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Research paper thumbnail of A comparison of Lamb circulation types with an objective classification derived from grid-point mean-sea-level pressure data

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Global warming in the twenty-first century: an issue for Less Developed Countries

Science Technology and Development, 1990

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Research paper thumbnail of Environment Group Research Programme Research Findings No.11 An Exploration of Regional Climate Change Scenarios for Scotland

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Climate variability and crop yields in Europe: Reply to Porter, J.R. and Semenov, M.A

Nature, Aug 18, 1999

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate prediction: a limit to adaptation?

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Comprar Why We Disagree About Climate Change | Mike Hulme | 9780521898690 | Cambridge University Press

Http Www Libreriasaulamedica Com, 2009

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Research paper thumbnail of A Country-by-Country Analysis of Past and Future Warming Rates1

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Research paper thumbnail of Does climate change need probabilities

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Research paper thumbnail of Recent Rainfall Changes in Central Sudan and Their Physical and Human Implications

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

ABSTRACT

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Research paper thumbnail of Global climate change and the Nile Basin

A historical and technical review of water management and of economic and legal issues, 1994

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate change scenarios for the United Kingdom

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Research paper thumbnail of A town called Bygdaby

Nature Climate Change, 2011

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Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Climate Change

Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity, 2009

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Research paper thumbnail of (Beyond) Scientific Rationalism and the Illusion of Climate Governance

Research Seminar, King's College London, Centre for Governance and Society, 23 November, 2021

The ambition to govern the climate is a dangerous one. Even more so when guided by a tenacious f... more The ambition to govern the climate is a dangerous one. Even more so when guided by a tenacious faith in the ‘iron hand’ of scientific rationalism. Epistemic certainty and moralism, when combined with climate deadline-ism (’10 more years to save the world’), fuels declarations of climate emergency – as we have seen in recent years. Even if initially benign, emergency politics opens the door to ‘strong men’ and for anti-liberalism. Rather than declaring ‘states of emergency’ in the name of a climate crisis, the approach to taming the worst effects of climate change should be one of pragmatism, incrementalism and experimentation. Drawing heavily form my new book Climate Change (Key Ideas in Geography) (Routledge, 2021), this talk develops this argument, explaining what I mean by ‘science-first’ and ‘more-than-science’ approaches to responding to the various realities of climate change. There are other resources and avenues available beyond scientific rationalism. For example, the ambiguity, complexity and partiality of religious myths, Indigenous knowledge-ways or the creative arts undermines the illusion that science will ever yield all that is necessary to know about the future to adequately guide actions in the present.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Cultural Functions of Climate

Talk given at Christ's College, University of Cambridge, Thursday 1 February 2018

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Research paper thumbnail of Between Truth and Meaning: Cultural Contexts of Climate Change Communication (K3 Kongress, Salzburg 26 Sep 2017)

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Research paper thumbnail of Studying climate and its changes: in places, with numbers, through myths (public lecture, Tues 3rd November, 6.30pm, King's College London)

My professional career has been concerned with the study of climate: where and what it is, how it... more My professional career has been concerned with the study of climate: where and what it is, how it changes and why, what effects it has and what it means. In this lecture I will reflect on the different ways in which I have approached these questions over the last 35 years and place my own work in the context of the changing academic, public and political interest in climate. I use the short-hand categories of places, numbers and myths to demonstrate how we need geography, the sciences and the humanities to do full justice to understand the material and imaginative properties of climate. Just as physical climates transcend the political boundaries of nation states, so the idea of climate exceeds the capacities of single academic disciplines to understand it. My philosophy of climate is exemplified in the Centre that I founded (the Tyndall Centre), the journal that I edit (WIREs Climate Change) and the Master’s Programme I convene (MA Climate Change: History, Culture, Society).

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Research paper thumbnail of 'Scientists speaking with one voice': panacea or pathology?

In this talk I explore the idea of consensus in science, especially in climate science, drawing u... more In this talk I explore the idea of consensus in science, especially in climate science, drawing upon the work of STS scholars and philosophers of science. I discuss typologies of consensus and methods for making a consensus, referring to the IPCC and to the 'consensus entrepreneurs'. My six conclusions are:

There are different ways of making a consensus
The quality of a consensus matters more than it’s numerical strength
Don’t extend the reach of consensus
Consensus has limited public leverage and policy efficacy
A consensus is not forever – consensus is not the truth
Do not be intimidated by disagreement – as much in science as in politics

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Research paper thumbnail of The dangers of climate emergencies

‘A discourse of emergencies is now central to international affairs’ (Calhoun 2008: 376). Emergen... more ‘A discourse of emergencies is now central to international affairs’ (Calhoun 2008: 376). Emergencies are dramatic, crisis-fuelled constructions, and they can take on many shapes and guises: humanitarian, public health, security, environmental, political. Emergencies and the language and imagery they conjure shape the way we see the world, our place in it and the possibilities and limits of human agency. More importantly, emergencies demand a response, often quick, often radical. Emergencies cannot be ignored, and therefore they provide a justification for action. It is important to recognise this emergency-shaped world we now inhabit when reflecting on how and why a climate emergency discourse is used as a justification for radical techno-fixes for a changing climate. Placing the human relationship with (global) climate into the ‘emergency’ category immediately changes the scope of the types of actions that may be justified and the actors who may legitimately undertake them. Many commentators invoke a future climate emergency as justification or warrant for research into sunlight reflection methods and their possible deployment. In this talk I will give some examples of how the climate emergency frame is used in such discourse and outline some of the many problems of invoking climate emgercencies to justify radical techno-fixes for climate change. Most obvious is the problem of defining, detecting and announcing a climate emergency. What exactly is, or what could be, a climate emergency, and for whom? Who is authorised to declare one? At what scale would the emergency have to be? Can they be declared pre-emptively? Depicting the future in terms of climate emergencies may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate change: one, or many?

In this talk I suggest that the story of climate change has become too univocal. There is an ort... more In this talk I suggest that the story of climate change has become too univocal. There is an orthodoxy which does not do justice to the complexities of what is happening to climates around the world, nor how such changes are understood and acted upon. I argue that a cultural analysis of climate and its changes is needed as much as, if not more than, a scientific one. Such analysis reveals the many different things that climate change means to different people in different places holding different concerns and priorities. Understanding this diversity, set against the universality of climate models and reports such as the IPCC, provides a sounder basis for thinking through the different ways in which policies and other interventions to deal with climatic dangers might be designed and enacted.

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Research paper thumbnail of The public life of climate change: the first 25 years

In 1988 few serious commentators believed that the politics of climate change would be anything o... more In 1988 few serious commentators believed that the politics of climate change would be anything other than tortuous. Yet the assumption has remained through the period since that human-induced climate change is an important, urgent and discrete problem which at least in principle lends itself to policy solutions. Optimism has waxed and waned, but the belief has been maintained that at least some forms of policy intervention will yield tangible public benefits. Yes, the climatic side-effects of large-scale combustion of fossil fuels were an unforeseen and undesirable outcome of Western and then global industrialisation. But putting this causal chain into reverse—arresting these unwanted side-effects—was believed to be in the reach of an intelligent, purposeful and ingenious humanity. This presumption must now be questioned. Maybe the climate system cannot be purposely managed by humans.

This brief survey of climate change over 25 years suggests at least two reasons why. First, there is no ‘plan’, no self-evidently correct way of framing and tackling the phenomenon of climate change which will over-ride different legitimate interests and force convergence of political action. Second, climate science keeps on generating different forms of knowledge about climate—different handles on climate change--which are suggestive of different forms of political and institutional response to climate change. Taken together these two lessons suggest other ways of engaging with the idea of climate change, not as a discrete environmental phenomenon to prevent, control or manage, but as a forceful idea which carries creative potential.

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Research paper thumbnail of Who governs the climate? Agency, knowledge and the limits of democracy

In this lecture I describe the changing historical relationship between 'science' (I prefer the b... more In this lecture I describe the changing historical relationship between 'science' (I prefer the broader term knowledge, or Wissenschaft) and society in the context of enduring cultural attempts to bring order to the disorderliness of climate. Spirits and divinities, God, the forces of nature have in turn each been understood as the ultimate agents of weather and climate. I bring this history up to the present day and examine the perplexing relationship between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (‘knowledge’) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (‘agency’). I reflect on the paradox of our contemporary understanding of climate change: on the one hand scientific knowledge makes us the offer that, for the first time, climate is directly governable by human agency; and yet on the other hand our democratic institutions seem incapable of taking up this offer. This paradox is illustrated no more acutely than the case of putative climate geoengineering, the idea that through technological manipulation of the skies and seas we can create a ‘thermostat’ for the planet. Despite many (implicit) claims to the contrary, and for the moment at least, climate remains ungovernable.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Manichean Mann. A review of 'The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet' by Michael Mann (NY: Public Affairs, 2021)

Issues in Science and Technology, 2021

Michael Mann has been in the climate wars for well over a decade now. As he reminds us frequently... more Michael Mann has been in the climate wars for well over a decade now. As he reminds us frequently in this new book, he has been in the crosshairs of his enemies, has fought off the attack dogs, and carries the scars of battle. Even the environmentalist Bill McKibben’s promotional puff for the book valorizes Mann in terms of his “scars from the climate wars.” The military framing of climate change long predates Mann’s involvement, but it certainly is a framing he has done much to promote through his blogs, tweets, and general persona-at-large in public discourse.

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Research paper thumbnail of Foreword for "The role of language in the climate change debate" (ed. Kjersti Flottum)

In March 2015 the BBC screened a 90 minute TV documentary titled 'Climate Change by Numbers'. The... more In March 2015 the BBC screened a 90 minute TV documentary titled 'Climate Change by Numbers'. The programme aimed to improve public understanding of climate change by focusing on " just three key numbers that clarify all the important questions about climate change ". The three numbers were 0.85 (the degrees Celsius of warming the planet has undergone since 1880), 95 (the percent confidence climate scientists have that at least half this warming is human-caused) and 1,000,000,000,000 (tonnes of carbon it is estimated humans can burn to avoid 'dangerous climate change'). But there are other languages beyond numbers and mathematics that matter for public debates about climate change. Understanding the public meanings of climate change, and therefore the basis for Ban Ki-Moon’s demanded “action”, requires more than just numbers or scientific knowledge. Studying the ways in which climate change is talked and written about through semantic, visual and embodied languages, and in different vernaculars, is necessary if the multiple meanings of climate change are to be excavated. And only through the construction and articulation of meaning is personal and collective political action on climate change possible. Science or numbers alone is never enough.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Bristow and Ford's 'A cultural history of climate change'

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Research paper thumbnail of Book Review 'The Collapse of Western Civilization' by Oreskes & Conway

H-HistGeog, Nov 10, 2014

Historians are not known for telling stories about the future; they are much more interested in c... more Historians are not known for telling stories about the future; they are much more interested in constructing stories about the past. Historical ‘facts’ are woven together to provide convincing accounts of how one thing led to another, seeking insights into why people acted the way they did and with what consequence. But there are no ‘facts’ about the future for historians to discover or construct. The future is usually left to the imagination of novelists, the secret knowledge of seers or the predictive models of scientists. So this mini-book from established science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway is unusual to say the least.

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Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: 'This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate' by Naomi Klein

New Scientist, Sep 23, 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of Review Essay: 'Behind the curve: Science and the politics of global warming' by J P Howe

Climatic Change DOI 10.1007/s10584-014-1237-6, Aug 29, 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of 'We Always Get the Climates We Deserve': The Tenacious Grip of Moral Accountability

Different cosmologies, religious thought, political ideologies, social practices and scientific p... more Different cosmologies, religious thought, political ideologies, social practices and scientific paradigms of knowledge all contribute to the rich cultural matrix in which theories of climatic change and causation have emerged, flourished and declined. It is exceptional for humans to think that climates change for either natural or supernatural reasons alone. Far more common in early human history, and indeed perhaps still today, is to believe that the performance of climate is tied to the behaviours of morally-accountable human actors. We therefore tend to think that we get the weather we deserve.

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Research paper thumbnail of Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited: A rejoinder

Political Geography, 2017

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