Mike Hulme » News

Review of ‘A Cultural History of Climate’

Mike Hulme — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:16:17 +0000

(August) Read my review of Wolfgang Behringer’s book ’A Cultural History of Climate’ at the on-line Reviews in History.

Problems with making and governing global kinds of knowledge

Mike Hulme — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:14:48 +0000

(24 August) Read my extended essay ‘Problems with making and governing global kinds of knowledge’ to appear in the 20th Anniversary Issue of the journal Global Enviro nmental Change.

Autumn 2010 speaking schedule

Mike Hulme — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:01:19 +0000

I am giving a number of public/invited talks, lectures and panel debates this autumn, which seek to develop some of the themes of my book Why We Disagree About Climate Change and apply them to new questions emerging in science, policy and society.

Thursday 2 September, 6.45pm (RGS, London) - ‘Enquiring into the state of climate change knowledge: an assessment of IPCC assessments’. The annual Progress in Physical Geography lecture at the RGS-IBG annual conference.

Tuesday 7 September, 7.00pm (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) – ‘What does climate change mean to you?’ The Challenger Society Public Lecture.

Tuesday 14 September, 2.00pm (Aston University) – ‘Why we disagree about climate change’ Keynote lecture of the Sociology Section of the 2010 BA Festival.

Tuesday 28 September, 5.30pm (University of Cambridge) – ‘How do climate models gain and exercise authority?’ Opening public lecture for the CRASSH Conference ‘Challenging models in the face of uncertainty‘.

Friday 8 October, 7.30pm (Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge) – ‘Climate change – what does it demand of us?’ Public talk as part of the 2010 Earthed Theme.

Friday 5 November, 4.00pm (CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder) – ‘Why we disagree about climate change’ CIRES Distinguished Lecture Series.

Monday 22 November, 5.30pm (Department of Geography, Royal Holloway College, Egham) – ‘Climate change – what are we arguing about?’ The Annual Gordon Manley Lecture.

Tuesday 23 November, 6.00pm (The Wellcome Centre, Euston, London) – ‘Why we disagree about climate change’ The CIBSE Annual Lecture.

The experimental nature of the IPCC

Mike Hulme — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:03:34 +0000

(21 July) ‘The IPCC on trial: experimentation continues’ Read my Talking Point essay at Environmental Research Web.

Learning to live with novel climates

Mike Hulme — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:03:50 +0000

(8 July) New Publication My extended essay ‘Learning to live with recreated climates’ has just been published in the journal Nature & Culture.

The experimental society

Mike Hulme — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:44:01 +0000

On 28 June 2010, I shall be part of a panel discussion, hosted by The Royal Society and the Science & Democracy Network, addressing the question: ‘The experimental society: what happens when evidence, uncertainty and politics collide?’ Places are still available.

What do we know about the IPCC?

Mike Hulme — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:32:43 +0000

NEW Publication (June). ‘What do we know about the IPCC?’ This review article – Hulme & Mahony, 2010 - has been published on-line in the journal Progress in Physical Geography. The article surveys all of the significant published research from the early 1990s onwards about how the IPCC works and what impacts its knowledge assessments have had.

(15 June) On the nature of the IPCC consensus. Read here for a statement correcting misleading newspaper and internet blog reports of the Hulme & Mahony paper on the IPCC. And read here for an earlier commentary on the IPCC and its use of consensus. (16 June) Further clarification. Read here for f urther clarification of my position on expertise, consensus and the IPCC.

Could climate intervention schemes ever work?

Mike Hulme — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:21:50 +0000

(7 June) ‘Climate intervention schemes could be undone by geopolitics’. Read my opinion article posted here at Yale environment 360, which includes a scenario of the year 2028 when the first solar radiation management intervention scheme is sanctioned by the UN Secutiry Council.

The climate change debates

Mike Hulme — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:36:49 +0000

(28 May) ‘The climate change debates’. The journal Science has commissioned a review essay by philosopher of science Philip Kitcher in which he assesses the arguments put forward in a number of recent books about climate change, including Why We Disagree About Climate Change. There is an on-line forum to discuss the issues raised, including this comment from me.

(May) See also this new review of the book ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ on the Oxfam ‘Poverty-to-Power’ blog.

Response to Philip Kitcher

Mike Hulme — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:33:11 +0000

(28 May) In Philip Kitcher’s wide-ranging essay in Science on ‘The Climate Change Debates’ I am struck by two things – which are not very new, but which are very important. First, is how the framing and public discourse around climate change differs between countries: as Kitcher puts it, where ’societies … are inclined to see matters differently’. This is brute fact sociological reality, just as non-negotiable as the radiation physics of a CO2 molecule. Recognising this means that as soon as scientific knowledge enters public discourse – whether this knowledge is robust, imprecise or tentative – different things will happen to it and different social realities will be constructed around it. For me, this is the essence of the climate change phenomenon.

The second, related, thing to emphasise is how predictive claims about the climate future – and its impacts – are inextricably bound up with imaginations (e.g. scenarios) and value judgements (e.g. discount rates) about the future. One could argue that such considerations fall within the legitimate reach of ‘climate science’ and the elite scientific expertise Kitcher claims any genuine democracy needs. But for me it is these extra-scientific dimensions of climate change ‘knowledge’ which motivated me in my book ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ to challenge a narrow appeal to science for engaging our publics around the idea of climate change. It really is not about ‘getting the science right’. It is just as much about engaging our imaginations, about facing up to the ways different peoples and cultures construct meaning for themselves, about the very different values we attach to the future. And because of this I don’t believe Cassandras such as Jim Hansen and Steve Schneider should have the last word.”