(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.
(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.”
(April 2010) Read what people are saying about Why We Disagree About Climate Change.
Read these reviews of Why We Disagree About Climate Change, by:
(26 March) Tim Dieppe of Henderson Global Investors - “It is the best book I have read on climate change.”
(4 March) Professor Steve Yearley in The Times Higher - “This is a distinctive and courageous book.”
(4 December) Karim Bardeesy from Toronto’s The Globe and Mail reviews it here alongside Al Gore’s Our Choice and James Hoggan’s Climate Cover-up. She says, “Hulme’s open-minded approach can be used to help people who feel a nagging concern about climate change figure out the source of their concern and define what to do about it more clearly.”
(9 December) Sustainability Forum com review the book here.
(November) Professor Gwyn Prins in the journal International Affairs 2009, 85(6), 1261-1262
Ralph Underhill in the journal ECOS: a review of conservation, 2009 (Summer), 30(2), 100-102
(4 December) One of The Economist magazine’s select ‘Books of the year’: Why We Disagree About Climate Change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. The citation says “How global warming has been transformed from a physical phenomenon that is measurable and observable by scientists into a social, cultural and political one, by a professor of climate change at the (now controversial) University of East Anglia. In the crowded and noisy world of climate-change publications, this book will stand out.”
(December) Read this review and interesting interpretation of Why We Disagree About Climate Change from Richard D North.
ALL IN THE MIND. Listen to this discussion on Australian national radio about my book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change. I join anthropologist Jonathan Marshall and presenter Natasha Mitchell to discuss mythology, mental ecology and a changing climate. Full transcript available.
(10 November) Read my extended interview with Brazilian on-line magazine Pagina 22 (in Portuguese, but Google will translate for you) in which I draw out some of the implications of the arguments in my book Why We Disagree About Climate Change.
(23 October) New York Times energy-environment blog interviews Mike Hulme on the idea of global climate engineering and how it relates to the arguments in his book Why We Disagree About Climate Change.
See here my essay ’Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ which appeared in the first edition (2009/10) of The Carbon Yearbook: the annual review of business and climate change, published by ENDS for the UK’s first Carbon Show.
