Defending “the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”

24/07/2020

Having just finished reading Dorian Lynsky’s wonderful Ministry of Truth, a biography of George Orwell’s 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty Four, a recent headline from The Times newspaper caught my attention. The Harvard professor of psychology Steven Pinker was accusing his critics of “launching an Orwellian attack” on his reputation. Following back this story connected for […]

WIREs Climate Change celebrates 10 years

Mike Hulme | 10/08/2020

The two professional associations that sponsor Wiley’s WIREs Climate Change – the Royal Geographical Society (with the IBG) and the Royal Meteorological Society – recognise the landmark as the journal passes it’s 10 year anniversary. During this period over...

Fetishising ‘The Number’: How Not To Govern Pandemics, Climate and Biodiversity

Mike Hulme | 09/07/2020

As the pandemic continues to dominate public politics around the world, a single number – the reproduction rate (R) – has become the focus of policy-making and public communication. Keeping R below 1.0 appears to be the primary objective...

How the Hadley Centre came to be … 30 years ago

Mike Hulme | 30/05/2020

Thirty years ago last week, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opened the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction (now the Hadley Centre for Cliamate Science and Services). The current Director – Albert Klein Tank – has offered a brief ‘perspective‘ and...

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

Mike Hulme | 29/05/2020

Read this new editorial commentary from WIREs Climate Change, written with colleagues from Orebro University, Sweden. Abstract. Crisis, by its very nature, requires decisive intervention. However, important questions can be obscured by the very immediacy of the crisis condition....

COVID-19 behind the numbers – statistics, models and decision-making

Mike Hulme | 28/05/2020

You can view this recorded webinar delivered on-line on Thursday 14 May for Cambridge Conversations, the Alumni Programme. “Unpick the numbers behind COVID-19 with Sir David Spiegelhalter, one of the world’s foremost biostatisticians, and Mike Hulme, professor of human...

Do Not Reduce the Future to Covid-19

Mike Hulme | 27/04/2020

Nearly 10 years ago I published a paper in the history of science journal Osiris titled Reducing the Future to Climate: A Story of Climate Determinism and Reductionism. It was a warning about viewing the future—and making decisions about...

One Earth, many futures, no destination

Mike Hulme | 17/04/2020

Read my new Commentary in the journal One Earth, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. Since the first Earth Day 50 years ago, it has become clear that it is easier to generate scientific insight...

‘Mobilising for War’: Why COVID-19 is Not a Dress Rehearsal for Dealing with Climate Change

Mike Hulme | 19/03/2020

Many politicians and public figures are calling for the response to COVID-19 to be put on a war footing. Emergency declarations and executive powers are being appropriated by the state. Climate campaigners, too, have frequently called upon nations to...

Podcast: ‘The Sustainability Agenda’

Mike Hulme | 14/03/2020

Listen to this interview with Fergal Byrne for his ‘Sustainability Agenda‘ podcast. The conversation is about climate change from a perspective that encompasses the relationship between science and policy, science and culture, the politics of climate change, and the...

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