Published today in Environmental Research Letters Authored by Ingrid Boas, Harald Sterly, Carol Farbotko, Mike Hulme and 29 co-authors Abstract As climate change intensifies, scientific and policy discussions increasingly address questions of future habitability and potential population movements. In this perspective, we caution against premature or top-down characterizations of areas as uninhabitable, or portrayals of […]
Publications – Recent
‘The False Promises of Polar Geoengineering (Research)’
You can read here my Editorial commenting on the Frontiers in Science Lead Article, published on 9 September 2025, a review by Martin Siegert and colleagues, ‘Safeguarding the polar regions from dangerous geoengineering: a critical assessment of proposed concepts and future prospects‘ My three key points: Mike Hulme
Review of David Livingstone’s ‘The Empire of Climate: A History of an Idea’ (Princeton, 2024)
The Journal of Historical Geography have newly published (June 2025) a ‘review forum’ based on David Livingstone’s recent book, ‘The Empire of Climate’. As well as myself, five other historical geographers — Awadhendra Sharan, Li Zhang, Louis S. Warren,...
‘The Unbearable Weight of Displaced Weather’
Read my new essay in The Rachel Carson Centre’s quarterly magazine, SPRINGS, Issue #7, May 27th 2025 Summary: Decades of scientific research have made clear that human presence on the planet is changing the world’s climates. Making them warmer...
‘Small-Step Funding Models Fit Better for Climate Research’
I have this item of Correspondence appear in Nature Climate Change today. I contrast the research funding model of the UK Government’s Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) with the funding model that established, 25 years ago this summer,...
‘Profiles in Sustainability’, an interview with Mike Hulme
The journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development centers on sustainability science and its contribution to guiding policy and practice. To this end, the journal is exploring the device of interviews to enable conversations to flourish. In this...
‘IPCC-envy’: Why do other science-policy issues want an IPCC, and should they?
The academic publisher Sage, have launched a new climate journal, titled ‘Dialogues on Climate Change‘, edited by Dr Rob Bellamy at the University of Manchester. I was invited to write a short essay about the IPCC for the inaugural issue and this has now been published. I reproduce the abstract below: “The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel […]
‘Bring digital twins back to Earth’
In this Perspective essay published today in WIREs Climate Change, and led by philosopher of models, Andrea Saltelli, we reflect on the development of digital twins of the Earth, which we associate with a reductionist view of nature as...
‘There is no climate niche’
Co-written with colleagues Jan Selby and Wolfgang Cramer, you can read the full essay in the July issue of One Earth … “The idea that there exists a ‘human climate niche’ has become increasingly influential. But this idea rests on flawed and anachronistic determinist premises. It is overly climate-centric in its characterization of the challenges […]
Review: “Inside the World of Climate Change Sceptics”
Read here my review, to appear in Public Understanding of Science, of Kristin Haltinner and Dilshani Sarathchandra’s new book. As I conclude my review … “[T]he art of politics is not to get everyone to agree with you, but...
