Re-Socialising a Vaccinated World Requires Political Struggle

Posted in Essays, Essays & Blog Posts, News

07/02/2021

There is a naïve assumption that mass vaccination will allow social life in the UK to return to normal. It is far from obvious that this is so. As the authoritarian regulation of public life extends and continues, the erosion of collective and individual freedoms will only be reversed if citizens demand it. Science is […]

Climates Multiple: Three Baselines, Two Tolerances, One Normal

Mike Hulme | 31/12/2020

Today, Friday 1 January, 2021, the world’s climate is re-set. Overnight, the world will “become” about 0.5°C warmer, the UK nearly 0.7°C warmer. This essay, published at Academia Letters, explains what is happening, and discusses its wider significance. Mike...

The Unbearable Placelessness of Zoom

Mike Hulme | 12/12/2020

During 2020, Zoom (and its equivalents) has become for many people the dominant medium through which human encounter and interaction is experienced. This is especially true of the academy. Despite its democratising potential, I have struggled to adapt to...

Academic Peer Reviewing: Saying ‘Yes’ or Saying ‘No’

Mike Hulme | 27/11/2020

Have you just received an invitation to review a submitted journal manuscript, or a grant application? Not sure whether or not to accept the invitation? You’ve got way too much work on your desk already. What should you decide?...

Climate Data – “free exchange” or commercially priced?

Mike Hulme | 17/11/2020

This week — 16-19 November 2020 — the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is hosting an international conference on the exchange of data about the Earth System in the 21st century. The purpose of the discussions facilitated by this conference...

Why is the academic left silent about the new authoritarianism?

Mike Hulme | 08/10/2020 | 1 Comment

This is a question recently asked by my colleague Dragos Simandan of Brock University, Ontario. In particular he asks, “In my home discipline of human geography I’ve been surprised by the lack of deep criticism (so far!) against the...

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

Mike Hulme | 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...

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...

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...