In 2001, David Demeritt published an article in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers titled, ‘The construction of global warming and the politics of science‘. It has been cited nearly 1000 times (Google Scholar). Now, more than two decades later, I and Rebecca Lave offer short retrospectives on the significance of Demeritt’s article […]
Essays
Why Governing Pandemics Using Models is Dangerous
Do you remember the headline in The Guardian newspaper from 18 December 2021: “UK scientists: Bring in new curbs now or face up to 2 million daily infections”? And whatever happened to the scenario of “6,000 COVID deaths per...
International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering
I have joined more than 60 senior climate scientists and governance scholars from around the world who have launched a global initiative today calling for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering. We argue that solar geoengineering deployment cannot...
‘Climate Change is Not the End of the World’
Professor Mike Hulme insists that the Church should not fuel young people’s eco-anxieties (This column appeared in The Church of England newspaper, 12 November 2021 issue) There has been a troubling rise in recent years amongst young adults and...
At Last: The Political Left Speaks Out
As the old adage says, ‘Better late than never’. I think of this in relation to a number of commentaries and essays that have appeared in recent days from the political Left, that at last begin to see the...
Choose Carefully Your Analogies for Communicating the Challenges of Climate Change
Among the media coverage of last week’s COP26 meeting in Glasgow one particular analogy stood out to me. It claimed that the Glasgow Climate Pact was a failure by analogy of having a 2 metre chasm to jump across...
Preventing Future School Closures
Earlier this year I wrote a blog post here titled, ‘Re-socialising a vaccinated world requires political struggle‘. I am pleased to draw attention to one small success in such a struggle, which in this case is to make it...
‘The Trick’: What Did Climategate Mean?
Tonight, the BBC broadcast ‘The Trick’, their commissioned TV drama of the 2009 Climategate affair. The drama focused on the relationship between Professor Phil Jones and his wife Ruth, and the handling of the controversy by Phil’s employer –...
‘The Retreat of Scientific Debate’
Just over a year ago, I was one of about 50 original co-signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration, a short statement which challenged the prevailing policy orthodoxy that societal lockdowns were the only way to combat the risks to...
Reading Climate Change Backwards: Five Varieties
Climate change is everywhere. In everyday speech, protest, advocacy, science, the arts, business and diplomacy. And there are of course some physical correlates to this discursive reality of climate change, namely changes occurring in the physical dynamics of the...