The Most Important Book of 2023

Mike Hulme | 22/03/2023

Those readers who followed my blog posts during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 will know I became increasingly frustrated and bewildered, then angry, and finally depressed, about the institutionalized responses to the COVID pandemic, which in my...

An older woman, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, with a feathered headdress in front of a group of people.

Meeting Vivienne Westwood

Mike Hulme | 08/01/2023

Vivienne Westwood died on the 29 December 2022. A larger than life character, I once had the opportunity to meet her – at her suggestion – to discuss her thoughts about climate change and a campaigning TV series, to...

A map of the British coast from 2022 UK Summer with people on the beach.

The 2022 UK Summer In Long-Term Perspective

Mike Hulme | 01/09/2022 | 1 Comment

With the summer season in the UK now over, it is instructive to place the hot, dry summer we have experienced into the longest possible historical perspective. How hot was the summer of 2022 as a whole? How dry...

A graph of the world's newspaper coverage of the latest climate change issue-attention cycle.

Has the latest climate change issue-attention cycle peaked?

Mike Hulme | 10/06/2022

Last month, Sky News moved its flagship daily climate show from its primetime slot of 8.30pm into the dead of the afternoon, a 15-minute weekday airing at 3.30pm. (It also announced that a new in-depth weekend programme would be...

A young girl sitting on a bed looking out the window, contemplating the closed schools during the pandemic.

Why Closing Schools During The Pandemic Was Child Abuse

Mike Hulme | 31/05/2022

The Spectator this week ran the story I reproduce below, in which journalist Ross Clark asked the question ‘How much did the pandemic harm children?’ Actually the question being answered by Clark really is, ‘How much did Governments’ closures...

‘Classics in human geography’: The science and politics of climate change

Mike Hulme | 03/03/2022

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 […]

A graph showing the number of hospital admissions in England during governing pandemics.

Why Governing Pandemics Using Models is Dangerous

Mike Hulme | 22/01/2022

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...

A cartoon of airplanes flying over a mountain with pink confetti, illustrating solar geoengineering.

International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering

Mike Hulme | 17/01/2022

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’

Mike Hulme | 12/01/2022 | 1 Comment

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...

Better late than never, the phrase "Speaks Out" is written on a blackboard in stock photos, reflecting the sentiment of the political left.

At Last: The Political Left Speaks Out

Mike Hulme | 22/12/2021

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...

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Mike Hulme

Professor Mike Hulme's Site

Essays

The Most Important Book of 2023

Meeting Vivienne Westwood

The 2022 UK Summer In Long-Term Perspective

Has the latest climate change issue-attention cycle peaked?

Why Closing Schools During The Pandemic Was Child Abuse

‘Classics in human geography’: The science and politics of climate change

Why Governing Pandemics Using Models is Dangerous

International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering

‘Climate Change is Not the End of the World’

At Last: The Political Left Speaks Out