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 […]
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...
Reflections on the Afterlives of a PhD Thesis
This article has been just been published open-access in the RGS-IBG journal Area. Abstract Most readers of this essay will likely have written a PhD thesis, will be in the throes of writing one or perhaps will be aspiring...
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...
Culture, Science, and the Predicament of Climate Change: In Conversation with Mike Hulme
You can listen here to my conversation with Professor Mark Pennington, director of the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society at King’s College London. The episode in the This episode in Mark’s Governance Podcast is titled “Culture,...
‘(Beyond) Scientific Rationality and the Illusion of Climate Governance’
Here are the slides accompanying a talk I gave at the Centre for Governance and Society, King’s College London, Tuesday 23 November 2021. The abstract for my talk is below. Abstract “Neither state- nor UN-centric manifestations of power —...
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...
My selection of five great reads about the contested meanings of climate change has been posted at Shepherd’s, a new platform seeking to re-create something of the joy and serendipity of browsing the shelves of a real bookstore. As...
