Mike Hulme’s Site

I will be teaching the Module ‘Climate change: impacts, responses and policy’ (ENV-M594) for the MSc in Climate Change during Semester 2 of the 2007/08 academic year.

Module Synopsis

Climate change - the anthropogenic shaping of the global climate system, or ‘global warming’ - has become a defining phenomenon of the new century. It is one of the most salient public issues in UK society and, increasingly, worldwide. Assessing and managing the risks posed by climate change, now and in the future, is a major driver of national policy and international diplomacy, is an issue of lively public debate, and provides a backdrop against which new social movements, business strategies and public policies are emerging.

By way of framing the problem, this module provides a brief introduction to the science behind climate change (drawing upon module M535), especially focusing on certainties, uncertainties and identifiable risks. The major part of the course then examines in greater depth the impacts climate change is having on society - both direct and indirect, both now and potentially in the future. These impacts - physical effects, social responses and policy debates - will be examined from a number of different perspectives:

1. what is climate?
2. climate change and future scenarios
3. public perceptions of climate risks
4. the ethics and economics of climate change
5. climate change and development goals
6. climate and society: how adaptation works
7. energy and society: moves towards decarbonisation
8. structuring public policy around climate change

Current Projects

I am currently writing a book for Cambridge University Press titled ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ to be published winter 2008/09.

Why we disagree about climate change

Climate change is not ‘a problem’ waiting for ‘a solution’. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the way we think about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity’s place on Earth. This book provides a personal, yet scholarly, account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the globally diverse ways in which it is being understood. This novel account uses the different standpoints of science, economics, faith, psychology, communication, sociology, politics and development to help explain why we disagree about climate change. A creative view of climate change is to see it as an opportunity to speak across these divides, using it as a lens through which we can design collectively our sustainability on a small planet. This book draws upon the author’s twenty-five years of professional work as an international climate change scientist and public commentator, and offers an insider’s view about climate change from the core of environmental and social science and reflecting associated science-policy debates. By placing climate change in its historical, political and cultural context, the paradigm shift implied in the book is that climate change, far from being simply an ‘issue’ or a ‘threat’, can act as catalyst to revise our perception of our place in the world. ‘Why we disagree about climate change’ will lift discussion of climate change out of the narrow bounds of science and policy discourse. It will help people recognise climate change as a defining idea within the broader sweep of intellectual history and human development.

Published Books 

Hulme,M. (2008)  Imagined Memories and the Seductive Quest for a Family History  Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd., Guildford, 276pp. (published February 2008) (available from www.amazon.co.uk priced £8.99)

Hulme,M., Jenkins,G.J., et al. (2002) Climate change scenarios for the UK: the UKCIP02 scientific report Tyndall Centre, Norwich, 120pp.

Hulme,M. and Jenkins,G.J. (1998) Climate change scenarios for the UK Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, 80pp.

Hulme,M. and Barrow,E.M. (eds.) (1997) Climates of the British Isles: present, past and future Routledge, London, 454pp.