Mike Hulme

(28 February)  A new review of Why We Disagree About Climate Change has been published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol.65(5), pp.621-622, written by Vigya Sharma.  Worldwide sales of the book have now passed 13,000.

(16 June)  A new review of Why We Disagree About Climate Change has just been published in the International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management … ‘there are many ways to use Hulme’s book in teaching …’

(18 May) Why We Disagree About Climate Change was awarded jointly the 2010 Gerald L Young Prize for best book in human ecology.

(13 March) The latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Speech has a review of Why We Disagree About Climate Change written by Michael Svoboda … “Hulme helps us understand the decades of wandering the desert of climate policy”.

(4 February)  The February issue of Progress in Human Geography has a book review symposium based on my book Why We Disagree About Climate Change.  David Demeritt and Diana Liverman contribute essays, with a response by me.  You can read these contributions here.

(21 September)  Read three new reviews of Why We Disagree About Climate Change, in the September 2010 issue of The Geographical Journal.

(28 May)  ‘The climate change debates’.  The journal Science has commissioned a review essay by philosopher of science Philip Kitcher in which he assesses the arguments put forward in a number of recent books about climate change, including Why We Disagree About Climate Change.  There is an on-line forum to discuss the issues raised, including this comment from me.

(May)  See also this new review of the book ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ on the Oxfam ‘Poverty-to-Power’ blog.

(28 May)  In Philip Kitcher’s wide-ranging essay in Science on ‘The Climate Change Debates’ I am struck by two things – which are not very new, but which are very important. First, is how the framing and public discourse around climate change differs between countries: as Kitcher puts it, where ‘societies … are inclined to see matters differently’. This is brute fact sociological reality, just as non-negotiable as the radiation physics of a CO2 molecule. Recognising this means that as soon as scientific knowledge enters public discourse – whether this knowledge is robust, imprecise or tentative – different things will happen to it and different social realities will be constructed around it. For me, this is the essence of the climate change phenomenon.  
 
The second, related, thing to emphasise is how predictive claims about the climate future – and its impacts – are inextricably bound up with imaginations (e.g. scenarios) and value judgements (e.g. discount rates) about the future. One could argue that such considerations fall within the legitimate reach of ‘climate science’ and the elite scientific expertise Kitcher claims any genuine democracy needs. But for me it is these extra-scientific dimensions of climate change ‘knowledge’ which motivated me in my book ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ to challenge a narrow appeal to science for engaging our publics around the idea of climate change. It really is not about ‘getting the science right’. It is just as much about engaging our imaginations, about facing up to the ways different peoples and cultures construct meaning for themselves, about the very different values we attach to the future. And because of this I don’t believe Cassandras such as Jim Hansen and Steve Schneider should have the last word.”

(April 2010)  Read what people are saying about Why We Disagree About Climate Change.

Read these reviews of Why We Disagree About Climate Change, by:

(26 March) Tim Dieppe of Henderson Global Investors - “It is the best book I have read on climate change.”

(4 March) Professor Steve Yearley in The Times Higher - “This is a distinctive and courageous book.”

(4 December) Karim Bardeesy from Toronto’s The Globe and Mail reviews it here alongside Al Gore’s Our Choice and James Hoggan’s Climate Cover-up.  She says, “Hulme’s open-minded approach can be used to help people who feel a nagging concern about climate change figure out the source of their concern and define what to do about it more clearly.”

(9 December)  Sustainability Forum com review the book here.

(November) Professor Gwyn Prins in the journal International Affairs  2009, 85(6),  1261-1262

Ralph Underhill in the journal ECOS: a review of conservation,  2009 (Summer), 30(2),  100-102