Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity (Paperback)

~ Mike Hulme (Author)
Key Phrases: clean development mechanism, future climate risks, global climate governance, Kyoto Protocol, Stern Review, The Performance of Science (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A Nature Reports: Climate Change Must-read for Copenhagen

"This is a very rare book. A scientific book about climate change, that deals both with the science, and our own personal response to this science. It does all this supremely well, and should be compulsory reading for both sceptics and advocates. However, it does so much more, it is a book of great modesty and humanity. It uses climate change to ask questions more broadly about our own beliefs, assumptions and prejudices, and how we make individual and collective decisions." - Chris Mottershead, Distinguished Advisor, BP p.l.c

"In this personal and deeply reflective book, a distinguished climate researcher shows why it may be both wrong and frustrating to keep asking what we can do for climate change. Tracing the many meanings of climate in culture, Hulme asks instead what climate change can do for us. Uncertainty and ambiguity emerge here as resources, because they force us to confront those things we really want-not safety in some distant, contested future but justice and self-understanding now. Without downplaying its seriousness, Hulme demotes climate change from ultimate threat to constant companion, whose murmurs unlock in us the instinct for justice and equality." - Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard University

"This book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the relationship between science and society. As we know from other controversies over GM Crops and MMR, by the time science hits the headlines, and therefore the public consciousness, it's always about much more than the science. This book shines a fascinating light on this process by revealing how climate change has been transformed from a physical phenomenon, measurable and observable by scientists, into a social, cultural and political one.

Everyone must surely recognize Hulme's description of the way climate change has become a kind of Christmas tree onto which we all hang our personal favourite bauble and Hulme highlights the way the issue has been appropriated by so many different groups to promote their own causes. Believers in turning the clock forwards and using more advanced technology, and those who argue we should turn the clock back and live more simply can equally claim that climate change supports their case.

Over the past few years Hulme has bravely spoken out against what some have described as 'climate porn', the tendency of some sections of the scientific community and the media to present climate change in ever more catastrophic and apocalyptic terms. This book elaborates on Hulme's hostility to the language of 'imminent peril' and calls for a different discourse.

This book is so important because Mike Hulme cannot be dismissed as a skeptic yet he is calling for a radical change in the way we discuss climate change. Whether or not people agree with his conclusions - this book is a challenging, thought-provoking and radical way to kick start that discussion." - Fiona Fox, Director, Science Media Centre, London

"With empirical experience that includes seven years' leading the influential Tyndall Centre, Professor Hulme here argues that science alone is insufficient to face climate change. We also 'need to reveal the creative psychological, spiritual and ethical work that climate change can do and is doing for us.' It is the very 'intractability of climate change', its sociological status as a 'wicked' problematique, that requires us to reappraise the 'myths' or foundational belief systems in which the science unfolds. That returns Hulme to the bottom line question: 'What is the human project ultimately about?' and herein resides this book's distinctive importance." - Alastair McIntosh, author of Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition, and Visiting Professor of Human Ecology at the Department of Geography and Sociology, University of Strathclyde

"A much needed re-examination of the idea of climate change from a vantage point that takes its cultural coordinates as seriously as its physical properties. Through the twin lenses of scientific scrutiny and rhetorical analysis, Mike Hulme helps us to see just why we disagree about climate change and what we can do about it. With wisdom, wit and winsome writing, he shows us that debates about climate change turn out to be disputes about ourselves - our hopes, our fears, our aspirations, our identity. Hindsight, insight and foresight combine to make this book a rare treat." - David N. Livingstone, Professor of Historical Geography, Queen's University, Belfast

"In a crowded and noisy world of climate change publications, this will stand tall. Mike Hulme speaks with the calm yet authoritative voice of the integrationist. He sees climate change as both a scientific and a moral issue, challenging our presumed right to be 'human' to our offspring and to the pulsating web of life that sustains habitability for all living beings. As a peculiar species we have the power do create intolerable conditions for the majority of our descendents. Yet we also have the scientific knowledge, the economic strength, and the political capacity to change direction and put a stop to avoidable calamity. This readable book provides us with the necessary argument and strategy to follow the latter course." - Tim O'Riordan, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

"Hulme articulates quite complex arguments in a remarkably clear and effective manner. He not only covers a lot of ground, but by avoiding an overly compartmentalized approach he achieves a great deal of connectivity throughout the book. For those who are regularly immersed in the social sciences literature on climate change, the content itself may not hold many surprises. But Hulme's approach makes these arguments accessible and meaningful for a wider audience, and this tome could also serve as a great teaching text. Through the book, Hulme makes important contributions to continued understanding of environmental, cultural, political and physical - eminently interdisciplinary - aspects of climate change. As more citizens, students, scientists and policy players read it, Why We Disagree About Climate Change is very likely to be an important and 'discernible influence' on the ways we think about and discuss global change, and how we plan to engage with it." - Nature Reports: Climate Change

Product Description

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, our societies and humanity's place on Earth. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as an international climate change scientist and public commentator, Mike Hulme provides a unique insider's account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the diverse ways in which it is understood. He uses different standpoints from science, economics, faith, psychology, communication, sociology, politics and development to explain why we disagree about climate change. In this way he shows that climate change, far from being simply an 'issue' or a 'threat', can act as a catalyst to revise our perception of our place in the world. Why We Disagree About Climate Change is an important contribution to the ongoing debate over climate change and its likely impact on our lives.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (May 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521727324
• ISBN-13: 978-0521727327
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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46 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A truly disturbing look at why global warming alarmists lie about the science, July 22, 2009

By	Joseph Bast (Chicago) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having participated in the national and international debate over climate change for more than 15 years, I eagerly bought and read this book in the hope that it would examine the ideas and motives of both sides in the global warming debate. But that is not what this book is about.

The author, Mike Hulme, is a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. He helped write the influential reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other government agencies that are commonly cited by alarmists in the debate. He has been one of the most prominent scientists declaring that "the debate is over" and that man-made global warming will be a catastrophe.

In this book, Hulme comes clean about the uncertain state of scientific knowledge about global warming, something alarmists almost never admit in public. For example, he writes, "the three questions examined above - What is causing climate change? By how much is warming likely to accelerate? What level of warming is dangerous? - represent just three of a number of contested or uncertain areas of knowledge about climate change." (p. 75)

Later he admits, "Uncertainty pervades scientific predictions about the future performance of global and regional climates. And uncertainties multiply when considering all the consequences that might follow from such changes in climate." (p. 83) On the subject of the IPCC's credibility, he admits it is "governed by a Bureau consisting of selected governmental representatives, thus ensuring that the Panel's work was clearly seen to be serving the needs of government and policy. The Panel was not to be a self-governing body of independent scientists." (p. 95)

All this is exactly what global warming "skeptics" have been saying for years. It is utterly damning to the alarmists' case to read these words in a book by one of their most prominent scientists.

How does Hulme justify hiding these truths from the general public? He calls climate change "a classic example of ... `post-normal science,'" and quoting Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz, defines this as "the application of science to public issues where `facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.'" Issues that are put into the category of "post-normal science" are no longer subject to the cardinal requirements of true science: skepticism, universalism, communalism, and disinterestedness.

In "post-normal science," consensus substitutes for true science. Political processes run by government bureaucracies, like the IPCC, are created to determine the views of a majority of carefully selected scientists. Any questioning of their statements and claims is dismissed as coming from the "fringe" of the scientific community. From this reasoning comes the claims of James Hansen, Al Gore, and many other alarmists that "the debate is over" and there is "virtually unanimous consensus" about the causes and consequences of global warming, even though according to the rules of true science, and scientists like Mike Hulme, the debate is definitely not over and there is no consensus.


Having freed himself from the restraints of true science, Hulme can indulge his political biases. In another amazing admission, he says his views on global warming are inseparable from his politics--he's a self-described socialist. He writes, "The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us." (p. 326)

According to Hulme, climate change can do a lot: "Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs."

In other words, socialists like Hulme can frame the global warming issue to achieve unrelated goals such as sustainable development, income redistribution, population control, social justice, and many other items on the liberal/socialist wishlist.

Like the notorious Stephen Schneider, who once said, "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts one might have. ... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest," Hulme writes, "We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise them in support of our projects."

These "myths," he writes, "transcend the scientific categories of `true' and `false'." He suggests that his fellow global warming alarmists promote four myths, which he labels Lamenting Eden, Presaging Apocalypse, Constructing Babel, and Celebrating Jubilee.

It is troubling to read a prominent scientist who has so clearly lost sight of his cardinal duty--to be skeptical of all theories and always open to new data. It is particularly troubling when this scientist endorses lying to advance his personal political agenda.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A path-breaking book, October 28, 2009

By	Steven Schwarze "SteveS" (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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I'm afraid the one-star reviews are missing the point of Hulme's book. His observations about the disagreements that arise in regard to climate change do a great service in revealing the complexity of this issue. Each of his chapters shows how the *idea* of climate change has become embedded in disputes that are inherent to the human condition--what we value, how we perceive risk, how we should govern--so that disagreement about how to address climate change is likely to persist. For Hulme, the upshot is not that climate change is *merely* a political issue, but that it will never be solved once and for all precisely because it is so embedded in these enduring disputes.

13 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but we are weary of climate change, July 12, 2009

By	Brian H. Fiedler (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Here it the last sentence of "A question of balance" by William Nordhaus: "Slow, steady, universal, predictable and boring --- these are probably the secrets for successful policies to combat global warming." A key word here is "boring". This book by Mike Hulme is not boring, it is excellent for what it is trying to achieve, but in 2009 the issue is boring. A reader of this book --- a true reader, a reader that makes it to page 364 --- will likely already be knowledgeable of global warming, in particular the little stub of CO2 radiative forcing (among others), with its small error bars, that we see in the familiar IPCC bar chart. The science about that stub is solid, and yes we recognize a little bit more uncertainty in the feedbacks the bring about the temperature rise associated with that radiative forcing, and more uncertainty in regional impacts, but that has all been analyzed. With the US climate bill now pledging a 17% reduction in US CO2 emissions by 2020, Nordhaus's conjecture is now reality. The climate activist can perhaps take a break, as the public has, and let global warming go the way of social security reform.

A 17% reduction in US CO2 emission will be rather painless, and, of course, ineffectual. But the people have spoken and global warming has been appropriately "combated". For the reader browsing this book off the shelf in a bookstore, I recommend turning to page 330, where we find a section 10.2 titled "Why Climate Change Will Not Be Solved". (This is a five star book, save for the "climate change" keyword). On page 336 we read:

"This global solution-structure also begs a fundamental question which is rarely addressed in the respective fora where these debates and disagreements surface: What is the ultimate performance metric for the human species, what is it that we are seeking to optimise?"

And on the bottom of the penultimate page: "But so too will the idea of climate change keep changing as we find ways of using it to meet our needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise these stories in support of our projects."

And at the finish line: "But let us at least recognise that the source of our disagreement about climate change lie deep within us, in our values and in our sense of identity and purpose. They do not reside 'out there', a result of our inability to grasp knowingly some ultimate physical reality."

The book is masterfully convincing in supporting those above two sentences. For those aiming to show their class the latest palaeoclimatological evidence in support of the assessment of albedo feedback, or the latest satellite measurements that quantify water vapor feedback, you probably already know that this book will not be helpful for that. But if you want to reflect upon how disseminating such knowledge to a class fits into the grand scheme of things, and how your students might incorporate such knowledge into their own personal climate change narrative, this book is worthwhile reading.