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SUMMARY:The scientific and cultural dynamics of climate change (1988-2013)
  - Michael Hulme\,University of East Anglia
DTSTART:20130502T151500Z
DTEND:20130502T170000Z
UID:TALK44683@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:ludovica chiussi
DESCRIPTION:In 1988 few serious commentators believed that the politics of
  climate change would be anything other than tortuous.  Yet the assumption
  has remained through the period since that human-induced climate change i
 s an important\, urgent and discrete problem which at least in principle l
 ends itself to policy solutions.  Optimism has waxed and waned\, but the b
 elief has been maintained that at least some forms of policy intervention 
 will yield tangible public benefits.  [[Yes\, the climatic side-effects of
  large-scale combustion of fossil fuels were an unforeseen and undesirable
  outcome of Western and then global industrialisation.  But putting this c
 ausal chain into reverse—arresting some of these unwanted side-effects
 —was believed to be in the reach of an intelligent\, purposeful and inge
 nious humanity]]. This presumption must now be questioned.  Maybe the clim
 ate system cannot be managed by humans.  This brief survey of climate chan
 ge over 25 years suggests at least two reasons why.  First\, there is no 
 ‘plan’\, no self-evidently correct way of framing and tackling the phe
 nomenon of climate change which will over-ride different legitimate intere
 sts and force convergence of political action.  Second\, climate science k
 eeps on generating different forms of knowledge about climate—different 
 handles on climate change--which are suggestive of different forms of poli
 tical and institutional response to climate change.  Or put more generally
 \, science asa form of creative inquiry into the physical world co-evolves
  with the physical phenomena it is seeking to understand.  Taken together 
 these two lessons suggest other ways of engaging with the idea of climate 
 change\, not as a discrete environmental phenomenon to prevent\, control o
 r manage\, but as a forceful idea which carries creative potential.\n
LOCATION:Small Lecture Theatre\, Department of Geography\, Downing Site
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