Why We Disagree About Climate Change
Mike Hulme, Cambridge University Press; New York, 2009, 363 pages.

Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Al Gore, Rodale Press; New York, 2009, 405 pages.

If we can’t agree about Climate Change, how can we possibly address the issues in time to prevent disaster?

Four decades of scientific study, unilateral government discussions and international collaboration, and here we sit with very little action to show for it. The question of why we can’t agree is therefore one of the most important questions of our age. University of East Anglia climate change professor Mike Hulme offers a valuable explanation in his recent book Why we Disagree About Climate Change. He tells us it’s in the capital letters.

Scientific data about anthropogenic climate change: temperature rise, ice melt, impacts on ocean salinity and acidity, weather patterns and species loss fall into a largely uncontested category designated with a small “c.” But Hulme tells us that the problem of human response and cooperation resides in the big “C” of Climate Change; the social interpretation of those bare, irrefutable facts.

Once we enter the social sphere we find a vast territory peopled with cultural, experiential and linguistic differences as great as those of the physical planet. Choose any cultural lens: politics, … [Click here to read more!] Continue reading Why We Disagree About Climate Change + Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis