Is it too late (to stop dangerous climate change)? An editorial

Hulme, Michael

doi:10.1002/wcc.619

Cited by 39 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(27 reference statements)

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“…To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can't prevent it” ( New Yorker opinion article). Such statements evoke fear and can result in a paralysing state of shock and resignation (Hulme, 2019). This discourse implies that mitigation is futile and suggests that the only possible response is adaptation – or in religious versions, by trusting our fate to “God's hands”.…”

Section: Surrendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Discourses of climate delay

et al. 2020

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Non-technical summary ‘Discourses of climate delay’ pervade current debates on climate action. These discourses accept the existence of climate change, but justify inaction or inadequate efforts. In contemporary discussions on what actions should be taken, by whom and how fast, proponents of climate delay would argue for minimal action or action taken by others. They focus attention on the negative social effects of climate policies and raise doubt that mitigation is possible. Here, we outline the common features of climate delay discourses and provide a guide to identifying them.

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Section: Surrendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Discourses of climate delay

et al. 2020

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“…Ironically, in such narratives the agency of the vulnerable is recognised, albeit only as agents of catastrophe and contagion through their inevitable descent into violence and migration. Nevertheless, it is the impossibility of solutions predicated on the impossibility of the vulnerables’ agency in the face of environmental change that underpins many arguments that it is ‘too late’, and the increasing normalisation of the idea that climate change will bring with it profound losses (Hulme, 2020). Indeed, this is perhaps the most dangerous of all manifestations of the denial of the agency of the vulnerable, and one which best serves the interests of high carbon emitting actors.…”

Section: The Idea Of Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Global environmental change II: Political economies of vulnerability to climate change

Barnett

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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Though rarely described as such, vulnerability to climate change is fundamentally a matter of political economy. This progress report provides a reading of contemporary research on vulnerability to climate change through a political economic lens. It interprets the research as explaining the interplay between ideas about vulnerability, the institutions that create vulnerability, and those actors with interests in vulnerability. It highlights research that critiques the idea of vulnerability, and that demonstrates the agency of those at risk as they navigate the intersecting, multi-scalar and teleconnected institutions that shape their choices in adapting to climate change. The report also highlights research that is tracking the way powerful institutions and interests that create vulnerability are themselves adapting by appropriating the cause of the vulnerable, depoliticising the causes of vulnerability, and promoting innovations in finance and markets as solutions. In these ways, political and economic institutions are sustaining themselves and capitalising on the opportunities presented by climate change at the expense of those most at risk.

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“…36 Similarly, I think it is important to historicise the idea of the climate apocalypse and the language of climate deadlines, as geographer Mike Hulme has done, and be reflective about the impacts that doomsday language has. 37 At a global level the environmental crisis of climate change is unlike any other. As historian John R. McNeill writes, 'there is no precedent in human history for a global disaster that affects whole societies in multiple ways at different times in different locations all at once'.…”

Section: Situating Australian Environmental Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Doing environmental history in urgent times

2020

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The human/nature relationship is at the heart of one of the most urgent crises of our time: climate change. What does this mean for environmental historians, trained as we are to examine the culture/nature relationship, its changing temporal expressions, to challenge the binary which underpins the discipline of history itself? This article is framed as a conversation between three environmental historians as we respond to key questions about environmental history and the climate crisis. Together we ponder the skills we bring to understanding it, the stories we have found to move us forward and our thoughts about the interface between history, science and activism.

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Is it too late (to stop dangerous climate change)? An editorial

Cited by 39 publications

References 24 publications

Discourses of climate delay

Discourses of climate delay

Global environmental change II: Political economies of vulnerability to climate change

Doing environmental history in urgent times

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