Routledge Climate Change (Key Ideas in Geography)

Written by a leading geographer of climate, this book offers a unique guide to students and general readers alike for making sense of this profound, far-reaching, and contested idea. It presents climate change as an idea with a past, a present, and a future. In ten carefully crafted chapters, Climate Change offers a synoptic and inter-disciplinary understanding of the idea of climate change from its varied historical and cultural origins; to its construction more recently through scientific endeavour; to the multiple ways in which political, social, and cultural movements in today’s world seek to make sense of and act upon it; to the possible futures of climate, however it may be governed and imagined. The central claim of the book is that the full breadth and power of the idea of climate change can only be grasped from a vantage point that embraces the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences. This vantage point is what the book offers, written from the perspective of a geographer whose career work on climate change has drawn across the full range of academic disciplines. The book highlights the work of leading geographers in relation to climate change; examples, illustrations, and case study boxes are drawn from different cultures around the world, and questions are posed for use in class discussions. The book is written as a student text, suitable for disciplinary and inter-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses that embrace climate change from within social science and humanities disciplines. Science students studying climate change on inter-disciplinary programmes will also benefit from reading it, as too will the general reader looking for a fresh and distinctive account of climate change. Review "As with Mike Hulme’s career, this book ranges between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. In doing so, it offers an interdisciplinary - and explicitly geographical - perspective on the ‘key idea’ of climate change. In 10 thoughtful chapters, Hulme opens up and extends understanding of the ways in which the idea of climate change is mediated through culture and politics. Selected key readings, provocative questions and scholar portraits increase the book’s usability. I look forward to using it in my teaching practice." Saffron O’Neill, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Exeter, UK "Is there a more contemporary ‘key idea’ than climate change? In this compelling overview, Hulme tracks how ideas of climate change have varied in space and time, and across cultural groups. From art to religion, from scepticism to cli-fi, he contextualises (and challenges) the matter-of-factness of a scientific view of climate change. Whether new to the topic or in need of a refresh, both students and senior scholars will find much of value here." Lesley Head, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia "There is no one better qualified than Mike Hulme to explain the past, present and future of climate change in just ten chapters. In clear and engaging prose, Hulme leads us through the many facets of climate change: as a scientific concept, a locus of political debate, and a catalyst for imagined futures." Rebecca Lave, Professor and Chair, Department of Geography, Indiana University, USA "Mike Hulme’s ground breaking writings have been the must-read texts on the social meaning of climate from theories of human difference, markers of place (those salubrious climates!) to science and technology studies. His work illuminates the conflicts, meanings, impacts and politics of climate change. By placing the understanding of climate as a socio-cultural as well as a scientific project, Dr. Hulme’s work, always warm, generous and clearly written, has defined what it means to be an interdisciplinary, engaged scholar on a hyper-controversial topic. This magisterial book integrates climate questions through multiple discourses