Profile: Mike Hulme

Climate scientists frustrated at the reception of their science have started to wonder why the presentation of dispassionate data has not proved so convincing that governments and the public have immediately swung into action. Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia Mike Hulme says it all comes down to framing – or effective communication. One of his six climate “frames”: Like asbestos or nuclear waste, CO2 emissions are a potentially toxic side effect of our modern technologies. This view advocates improved energy technologies to allow us to continue our modern life, but without the hazardous side-effects.

Floating your boat on climate change

By Sara Phillips on ABC Environment (5 May 201):

The Federal Government’s plans for climate change action are desperately incomplete. So too are the Opposition’s. And the Greens’. That’s if Mike Hulme’s analysis is anything to go by.

Mike Hulme is a bit of a star in climate change circles. He is Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. That’s the same university that was at the centre of the scandal involving hacked emails from climate scientists in November 2009. He featured in some of the emails.

He spoke on Tuesday night at the University of Melbourne to a packed lecture theatre. But it was not on climate science, rather it was on why climate science causes such debate.

If it’s not brawling about whether or not climate change is man-made, it’s wrestling – as the government, the opposition and the Greens are – about how to address it.

As a man who’s had a fair bit of up-close and personal experience with the global debate, he’s in a fair position to comment.

He said the differences of opinion come down to framing. He defines framing as, “The deliberate way of structuring complex issues which lend greater importance to certain considerations and solutions over others.”

For example, ‘frankenfoods’ feels more frightening than ‘genetically modified crops’, and so some green groups frame the issue in that way in order to further their campaign against them.

Hulme offered a sample of six different ways of framing climate change.

1) A market failure

In this view, business emits carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for free, but there are ultimately costs associated with that waste disposal. So to ensure the market is operating efficiently, carbon dioxide emissions should be priced.

2) A technological hazard

Like asbestos or nuclear waste, carbon dioxide emissions are a potentially toxic side effect of our modern technologies. This view advocates improved energy technologies to allow us to continue our modern life, but without the hazardous side-effects.

3) A global injustice

Climate change when viewed through this framework is seen as a problem where the West dominates and controls the global agenda, leaving the developing world out of the picture. A solution to climate change for this world view would involve what Aubrey Meyer describes as ‘contraction and convergence’, or an equal sharing of the carbon dioxide budget between all countries, regardless of their wealth.

4) Overconsumption

If our environmental impact is a function of our consumption, our population, and the technologies we use, then solving climate change through this framework would involve finding a path to a prosperous but non-growing economy, or improving contraception.

5) Mostly natural

If climate change is mostly natural, then the solution in this framework is to spend money on adaptation to the new environment.

6) A planetary tipping point

And finally, if climate change is viewed as leading to a planetary tipping point at which life on Earth becomes untenable, then no holds must be barred, and solutions would include massive geoengineering projects.

This analysis presents two interesting points. The first is how much climate change is contributing to our broader social studies. Climate scientists frustrated at the reception of their science have started to wonder why the presentation of dispassionate data has not proved so convincing that governments and the public have immediately swung into action. And so the folks in lab coats have started studying how humans receive and interpret data.

According to Hulme, our pre-existing values, beliefs, upbringing and maybe even genes cause us to frame climate change in a certain manner. Even before the scientists have whipped out the first graph, people are already disposed to interpret the data in a particular way.

Probably, reading through that list of six frames, one of them closely aligned with your own views on climate change. Whichever one you picked is a function of your own unique biases.

The other thing that is apparent with this analysis is that all the Australian political approaches to climate change are incomplete.

If everyone frames the climate change question differently, then everyone believes the solutions are different. At the moment we are really offered only two solutions: a carbon price, which addresses the first framing; and direct action, which addresses the second.

If you believe in lifting the developing world from poverty, reducing growth, adapting, or bringing in the big guns then your particular framework has not been highlighted by the mainstream Australian political parties.

That’s not to say that a single party should try to add a little bit of each into their policies. But if, for example, you firmly believe that climate change is all part of a natural process, then there is no party catering for you by campaigning on a platform of adaptation (the Greens include it, but as part of a suite of ideas).

So far, the policy options for addressing climate change are one dimensional. Some commentators have argued that this is insufficient to truly make a dent in our greenhouse gas emissions. But with the latest Newspoll results showing the government has not convinced Australians about the benefits of a carbon price, the single-dimensional nature of the policy offerings are perhaps not addressing the frameworks most important to the Australian public.

It’s possible that the public has not engaged on climate change because their framework, and the solution that it decrees, has not been articulated by those offering ideas for solving the problem.

Perhaps their particular boat has not been floated.

Like a film that will make you laugh, make you cry, with a car chase and a kiss at the end, the best policy approach may need to include something for everyone.

A multi-faceted policy on climate change could address more frameworks pertinent to more Australians and enjoy a greater popularity.

Source: www.abc.net.au

Mike Hulme’s biography – in his own words:

I am Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, and was the Founding Director (2000-2007) of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. I recently (2006-2009) led the EU Integrated Project ADAM: Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies, which comprised a 26-member European research consortium contributing research to inform the development of EU climate policy.  I am Editor-in-Chief of the newly launched academic journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) – Climate Change.  My two most recent books are Why We Disagree About Climate Change and (edited with Henry Neufeldt) Making Climate Change Work For Us, both published by CUP.

I have prepared climate scenarios and reports for the UK Government (including the UKCIP98 and UKCIP02 scenarios), the European Commission, UNEP, UNDP, WWF-International and the IPCC.  I was co-ordinating Lead Author for the chapter on ‘Climate scenario development’ for the Third Assessment Report of the UN IPCC, as well as a contributing author for several other chapters.  Earlier in my career I worked on the evaluation of climate models, the development of global and national observational climate data sets, and climate change and desertification in Africa.  I have published over 120 peer-reviewed journal papers and over 35 book chapters on climate change topics, together with over 250 reports and popular articles. I have advised numerous government bodies, private companies and non-governmental organisations about climate change and its implications. I was jointly awarded the Hugh Robert Mill Medal in 1995 by the Royal Meteorological Society for work on global precipitation and I delivered the prestigious Queen’s Lecture in Berlin in 2005.  For 12 years, I wrote a monthly climate column for The Guardian newspaper.

Source: www.uea.ac.uk and www.mikehulme.org