Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance

Front Cover
Clark A. Miller, Paul N. Edwards
MIT Press, 2001 - 385 pages

In recent years, Earth systems science has advanced rapidly, helping to transform climate change and other planetary risks into major political issues. Changing the Atmosphere strengthens our understanding of this important link between expert knowledge and environmental governance. In so doing, it illustrates how the emerging field of science and technology studies can inform our understanding of the human dimensions of global environmental change.

Incorporating historical, sociological, and philosophical approaches, Changing the Atmosphere presents detailed empirical studies of climate science and its uptake into public policy. Topics include the scientific, political, and social processes involved in the creation of scientific knowledge about climate change; the historical and contemporary role of expert knowledge in creating and perpetuating policy concern about climate change; and the place of science in institutions of global environmental governance such as the World Meteorological Organization, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Together, the essays demonstrate fundamental connections between the science and politics of planet Earth. In the struggle to create sustainable forms of environmental governance, they indicate, a necessary first step is to understand how communities achieve credible, authoritative representations of nature.

Contributors

Paul N. Edwards, Dale Jamieson, Sheila Jasanoff, Chunglin Kwa, Clark Miller, Stephen D. Norton, Stephen H. Schneider, Simon Shackley, Frederick Suppe

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction The Globalization of Climate Science and Climate Politics
1
Representing the Global Atmosphere Computer Models Data and Knowledge about Climate Change
31
Why Atmospheric Modeling Is Good Science
67
Epistemic Lifestyles in Climate Change Modeling
107
The Rise and Fall of Weather Modification Changes in American Attitudes toward Technology Nature and Society
135
Scientific Internationalism in American Foreign Policy The Case of Meteorology 19471958
167
SelfGovernance and Peer Review in ScienceforPolicy The Case of the IPCC Second Assessment Report
219
Challenges in the Application of Science to Global Affairs Contingency Trust and Moral Order
247
Climate Change and Global Environmental Justice
287
Image and Imagination The Formation of Global Environmental Consciousness
309
References
339
Index
371
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About the author (2001)

Clark A. Miller is Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies and Associate Director of the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University.

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