In the UK, the government has presented itself as guided by scientific evidence in its policy responses to COVID-19. This has led to science, in particular epidemiology, itself becoming politicised and contested. However, neither the politicisation of science nor questions surrounding the status of evidence are new. In this post, Luis Pérez-González, outlines how a … Continued
Category: climate change
Book Review: Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime by Bruno Latour
In Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, Bruno Latour explores the political and philosophical challenges proper to a time defined by an environmental and socio-economic crisis. Rodrigo Muñoz-González welcomes this energetic, compelling and provocative attempt to find an alternative vision to the contradictory and flawed project of modernity. This post originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like to contribute […]
Do the best academics fly more?
Academic flying is often justified on the basis that international conferences and travel are important to the production of new knowledge. As such, travel brings researchers into contact with new ideas, allows them to share and refine their own ideas and therefore improves the quality of their research. However, in this post Seth Wynes argues that beyond a certain level […]
Running a ‘nearly carbon neutral conference’ – Lessons from the Feral Conference
Previous posts on the Impact Blog have argued that academic conferences are bad for the environment and can present a barrier to increased diversity and inclusion within the research community. Digital communication media are often recommended as a potential solution to these issues. In this post, Nicholas Holm, Sy Taffel, Trisia Farrelly and Lisa Vonk describe how they organised the […]
Embracing the chaos: by transcending disciplinary boundaries researchers can reconceptualise human-nature relations
Issues of the scale of mass species extinctions or climate change are never going to be solved by a single discipline acting alone. Cecily Maller argues that what is needed is greater dialogue, conversation, and collaboration across the social and natural sciences, as they currently exist in their traditional, divided modes. In order to shift the binary, at times reductionist […]
In a changing world, climate adaptation researchers play a key role in addressing risk and ethical responsibilities.
The uncertainties related to climate science present some unique challenges for policymakers and researchers alike. Drawing on lessons from the health care domain, where there are established mechanisms and processes in place for managing risk, Justine Lacey, Mark Howden and Chris Cvitanovic look at ways researchers can proactively support decision-makers. Could a similar ethics system to the one used by frontline medical professionals be […]
A study with erroneous claims about the impacts of global warming has finally been corrected
A journal article claiming that moderate amounts of global warming have overall positive benefits has been quietly corrected after Bob Ward pointed out a number of errors. The updated analysis now claims “impacts are always negative”, but the erroneous findings have been used to inform a recent report by the IPCC which still needs to be corrected. This episode underlines the need […]