In an interview on Environmental Change

You’ve started with Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme, a leading climate scientist.

Hulme takes a very interesting position. He makes clear that he believes there is a man-made impact on the climate, but he is very opposed to people who assume the science is settled. He takes a view which I think is very healthy, that ‘science needs the oxygen of scepticism’. So Hulme is someone who conceivably straddles the divide that has opened up between those who passionately believe that we have to stop emitting greenhouse gases to prevent dangerous climate change and those who think it isn’t really a problem at all. And I think that’s very important, because there aren’t enough people doing that. The fact he does so from his great position of credibility and strength is a really valuable contribution.

The book is not an easy read – at least sections of it aren’t. But it is remarkably clear about what science can do, and what it can’t. So a great phrase of his, which I like, is ‘Science always speaks with a conditional voice.’ There are always uncertainties about science. If you ask a serious climate scientist, ‘What is going to happen?’ their answer will be hedged around with uncertainties. Hulme’s point is that, all too often, the nuances and the uncertainties of science and what’s being said about climate change are lost and all people hear is, ‘We’re going to die tomorrow!’ or that Greenland is going to melt and drown London or New York.

And that alarmism alienates people.

Yes, because people either hear that we’re going to die tomorrow and just don’t believe it, or they hear it and then it doesn’t happen. It’s probably one thing that has contributed to the hostility, the acrimony, about this debate – that people seem to have exaggerated.