ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

New Perspectives on Climate Change in the Long 1970s

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

This panel showcases nascent historical research seeking to establish a more thorough understanding of the competing scientific, political and environmental interests in the emergence and popularization of climate change in the period 1970-1990.

Rather than seeing the development of climatological research as linear and insulated from the societies in which it emerged, this panel presents four papers that illustrate how, ‘pure’ scientific research was intertwined with contemporary socio-political interests. In navigating these deliberations, whether scientist, politician or activist—these papers demonstrate that soft-skills such as storytelling and diplomacy were just as crucial as computer models in establishing international buy-in for the threats posed by anthropogenic climate change.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Fiona Williamson, College of Integrative Studies, Singapore Management University

Individual Presentations

• Climate Change as a Hidden Hazard of Development Aid: The Discovery of Climate Change in U.S. Development Programmes from Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter (1970-1985) - Frank Gerits, Utrecht University

• Green Pieces: exploring the connections between Canadian climate science, environmental activism and popular environmental discourse - Alexander Hall, McMaster University

• The Great Climate Chimera: The ‘Little Ice Age’ in the Long 1970s - Alex Hibberts, University of Exeter

• Changing the Human Timescale: Temporal Negotiation of Climate in Historical Climatology - Robert Naylor, University of Manchester

Session Organizer

• Alexander Hall, McMaster University