Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction to Special Theme Section “Accounting for Climate Change: Measurement, Management, Morality, and Myth”

  • Published:
Human Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This special section considers contemporary efforts to account for climate change through four frames: measurement, management, morality and myth. Our introduction briefly outlines these perspectives and the relevant literature, asking: 1) How have techniques of measurement and quantification emerged from and contributed to the particular politics of the “Anthropocene”?; 2) How have our efforts to measure socioclimatic systems facilitated new techniques of socio-environmental management and, at times, worked to reshape the very systems they describe?; 3) How have accounting practices worked to both elucidate and obscure questions of morality, value, responsibility and justice?; and 4) How we might address the critique that climate science is a myth and improve understanding with greater incorporation of historical and cross cultural knowledge from human ecology, human geography and anthropology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ackerman, F., DeCanio, S. J., Howarth, R. B., and Sheeran, K. (2009). Limitations of Integrated Assessment Models of Climate Change. Climatic Change 95(3–4): 297–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adger, W. N., Barnett, J., Brown, K., Marshall, N., and O’Brien, K. (2012). Cultural Dimensions of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. Nature Climate Change 3(2): 112–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barker, T., Qureshi, M. S. and Köhler, J. (2006). The Costs of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Induced Technological Change: A Meta-Analysis of Estimates in the Literature. Working Paper 89. Tyndal Center for Climate Research.

  • Barrett, J., Peters, G., Wiedmann, T., et al. (2013). Consumption-Based GHG Emission Accounting: A UK Case Study. Climate Policy 13(4): 451–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (2008). World at Risk, 1st ed. Polity, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blaikie, P. (2016). The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries. Routledge.

  • Brysse, K., Oreskes, N., O’Reilly, J., and Oppenheimer, M. (2013). Climate Change Prediction: Erring on the Side of Least Drama? Global Environmental Change 23(1): 327–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burchell, G., Gordon, C., and Miller, P. (eds.) (1991). The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, 1st ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Büscher, B. (2010). Anti-Politics as Political Strategy: Neoliberalism and Transfrontier Conservation in Southern Africa. Development and Change 41(1): 29–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Callon, M., Law, J., and Rip, A. (eds.) (1986). Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World, 1986th ed. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callon, M., Millo, Y., and Muniesa, F. (eds.) (2007). Market Devices, 1st ed. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrier, J. G., and West P. (2009). Virtualism, Governance and Practice: Vision and Execution in Environmental Conservation. Berghahn Books.

  • Castree, N., Adams, W. M., Barry, J., et al. (2014). Changing the Intellectual Climate. Nature Climate Change 4(9): 763–768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P. T., et al. (2016). Consensus on Consensus: A Synthesis of Consensus Estimates on Human-Caused Global Warming. Environmental Research Letters 11(4): 48002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crumley, C. (2014). New Paths into the Anthropocene. In Isendahl, C., and Stump, D. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen, P. J., and Stoermer, E. F. (2000). The Anthropocene. Global Change Newsletter 41: 17–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demeritt, D. (2009). Geography and the Promise of Integrative Environmental Research. Geoforum 40(2): 127–129. Themed Issue: Globalising Failures.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dove, M. R., and Carpenter, C. (eds.) (2007). Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader, 1st ed. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, P. N. (2010). A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. MIT Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, B., Turner, R. K., and Morling, P. (2009). Defining and Classifying Ecosystem Services for Decision Making. Ecological Economics 68: 643–653.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, S. J., Crate, S. A., Crumley, et al. (2014). Changing the Atmosphere. Anthropology and Climate Change. Final report of the AAA Global Climate Change Task Force, 137. American Anthropological Association.

  • Fletcher, R. (2010). Neoliberal Environmentality: Towards a Poststructuralist Political Ecology of the Conservation Debate. Conservation and Society 8(3): 171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Francesco, Santo Padre, and Catholic Church (ed.) (2015). Laudato Si’: on Care for Our Common Home: Encyclical Letter. Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freudenburg, W. R., and Muselli, V. (2013). Reexamining Climate Chnage Debates: Scientific Disagreement or Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs)? American Behavioral Scientist 57(6): 777–795.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. (2015). Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities 6(1): 159–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., et al. (2001). In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies. The American Economic Review 91(2): 73–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hulme, M. (2008). Geographical Work at the Boundaries of Climate Change. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33(1): 5–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hulme, M. (2009). Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Igoe, J., and Brockington, D. (2007). Neoliberal Conservation: A Brief Introduction. Conservation and Society 5(4): 432.

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isenhour, C. (2012). The Devil in the Deal: Trade-Embedded Emissions and the Durban Platform. Ethics, Policy & Environment 15: 303–308. Special Issue on the Durban Platform.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Isenhour, C., and Feng, K. (2016). Decoupling and Displaced Emissions: On Swedish Consumers, Chinese Producers and Policy to Address the Climate Impact of Consumption. Journal of Cleaner Production 134: 320–329. Part A. Special Volume: Transitions to Sustainable Consumption and Production in Cities.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. (ed.) (2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. 1 New edition. Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, J., Nordhaus, T. and Shellenberger, M. (2011). Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomona. The Breakthrough Institute.

  • Knutti, R., and Sedláček, J. (2013). Robustness and Uncertainties in the New CMIP5 Climate Model Projections. Nature Climate Change 3(4): 369–373.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lahsen, M. (2005). Seductive Simulations? Uncertainty Distribution around Climate Models. Social Studies of Science 35(6): 895–922.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lahsen, M. (2015). Digging Deeper into the Why: Cultural Dimensions of Climate Change Skepitcism Among Scientists. In Barnes, J., and Dove, M. (eds.), Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 221–248.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (1988). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Revised ed. edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (2014). Anthropology at the Time Of the Anthropocene - a Personal View of What Is to Be Studied. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC. http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/139-AAA-Washington.pdf.

  • Lenton, T. M. (2011). Early Warning of Climate Tipping Points. Nature Climate Change 1(4): 201–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lenton, T. M., Held, H., Kriegler, E., et al. (2008). INAUGURAL ARTICLE by a Recently Elected Academy Member:Tipping Elements in the Earth’s Climate System. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(6): 1786.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacKenzie, D. (2009). Making Things the Same: Gases, Emission Rights and the Politics of Carbon Markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society 34(3–4): 440–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maurer, B. (2002). Anthropological and Accounting Knowledge in Islamic Banking and Finance: Rethinking Critical Accounts. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8(4): 645–667. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0k7241sr. Accessed 21 Oct 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCright, A. M., and Dunlap, R. E. (2011). The Politicization of Climate Change and Polarization in the American Public’s Views of Global Warming, 2001–2010. The Sociological Quarterly 52(2): 155–194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merry, S. E. (2011). Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance. Current Anthropology 52(S3): S83–S95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, F. C., Mankin, J. S., and Becker, A. (2015). Challenges in Integrating the Climate and Social Sciences for Studies of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. In Barnes, J., and Dove, M. (eds.), Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change. Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nader, L. (1981). Barriers to Thinking New about Energy. Physics Today 34(2): 9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norgaard, R. B. (2010). Ecosystem Services: From Eye-Opening Metaphor to Complexity Blinder. Ecological Economics 69: 1219–1227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, J. (2015). Glacial Dramas: Typos, Projections, and Peer Review in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In Barnes, J., and Dove, M. (eds.), In Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 107–126.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, J., Oreskes, N., and Oppenheimer, M. (2012). The Rapid Disintegration of Projections: The West Antractic Ice Sheet and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Social Studies of Science 42(5): 709–731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oreskes, N., and Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscuredthe Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. 1st U.S. ed. Bloomsbury Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, N. D., and Isenhour, C. (2014). Introduction: Moving Beyond the “Rational Actor” in Environmental Governance and Conservation. Conservation and Society 12(3): 229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, T. M. (1996). Trust in Numbers : The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton University Press, Princeton. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/alltitles/docDetail.action?docID=10031957. Accessed 21 Oct 2016.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rosa, E. A., and Dietz, T. (2012). Human Drivers of National Greenhouse-Gas Emissions. Nature Climate Change 2(8): 581–586.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roscoe, P. (2014). A Changing Climate for Anthropological and Archaeological Research? Improving the Climate-Change Models. American Anthropologist 116(3): 535–548.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosman, K., Chisholm, W., Hong, S., Candelone, J. P., and Boutron, C. F. (1997). Lead from Carthaginian and Roman Spanish Mines Isotopically Identified in Greenland Ice Dated from 600 B.C. to 300 A.D. Environmental Science & Technology 31(12): 3413–3416.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruddiman, W. F. (2013). The Anthropocene. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 41(1): 45–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudman, J. (1997). The State of Authorship Attribution Studies: Some Problems and Solutions. Computers and the Humanities 31(4): 351–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. C. (1999). Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scrieciu, S. Ş., Barker, T., and Ackerman, F. (2013). Pushing the Boundaries of Climate Economics: Critical Issues to Consider in Climate Policy Analysis. Ecological Economics 85: 155–165. New Climate Economics.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shore, C., and Wright, S. (2015). Governing by Numbers: Audit Culture, Rankings and the New World Order. Social Anthropology 23(1): 22–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simmel, G., and Wolff, K. H. (1950). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Free Press, Glencoe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strathern, M. (2000). Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy, 1st ed. Routledge, London.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Thaler, R. H. (2000). From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens. Journal of Economic Perspectives 14: 131–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (2013). In Roth, G. and Wittich, C. (eds.), Economy and Society. Reprint edition. University of California Press.

  • Yocum, H. (2013). The Price of Trees: Producing Carbon Commodities and Conservation in Malawi’s Protected Areas. PhD Dissertation, Michigan State University.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Cindy Isenhour

  2. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Jessica O’Reilly

  3. University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Heather Yocum

Authors
  1. Cindy Isenhour
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jessica O’Reilly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Heather Yocum
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cindy Isenhour.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Isenhour, C., O’Reilly, J. & Yocum, H. Introduction to Special Theme Section “Accounting for Climate Change: Measurement, Management, Morality, and Myth”. Hum Ecol 44, 647–654 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-016-9866-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-016-9866-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation