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Climate change stories and the Anthroposcenic

Nature Climate Change volume 6, pages 118–119 (2016)Cite this article

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Social sciences and the humanities can utilize the concept of the Anthropocene to add meaning to climate research.

Writing in Nature Climate Change five years ago, Mike Hulme1 opined that the analysis of anthropogenic climate change was dominated by positivist disciplines at the expense of interpretative ones, and argued that storytelling should complement fact-finding. More recently, Castree et al.2 have argued that positivism offers “little or no sense of humans as diverse, interpretive creatures who frequently disagree about values, means and ends”. Furthermore, Hackmann et al.3 urge social scientists “to conduct analyses, offer interpretation and help society create meaning”, with humans viewed as an “integral and differentiated part” of the Earth system. Such sentiments have led to calls for the humanities and social sciences to play a more active role in shaping the climate change debate. The concept of the Anthropocene provides a possible framing for this contribution.

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Figure 1: Caravan Holiday (2010), oil painting by Julian Perry, 31 x 26 cm; reproduced by permission of the artist.

JULIAN PERRY

Figure 2: Tower of the buried church of Eccles, from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology12, illustrating the 'waste of the coast of Norfolk'.

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  1. David Matless is at the School of Geography, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK,

    David Matless

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  1. David Matless
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Correspondence to David Matless.

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Matless, D. Climate change stories and the Anthroposcenic. Nature Clim Change 6, 118–119 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2862

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