ABSTRACT
Politics is mathematical in a fairly simple sense: there is hardly a single political debate that does not involve data, statistics, projections and other mathematical information. Debates about unemployment include jobless totals, unemployment rates expressed as a percentage of the working population, costs of unemployment benefits and so on. This chapter utilizes the political debates relating to climate change to illustrate how mathematics and politics are linked. How does mathematics shape what we know about the world? How does mathematics shape our lives? And how, as mathematics teachers, can we engage with how mathematics is used in our society and what it is used to do? To respond to these questions, the chapter presents two related ideas: politics is mathematical and mathematics is political. Each idea is explained in general terms, followed by some illustration based on the issue of climate change.
