ABSTRACT

Climate change is an idea that attracts considerable disagreement. Climate change continues to provoke new questions that engage people’s hopes and fears, their moral reasoning and their notions of ethical behaviour. Questions of perspective, identity, value and prescription are central to many of the disagreements fostered by climate change. These same questions are central to the humanities and so Contemporary Climate Change Debates approaches climate change more from the humanities tradition than from that of the natural or social sciences. The value-laden disagreements about climate change are unlikely to be resolved through more scientific knowledge. Given this perspective, Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer approaches arguments about climate change primarily as value disputes that cannot be satisfactorily resolved simply by providing more scientific knowledge and asserting its truth more loudly or engaging in more vocal science communication. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.