ABSTRACT
The language of climate change powerfully informs recent attempts to conceive of the present as history. It is motivating new proposals for dating and periodizing the history of the present, most notably that of the Anthropocene, the contested geological present of transgressed planetary boundaries. With climate change, old metaphors, such as the economic climate or the climate of opinion, have taken on a stark and suddenly literal and material reference. In the context of the Anthropocene, an epoch based on the realisation that human practices profoundly influence a suite of global and local biophysical systems. When it comes to histories of climate change, it is important, both methodologically and ethically, to distinguish between these different senses of being about, and to be clear what manner of narrative it is that one is telling. As Steven Poole has shown, climate change is not a politically neutral term, but one whose historical emergence and present dominance reflect a complex struggle over meaning.
