Review: Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance

Review: Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance By Clark Miller and Paul N. Edwards (Eds.) Reviewed by Hanna Jaireth Aranda, ACT, Australia Clark Miller, & Paul N. Edwards (Eds.). Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. 375 pp. ISBN 0-262-13387-3 (cloth). US$70.00 This edited collection of essays analyses the international politics of climate science and the institutional governance of global climate change. The editors claim that climate change is a "key site in the global transformation of world order," resulting in power and authority being redistributed amongst diverse actors by new regimes or ensembles of political and scientific institutions and networks (p. 3). Climate science is not an "independent input" to global governance but "a human institution deeply engaged in the practice of ordering social and political worlds" (p. 5). The book seems to have been compiled for graduate students in environmental politics, but it may also appeal to climate "technicians." Chapter 3, for example, is a defence of climate modeling that is probably impenetrable to all but tertiarytrained modellers or meteorologists. The essays are grouped thematically. Chapters 2-4 analyze how controversial and culturally influenced scientific research understands and represents climate change, particularly through the use of computer modelling and satellite data to produce global projections. Chapters 5 and 6 examine the processes through which various stakeholders have understood, represented, and governed climate(s) over time. They include case studies of the rise and fall of weather modification (geoengineering), international meteorological cooperation and technical assistance, and the evolution of global networks of atmospheric observation stations. Chapters 7-10 include an examination of multilateral institutional responses to scientific claims and politicised critiques, the politics inherent in international expert advisory processes, and the normative issues that remain unresolved regarding the allocation of responsibilities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Chapter 10 explores the "construction" of our "global neighbourhood" through diverse images, especially from space and in the mass media, and through influential environmental texts of the 1960s and 1970s, then broadens into a brief examination of global representations of politics, trade, ethics, and social movements. Chapters 7-9 are probably the best chapters to read after the introduction because they provide an accessible overview of key issues and contemporary debates about climate change, providing a good lead into the rest of the book. The book is primarily concerned with analysing the "construction" of the contemporary science and public perceptions of a changing global atmosphere (drawing on constructivist/interpretive/reflectivist theory) rather than with critiquing how atmospheric change has come about or can be mitigated. Unlike other variations of constructivist theory, this book does not explore the power/knowledge dynamics or political economy of the humaninduced global transformations that are having a discernible impact on climate change. …