Changing the Atmosphere

In recent years, Earth systems science has advanced rapidly, helping to transformclimate change and other planetary risks into major political issues. Changing the Atmospherestrengthens our understanding of this important link between expert knowledge and environmentalgovernance. In so doing, it illustrates how the emerging field of science and technology studies caninform our understanding of the human dimensions of global environmental change.Incorporatinghistorical, sociological, and philosophical approaches, Changing the Atmosphere presents detailedempirical studies of climate science and its uptake into public policy. Topics include thescientific, political, and social processes involved in the creation of scientific knowledge aboutclimate change; the historical and contemporary role of expert knowledge in creating andperpetuating policy concern about climate change; and the place of science in institutions of globalenvironmental governance such as the World Meteorological Organization, the Framework Convention onClimate Change, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Together, the essays demonstratefundamental connections between the science and politics of planet Earth. In the struggle to createsustainable forms of environmental governance, they indicate, a necessary first step is tounderstand how communities achieve credible, authoritative representations of nature.ContributorsPaul N. Edwards, Dale Jamieson, Sheila Jasanoff, Chunglin Kwa, Clark Miller, Stephen D. Norton,Stephen H. Schneider, Simon Shackley, Frederick Suppe.

Paul N. Edwards is Associate Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (1996) and a coeditor (with Clark Miller) of Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance (2001), both published by the MIT Press.