Climate Change and Rangelands: Responding Rationally to Uncertainty

Climate Change Impacts on South American Rangelands

Climate change impacts on Australian Rangelands

The recent IPCC Fourth Assessment report concluded that Australia has significant vulnerability to the changes in temperature and rainfall projected under climate change (Hennessy et al. 2007). Agriculture and natural resources were two of the key sectors identified as likely to be affected strongly. Extensive grazing is by far the most widespread agricultural land use in Australia. Most of the...

Critical Global Health: Responding to Poverty, Inequality and Climate Change

A recent article by Sol Benatar calls on the global health community to reassess its approach to twin crises of global poverty and climate change. I build on his article by challenging mainstream narratives that claim satisfactory progress in efforts to reduce poverty and improve health for all, and arguing that any eradication of poverty that is consistent with environmental sustainability wil...

Uncertainty and Climate Change Policy

Uncertainty is a pervasive feature of climate change analysis. This paper explores the consequences for policymakers. Importantly, uncertainty means that every policy has a range of possible outcomes rather than a single estimate. At a minimum, this requires policymakers to decide how to compare these different outcomes and to determine the likelihood that each outcome occurs. While objective a...

Uncertainty and Climate Change Policy

layer over the South Pole in the late 1970s went undetected for years. The satellite instrumentation did not fail; rather, the computer programs written to analyze the vast volumes of satellite data were instructed to reject measurements that diverged sharply from expected normal conditions. Amazingly, the rejected values were called to no one’s attention. Noticing outliers in ground-based reco...