The Human Race as Geological Agents: Communicating Climate Change Science

• Author: Claire Connolly Knox
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12652
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Date: 01 November 2016

974 Public Administration Review • November | December 2016

Claire Connolly Knox is assistant

professor and Emergency Management

and Homeland Security Program director

in the School of Public Administration

at the University of Central Florida. Her

research interests include environmental

policy and management, Habermas’s critical

theory, and environmental vulnerability

and disaster response. She has published

in multiple journals, including

Public

Administration Review

,

Administration &

Society

,

Environmental Politics,

Journal of

Environmental Policy and Planning

, and

Disaster Prevention and Management

.

E-mail: claire.knox@ucf.edu

A ccording to the National Academy of Sciences

Research Council of the National Academies,

“[c]limate change is occurring, is caused

largely by human activities, and poses significant

risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a

broad range of human and natural systems” (2010, 3).

Major scientific organizations support this consensus

(e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

National Academy of Sciences Committee on the

Science of Climate Change, American Association for

the Advancement of Science, and multiple National

Academy of Sciences around the world). While the

science literature agrees with this consensus and effects

are being felt globally, the public remains confused

about whether an authentic debate exists in the

scientific community (Brechin and Bhandari 2011 ;

Danny L. Balfour and Stephanie P. Newbold , Editors

Claire Connolly Knox

University of Central Florida

The Human Race as Geological Agents:

Communicating Climate Change Science

Joseph F. C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman, eds . ,

Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our

Children, and Our Grandchildren (2nd ed.)

(Cambridge, MA:  e MIT Press, 2014). 343 pp.

$19.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780262525879.