This week much will be said about our warming planet, what with the gathering of heads of state and legions of scientists at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

But I bet you won't hear much of what Mike Hulme said recently: "If climate change didn't exist, we'd have to invent it."

Hulme is a prolific writer and professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia — where he was one of those authorities who had his email pilfered and spread around the news media.

He is also the author of Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity.

Climate change is not just what goes into the atmosphere, it may also be about what goes into the mind. Image is from an industrial park near Taiwan. (Nicky Loh/Reuters)

He has stopped being a partisan in the climate change debate, he says.

Now he wants to understand what's behind the brouhaha, the fights over science and policy.

All in the mind

"Climate change is doing psychological work for us," he told his audience in a speech at the University of Nottingham.

To understand the conflict, the resistance and the passions aroused over this issue, he went on, you have to step back and look at its reigning myths.

By that, Hume meant myths in the sense of overarching story, the psychological narrative that is embedded in our respective societies.

In other words, climate change is an aspect of not only the weather but also our psyche.

On Australian public radio's All in the Mind, Hulme told us there are four reigning narratives, or psychological themes, that frame the climate change debate.

The first is The Myth of Eden, which Hulme calls nostalgia.

With climate change, we feel we've lost (or are losing) something important. That Nature (with a capital N) must be protected. That even in today's secular society, Nature has the aura of the sacred.

The second is the Myth of the Apocalypse, an enduring fear of the future.

This fear, as Hulme tells us, is a great cause of anxiety.

Look at all the warnings of catastrophe that we must endure at the hands of the media — the melting of the ice sheets, the disaster movies.

Live it up?

Catastrophe may come in one big swoop or as the result of a series of graduated tipping points in the near future.

Hulme tells us he has heard all sorts of warnings in the run-up to Copenhagen, warnings such as: "If we don't get a deal, all is lost."

These warnings are a powerful rhetorical device, designed to raise the stakes and move the participants to some sort of deal.

But they can also lead to two contradictory effects: depression (and inaction) or a let-and-let-live ethos.

If we're going to die, some will say, live it up until we do.

Stealing fire

The third great myth at play here is the Promethean, named for the Greek god who stole fire from Zeus to give to humans.

For Hulme, this myth tells him that humans have an instinct, a driving internal force, for desire and mastery.

"We want to reassert control over our climate" in the way that earlier humans did when they harnessed fire for warmth and food.

This myth, Hulme says, urges us to bring order back into the world. It is the driving impetus behind geo-engineering — ideas such as putting mirrors in space or adding soupy chemicals to our oceans so we can control the thermostat of the planet.

Hulme calls this approach the "ultimate hubris," which refers to another aspect of the Promethean story. With the desire for control, comes tragedy (for the Greeks). Or for Christians, the sin of pride.

Justice for all

The fourth myth is named after Themis, one of the Greek goddesses of justice.

You can see this powerful drive in much of the passionate debate around climate change — the morally driven language, the prophetic yearnings.

For many, climate change is a not just about saving the planet, or even ourselves. It is a call to end inequality.

Look at the social justice oratory around rich versus poor nations, those that desperately want economic development.

Climate change becomes a way to even out the inequities of a global society.

For us to move forward in the climate change debate, Hulme argues, we must understand its symbolic importance on all these levels.

Plus, we must use this understanding to reconcile positions, creatively.

Enter Carl Jung

Appearing alongside Hulme on the radio program was Jonathan Marshall, a Jungian scholar who suggested these myths should also be examined through the prism of their darker sides.

The Myth of Eden, for example, can also imply that nature is out of control, dangerous and snake-like.

There is also another side to the Promethean myth, said Marshall, which can spur on the climate deniers.

We're independent thinkers, they say. We're suspicious of the science and the partisan scientists. And we don't want to be bullied.

Marshall also raises other issues that help to frame this debate.

One is that, as a secular, modern people, we have real difficulty coming to terms with disorder. We are proud of our sense of stability and feel threatened when it's attacked.

Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. (Reuters)

In a sense, says Marshall, we have to supplement our myth of order with one of creative chaos.

The second point is that despite all the hype about new technologies, there is a sense that the science of climate change is depressing. It keeps telling us we are living beyond our means and we must all do without.

"Identities are built on possessions," says Marshall. "We don't have a myth that guides us to give things up."

A new myth?

What might these new myths be? Marshall isn't sure anyone really knows.

At a recent Munk lecture I attended, I heard all these themes on full display (highlights of the debate will be broadcast on CBC Radio Ideas Wednesday evening and after that, online on the Ideas page).

The resolution being debated said: "Climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate international response."

But there were also many compelling, Promethean-like counter-arguments, such as those from Lord Nigel Lawson, the former British treasurer, and Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Lomborg argued that while climate change is important, it is only one of many crises facing humanity. To emphasize it unduly could be a catastrophic waste of our global resources.

So, in the end, what does understanding all these underlying narratives tell us about the problem?

For climate scientist Mike Hulme, it is that "there are no utopian solutions around." There are only "clumsy solutions to a complex world."

After all the myths, rhetoric, catastrophe mongering and jeremiads, we may, to quote Hulme "just all have to muddle through."

That's not a line any prophet would like to proclaim, even if it's true.