ADVANCED REVIEW A critical political ecology of human dimensions of climate change: Epistemology, ontology, and ethics Mara J. Goldman 1 | Matthew D. Turner 2 | Meaghan Daly 3 1 Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 2 Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 3 Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Correspondence Mara J. Goldman, Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO. Email: mara.goldman@colorado.edu Edited by Myanna Lahsen, Domain Editor, and Mike Hulme, Editor-in-Chief To understand the broader epistemological and ontological politics of human dimensions of climate change, this review adopts a political ecology approach, informed by Science and Technology Studies concepts and research on multiple ontologies. We are particularly interested in assessing critical approaches to climate change knowledge as related to adaptation policies. The review addresses three specific areas where more critical engagement could help move debates about knowledge politics in human dimensions research forward in fruitful ways: first, discourse and a focus on the language used to talk about and reflect on human dimensions of climate change; second, co-production and the troubling prolifera- tion of depoliticized “instrumental” co-productions of knowledge for adaptation; and third, the emerging literature on multiple ontologies exposing multiple enact- ments of climate change processes. We review each of these areas of literature, highlighting where more direct engagement with epistemological, ontological, and ethical questions is underway. In doing so, we subject the knowledge and practices that underlie dominant understandings of climate change to critical political ecol- ogy scrutiny. This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge KEYWORDS adaptation, co-production, epistemology, indigenous knowledge, ontology, political ecology 1 | INTRODUCTION “We feel cold. Long ago it used to be only July was cold. But now because of climate change, starting June through September, it is cold. This is climate change.” - Maasai Elder, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania August 8, 2016. “Now we plant foreign modern plants. You go to town and buy trees to plant and this is increasing land and cli- mate problems.” - Maasai Jr. Elder and graduate student, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania August 8, 2016. The quotes above come from a research feedback meeting held by two of the authors at the end of a project on the co-production of climate change knowledge for adaptation, where Maasai pastoralists were brought together with government officials, researchers from the US, and NGO workers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The meeting was part of a larger project examining the politics of coproducing knowledge across scales and epistemologies in Tanzania. Our goal was to share Received: 7 March 2017 Revised: 12 February 2018 Accepted: 27 March 2018 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.526 WIREs Clim Change. 2018;9:e526. wires.wiley.com/climatechange © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1 of 15 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.526