Agricultural capitalism, climatology and the “stabilization” of climate in the United States, 1850–1920

Abstract

Drawing from theory on the "co-production" of science and society, this paper provides an account of trajectories in US climatology, roughly from the 1850s to 1920, the period during which climatology emerged as an organized branch of meteorology and government administration. The historical narrative traces the development of climatology both as a professional/institutional project and as a component of a larger governmental logic. Historical analysis of climatologists' scientific texts, maps, and social organization within government provides a sociological explanation for the emergent "stabilization" of climate as a geographic-statistical category. Climatic stability, defined by the view that climate is unchanging, was advanced over this period in a way that linked the interests and practices of climatologists to actors invested in facilitating and administrating commercial agriculture and trade. I position the logic of climatology and the discourse of climatic stability historically, with reference to prior concern with climate change and, in recent decades, efforts to govern global warming through geoengineering climatic stability.

Ecologies of co-production in the Anthropocene

“…By adopting specific pre-given understandings of what co-production is and should be such work excludes and underplays the sheer diversities of past, present and future co-productions between science and society in the Anthropocene. This includes co-productions between environment, science and society that are happening in more distributed ways beyond formal institutions (Van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam 2017) and western epistemologies (Gay-Antaki 2022), in everyday life (Shackley 2001; Michael 2016; Barry 2021), and in the past (Vitale 2017; Baker 2021). We suggest that the diversities of co-production in the Anthropocene come more into view if an STS philosophical–analytical perspective is taken as a starting point.…”

Imperialism, colonialism, and climate change science

“…Racial stratification and militaristic expansion, Baker (2018) suggests, underpinned a shift during the first half of the 19th century away from the notion that human activities substantially changed climate. The spread of industry and settler agriculture during the second half of the 19th century across the continental expanse reinforced a twin concern with defining stable climatic regions and tracking atmospheric phenomena across large distances (Baker, 2021). The kinds of climate data produced and the frameworks within which they were understood shared striking similarities in the United States, Russia, and Austria‐Hungary during the 19th century, suggesting that there was indeed a continental‐empire type of climatology.…”