Climate state: Science-state struggles and the formation of climate science in the US from the 1930s to 1960s

Abstract

This article has two aims: first, to understand the co-production of climate science and the state, and second, to provide a test case for Pierre Bourdieu's field theory. To these ends, the article reconstructs the historical formation of a US climate science field, with an analytic focus on inter-field dynamics and heterogeneous networking practices. Drawing from primary- and secondary-source materials, the historical analysis focuses on relations between scientists and state actors from the 1930s to the 1960s. The account shows how actors with positions linking scientific and bureaucratic fields constructed critical nodes and 'hinges' that co-produced war-making and state expansion on the one hand, and a relatively autonomous climate science field on the other. The analysis explains the emergence of climate science by focusing on the WWII-era transformation of meteorology and oceanography into distinct disciplines, the emergence of 'basic' research as a central principle of post-war government, and the formation of a climate science field by the 1960s centered on computerized modeling and populated by an interdisciplinary scientific elite. The article concludes by indicating how these processes led to the subsequent development of climate change as a science-state conundrum that has reorganized the climate science field in recent decades.

Invisibilizing politics: Accepting and legitimating ignorance in environmental sciences

“…I outlined how applying a Bourdieusian concept of habitus can be useful in an analysis of organizational actors’ behaviors. STS scholars have recently emphasized the usefulness of Bourdieu in highlighting power dynamics and the inequality of cultural capital in the scientific field (Albert and Kleinman, 2011; Baker, 2017; Gauchat, 2011; Gauchat and Andrews, 2018; Hess, 2011; Panofsky, 2011); however, Bourdieu’s own sketch about the scientific field as ultimately rational and truth-seeking has faced severe criticisms in STS and beyond (Camic, 2011; Gieryn, 2006; Gingras, 2006; Sismondo, 2011). By incorporating habitus in the analysis of the scientific field, this paper suggests how Bourdieusian sociology can, in fact, underline self-perpetuating power dynamics in the scientific field that normalize and reproduce structural inequalities.…”

“…In this article, I bring a Bourdieusian perspective to the theory of ignorance and to organizational analysis (Albert and Kleinman, 2011; Baker, 2017; Camic, 2011; Emirbayer and Johnson, 2008; Vaughan, 2008). Bourdieu’s work is useful in positioning the scientific organization as a ‘social microcosm’, where a ‘series of structural interlockings’ can be found (Bourdieu, 2004: 32).…”

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

“…As an enduring consequence, the co-production of "climatic stability" in part explains why climate change became so difficult for climatologists in the United States, along with those who came to inhabit industrial-capitalist climates, to consider climate change beginning in the mid-20th century (Baker, 2017;Henderson, 2014).…”

“…Historians have analyzed these ideas with renewed interest, given contemporary climate change (Fleming, 1998; Golinski, 2008; Zilberstein, 2016). Scholars have likewise historicized the authority of climate change science since the mid‐20th century (Baker, 2017; Edwards, 2010), an important effort for charting the role of science in what many hold as a need for societal transformation (IPCC et al., 2018). In the problem space of the science‐society relationship, conceptualizations of climate as an entity that does not change (or can be made to be so) also can be problematized.…”

Meteorological Frontiers: Climate Knowledge, the West, and US Statecraft, 1800–50

“…Recent developments in climate-change “adaptation” and national securitization of climate-change impacts demonstrate Oels's (2005: 186) point that “the production of climate change is facilitated by a specific governmentality that renders it governable,” yet in ways that her focus on climate-change mitigation at the global level may not have anticipated. If the rise of global warming mitigation regimes has inspired genealogies of “global” knowledge (Coen 2011; Mahony 2016; Miller 2004), then the rise of “adaptation” and securitization of climate-change impacts could inspire genealogies of what Baker (2017) has called the “climate state,” or what Parenti (2014) more generically identifies as the “environment-making state” (see also Mahony 2014). Through a theorization of meteorological government, then, historical studies of climate and colonialism can contribute to largely separate efforts to critically analyze climate adaptation policies (Taylor 2014), the basic category of “climate” (Hulme 2008), and resurgent forms of climatic determinism (Livingstone 2015).…”