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How, and when, does it become possible to conceptualize a truly planetary crisis? The Cold War nuclear arms race installed one powerful concept of planetary crisis in American culture. The science enabling the US nuclear arsenal, however, also produced unintended byproducts: notably, a radical new investment in the earth sciences. Cold War nuclear science ultimately produced not only bombs, but also a new understanding of the earth as biosphere. Thus, the image of planetary crisis in the US was increasingly doubled during the Cold War - the immediacy of nuclear threat matched by concerns about rapid environmental change and the cumulative effects of industrial civilization on a fragile biosphere. This paper examines the evolution of (and competition between) two ideas of planetary crisis since 1945: nuclear war and climate change. In doing so, the paper offers an alternative history of the nuclear age and considers the US national security implications of a shift in the definition of planetary crisis from warring states to a warming biosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scientific findings, as presented in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (AdA), indicate that climate change in the Arctic is happening now, at a faster rate than elsewhere in the world, and with major implications for peoples of the Arctic (especially indigenous peoples) and the rest of the planet. This paper examines scientific and political representations of Arctic indigenous peoples that have been central to the production and articulation of these claims. ACIA employs novel forms and strategies of representation that reflect changing conceptual models and practices of global change science and depict indigenous peoples as expert, exotic, and at-risk. These portrayals emerge alongside the growing political activism of Arctic indigenous peoples who present themselves as representatives or embodiments of climate change itself as they advocate for climate change mitigation policies. These mutually constitutive forms of representation suggest that scientific ways of seeing the global environment shape and are shaped by the public image and voice of global citizens. Likewise, the authority, credibility, and visibility of Arctic indigenous activists derive, in part, from their status as at-risk experts, a status buttressed by new scientific frameworks and methods that recognize and rely on the local experiences and knowledges of indigenous peoples. Analyses of these relationships linking scientific and political representations of Arctic climate change build upon science and technology studies (STS) scholarship on visualization, challenge conventional notions of globalization, and raise questions about power and accountability in global climate change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between field experimentalists and simulation modellers in meteorological research on the one hand, and how this is related to climate change as a common arena of concern on the other. Climate has become the central topic in meteorological research and it is imperative to link specific research problems to climate change in order to receive funding and attract talent. In addition, climate models have become gatekeepers for claims about climate change. Hence, active participation in climate modelling processes is valuable for all parties. Observational data are used in order to develop new components — so-called parameterizations — for the climate models and these novel components therefore emerge as important boundary objects. While they serve different purposes for experimentalists and modellers in terms of translation processes, they also serve to connect these groups and reinforce their mutual dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the distribution of certainty around General Circulation Models (GCMS) - computer models used to project possible global climatic changes due to human emissions of greenhouse gases. It examines the trope of distance underpinning Donald MacKenzie's concept of 'certainty trough', and calls for a more multi-dimensional and dynamic conceptualization of how uncertainty is distributed around technology. The certainty trough describes the level of certainty attached to particular technoscientific constructions as distance increases from the site of knowledge production, and proposes that producers of a given technology and its products are the best judges of their accuracy. Processes and dynamics associated with GCM modeling challenge the simplicity of the certainty trough diagram, mainly because of difficulties with distinguishing between knowledge producers and users, and because GCMs involve multiple sites of production. This case study also challenges the assumption that knowledge producers always are the best judges of the accuracy of their models. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with climate modelers and the atmospheric scientists with whom they interact, the study discusses how modelers, and to some extent knowledge producers in general, are sometimes less able than some users to identify shortcomings of their models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds a new dimension to the role of scientific knowledge in policy by emphasizing the multivalent character of scientific consensus. We show how the maintained consensus about the quantitative estimate of a central scientific concept in the anthropogenic climate-change field—namely, climate sensitivity—operates as an ‘anchoring device’ in ‘science for policy’. In international assessments of the climate issue, the consensus-estimate of 1.5°C to 4.5°C for climate sensitivity has remained unchanged for two decades. Nevertheless, during these years climate scientific knowledge and analysis have changed dramatically. We identify several ways in which the scientists achieved flexibility in maintaining the same numbers for climate sensitivity while accommodating changing scientific ideas. We propose that the remarkable quantitative stability of the climate sensitivity range has helped to hold together a variety of different social worlds relating to climate change, by continually translating and adapting the meaning of the ‘stable’ range. But this emergent stability also reflects an implicit social contract among the various scientists and policy specialists involved, which allows ‘the same’ concept to accommodate tacitly different local meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]