Climate Physicians and Surgeons

摘要

Medical metaphors involving Earth and its atmosphere have a very long history. Both ancients and moderns anchored their environmental thinking in analogies of bodily growth and decay, health and disease. This tradition found its way into dynamic meteorological analysis in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Now dynamic climatology is appropriating this medicalized language, with some practitioners referring to themselves as climate "physicians and surgeons." This essay examines the historical dimensions of the metaphor that the earth, especially its atmosphere, is coming under "managed care" by atmospheric scientists and is being prepped for invasive techniques administered by barber surgeons posing as climate engineers. It provides an example of how environmental historians can use their knowledge of the past to analyze language involving the "control" of nature and contribute effectively to current public policy debates.