Temperature and Capital

Measuring the Future with Quantified Heat

in Environment and Society
Author:
Scott W. Schwartz Graduate Center of the City University of New York sschwartz@gradcenter.cuny.edu

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2017.080109
Keywords:
Anthropocene; capitalism; global warming; measurement; risk; temperature; uncertainty; SDG; sustainable development goals
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ABSTRACT

The quantification of human environments has a history—a relatively short history. This article explores how the notion of quantifiable reality has become naturalized through the privileging of predictive utility as the primary goal of knowledge production. This theme is examined via the invention and application of temperature—how it was sociomaterially constructed and how it is globally restructuring social organization today. Temperature does not exist pervasively throughout all space and time. Physicists may affirm that fluctuations in relative heat are ubiquitous, but as a measurement of these fluctuations, temperature only emerges through arrangements of political and environmental observations. What phenomena do populations deem worthy of observation? How do populations manipulate materials to make such observations? By tracing the origins of thermometry and investigating modern efforts to reconstruct and model ulterior temperatures, I illustrate that temperatures, like other measurements, are cultural artifacts pliable to sociopolitical efforts of control and domination.

Contributor Notes

SCOTT W. SCHWARTZ is a PhD candidate in archaeology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He teaches courses at CUNY in anthropology, archaeology, and geography. His research centers on the materiality of knowledge production, specifically measuring devices employed to perpetuate and accelerate economic growth. He has conducted fieldwork on Neolithic sites in the Orkney Islands (2011, 2015) and medieval Iceland (2012, 2013, 2014). He is a frequent collaborator with artists in New York, having projects appear regularly in exhibitions. E-mail: sschwartz@gradcenter.cuny.edu

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Environment and Society

Advances in Research

Cover Environment and Society
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
18
Keywords:
Anthropocene; capitalism; global warming; measurement; risk; temperature; uncertainty; SDG; sustainable development goals
Print Publication Date:
01 Sep 2017
Online Publication Date:
01 Sep 2017
Copyright:
© Berghahn Books 2017

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