Humboldtian Science, Creole Meteorology, and the Discovery of Human-Caused Climate Change in South America
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: The belief that human land use is capable of causing large-scale climatic change lies at the root of modern conservation thought and policy. The origins and popularization of this belief were deeply politicized. Alexander von Humboldt's treatment of the Lake Valencia basin in Venezuela and the desert coast of Peru as natural laboratories for observing the interaction between geophysical and cultural forces was central to this discovery, as was Humboldt's belief that European colonialism was especially destructive to the land. Humboldt's overt cultivation of disciples was critical to building the prestige of this discovery and popularizing the Humboldtian scientific program, which depended fundamentally on local observers, but willfully marginalized chorographic knowledge systems. In creating new, global forms of environmental understanding, Humboldtian science also generated new forms of ignorance.
Source: Osiris
DOI: 10.1086/661263
Author: Gregory T. Cushman
Institution: University of Kansas
Language: English
Subfield: Microbiology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2109647639