Starboard Vineyard Tours 11: The Working Planetologist: Speculative Worlds and the Practice of Climate Science, Buse

This month, we read “The Working Planetologist: Speculative Worlds and the Practice of Climate Science” by Katherine Buse, which is the second chapter of Practices of Speculation: Modeling, Embodiment, Figuration (2020), an anthology collection of pieces on speculation. This article in particular is about Dune and its impact on climate science as a field, so we get into discussions of kangaroo rats, climate models, and what makes fiction “ecological” - with surprise conversation topic Delicious in Dungeon. Buse proposes that climate scientists are, in effect, big nerds, and being big nerds ourselves we find this fascinating, and find her account of the influence of science fiction and science fictional thinking on climatology compelling.Topics: Speculation, science and technology studies, ecology, fandomNext month, we’ll read Michael O’Krent’s “Toward a Science-Fictional Interpretational Method: Reading Three Borges Stories” (2024).