Sara Gormley - Entry No. 4 (Masco)

In Joseph Masco`s Bad Weather on Planetary Crisis, he connects the Cold War`s impact to the earth`s biosphere and details how this influenced  American culture and outlook on national security. This writing introduces the idea that the bomb was integrated into society’s culture in America through a variety of responses, including official statements, anti-nuclear activism, and Hollywood productions. Over time, Americans found themselves achieving a certain level of “normalization of violence” in response to the Cold War and the war on terror. The United States has based its power on nuclear weapons and mobilized fear of attack to create a culture of the security state revolving around these weapons. This created a very specific vision of what danger means and what it does not mean, thereby taking away concern for issues relating to non-militarized threats, such as climate change. The discourse surrounding nuclear weapons was used to influence American perceptions, creating the notion that climate change and global warming are not as substantial a threat as a nuclear attack. 

What we find is that the two are closely related. Masco relates the events of the USDA WMD testing on its constructed forest and what was discovered led to an increase in scientific study and understanding due to a military commitment to understanding the impact of the bomb. American concerns over this contributed to the anti-nuclear movements and the drive to build the bomb led to funding for earth sciences. Due to the testing, the biosphere faced negative consequences. This brought up the question of ‘national security’ versus ‘planetary threat.’ Those who cautioned against the effects the commitment to building the bomb would have against the biosphere were criticized as traitors to the state. During the first decade of the Cold War, Americans were influenced to find an inability to define national security versus planetary threat. Citizens were let to believe it was necessary to militarize nature in order to support the US national security state. Another link between the bomb and the biosphere is brought into fruition with the LTBT, an arms treaty which is also the first international environment protection treaty. This marks the shift of understanding to encapsulate the idea of a planet under ecological threat. 

During the nuclear age, US economy, geopolitical strategy, military, and citizen-state relations all revolved around the bomb under the fear of potential annihilation any day. Part II of the reading brings up the question of a “nuclear winter” and if the aftermath of a bomb attack could create this “nuclear winter,” leaving the survivors worse off than the perished due to subfreezing temperatures, low light, and high radiation. This second stage brings about a changing perspective to include disarmament, using scientific reasons such as climate change to bring it about. Masco includes the work of Sagan and Turco and their argument of the scientific effects of the war rather than the political. 

American Pop Culture and cinema at this time was used to bring understanding to the American citizens. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow were used to raise awareness against the effect of nuclear war to an ecological crisis, although there were still movies detailing heroes of war. The argument of these movies against nuclear war was to show that national security is threatened by global warming. Abrupt environmental changes that would be brought on by a nuclear attack would lead to violence and disruption, and the military might be used in desperate cased of a need for natural resources. This means states will compete not only for power but also for basic resources such as food and energy and lead to every-man-for-himself chaos. The government attempted to keep the realization of the negative impact of climate change of humans away from its citizens as Bush did to prevent regulations, but the truth is that the United States is a large contributor to greenhouse gases which can cause serious disturbances to humans, nations, and the biosphere. 

The excerpt concludes with a reflection of the report surrounding Hurricane Katrina. During the aftermath of the devastation brought about by this natural disaster, many public figures were comparing the damage to that of a nuclear bomb. The United States automatically used this to review the national security state’s ability to respond quickly, had this actually been a nuclear weapon attack. This train of thought showed how deeply embedded nuclear concepts were in the culture, and reliance of Americans on nuclear threats to use as a comparison for politics and experience. Weapons of Mass Destruction and climate change compete for greatest planetary risk, but each require their own political responses. Directly opposite of what was once the norm in America, there is an alternative national security state that instead surrounds the relationship towards the biosphere rather than WMDs. The testing that took place during the building of the bomb shows the ultimate industrial transformation of the natural world, but in order to shift towards this alternative policy, Americans would have to overcome their ingrained, cultural understanding to see that there are other threats in need of a post-national viewpoint.