ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

A Climate of Scarcity: Meteorology and the Building of Fascist Autarky, 1929-1939

• In Event: The Authoritarian Anthropocene: Twentieth-Century Party States and the Mobilization of Earth and Climate Knowledge

English Abstract

With the onset of the Great Depression, the 1930s were a time of deep socio-economic crisis, environmental concerns about the scarcity of natural resources, and international competition with the rise of the “air age.” When Mussolini’s invasion and colonization of Ethiopia triggered international sanctions by the League of Nations and drained state coffers, the fascist regime ordered the Italian scientific community to contribute to achieving Autarky, namely national self-sufficiency, by cutting costs, aligning their activities with national priorities, and avoiding the duplication of spheres of influence.

This paper examines the radicalization of the fascist regime and the transformation of the climate and atmospheric sciences in interwar Italy in the name of Autarky. In this political climate of scarcity and austerity, scientists working across agricultural and colonial meteorology, aeronautical weather forecasting, hydrology, and medical climatology competed to defend their scientific interests and institutions by claiming that their activities were more autarkic than others. In the paper, I highlight how autarky, scarcity, and political conformism became crucial tools in scientific boundary-making as competition for resources required defining the jurisdiction and areas of expertise of different research institutes, ministries, and technical state departments. In conclusion, the paper argues that claims about scarcity were central to the fascist conception of modernity as an authoritarian Anthropocene.

Author

• Angelo Caglioti, Barnard College, Columbia University