Paper short abstract:

Artificial light at night (ALAN) has recently been reframed as an environmental pollutant. To assess the problem, physicists are developing new methods and models to measure light emissions. Yet, atmospheric phenomena make it a difficult task so that scientists rely on citizens for better data.

Paper long abstract:

Artificial light at night is not only a growing research field, but also an increasing environmental problem and public concern. Scientists find evidence that light at the wrong time that is, at night, disrupts sleep rhythms and hormonal processes with negative effects on ecosystems and human health. However, quantifying the problem is all but simple. Light waves are not just emitted by anthropogenic sources, but propagates into and interferes with particles in the atmosphere: Clouds reflect it adding to sky glow and rendering remote sensing of light emissions more difficult. Blue-rich light scatters more in the atmosphere than shorter wavelengths, leading dark-sky activists to oppose energy-efficient LED lighting.

In my talk I take these atmospheric challenges of light pollution mitigation as a starting point to reconsider our recent citizen science campaign ‘Nightlights’ (Sept.-Nov. 2021). The project was explicitly designed to bridge the cloudy and scattering gap between the sources of light emissions on the ground and their documentation by satellites in space. So far, we have counted over 250.000 lights in public spaces, mainly in Germany. Currently, a transdisciplinary team correlates the citizen science data with satellite data to better understand the actual sources of light emissions in different places. Yet, the atmospheric poses epistemic challenges. While remote sensing experts need to cope with the variability of satellite data, the highly engaged citizen scientists need to accept that ‘the atmospheric’ stands in their political way as it hampers the production of place-based scientific evidence for anthropogenic light pollution.

Paper short abstract:

Ambient noise has been foregrounded as an atmospheric risk. By looking at the practices of noise observatories, this talk discusses the epistemic challenges of listening to an atmosphere, and how noise becomes an object of knowledge and governance under the acoustic “gaze” of noise observatories.

Paper long abstract:

While noted as a “forgotten” and “Cinderella” pollutant, ambient noise is increasingly foregrounded as an atmospheric risk today (King and Murphy 2016). For instance, the UNEP Frontiers 2022 report has listed noise as a leading environmental risk. With the proliferation of noise-maps, sensors, measurement devices, regulations, and (inter-)governmental reports, the atmosphere of cities has become more palpable and experienceable as a site around which governmental bodies, knowledge practices, and citizen-led movements have taken shape. And yet, it is often noted how challenging it is to fix noise as objects of knowledge and governance. As Marina Peterson notes, while noise can attune us to the atmosphere, it is nevertheless indefinite, elusive, and indeterminate, situated between inscriptions and perceptions (2021). Drawing on the initial stages of a research project (ERC-WaveMatters), this talk discusses the epistemological challenges of “listening” to the atmosphere. It will do this by exploring the relatively recent development of noise observatories, and in particular, Bruitparif, a non-profit observatory in Paris. Akin to the “critical zone observatories” (Latour and Weibel 2020), noise observatories are networks of researchers, sensors, measurement stations, laboratories, governmental bodies, and citizen groups that equip urban space as laboratories for the surveillance and mapping of noise as a “field” of interrelated things and humans. Through an analysis of reports, noise-maps, and methodological documents from Bruitparif, this talk addresses how noise is shaped both as a “disciplined” (Lynch 1985) and “unruly” object (Domínguez Rubio 2014) under the acoustic “gaze” of the noise observatory.

Paper short abstract:

The dynamic ontology of atmospheres makes them a challenge to research. This paper will use the notion of affect to produce a methodology for investigating atmosphere and reconceiving our notion of the public sphere.

Paper long abstract:

During the evening rush hour on the 25th March 2018 hordes of panicked commuters bolted from the exit of the Milan metro station Conciliazione, handkerchiefs to mouths, faces winced shut. Fearing an explosion, they crowded the escalators to street level. Police, ambulances and fire trucks arrived while a train worker and newsagent were shuttled off to hospital by complaining of a burning sensation in their throats. Conciliazione was shut down and new passengers turned away. Yet the mysterious odour appeared to have no source. The police and a team of nuclear bacteriologists found no fire, hazardous substances, mechanical breakdown or track friction. The train line reopened less than an hour later. A team examined video surveillance footage, in case the panicked stampede was caused by a 'bad joke'. As this team discovered, the dynamic ontology of atmospheres makes them a challenge to investigate. Their properties, light, temperature, and even odour are ethereal, indeterminate. As Böhme claims, 'we are not sure whether we should attribute them to the objects or environments from which they proceed or to the subjects who experience them' (Böhme 1993, 114). It is this experience which allows us to recognise atmospheres subjectively: bad smells, a gentle breeze, a harsh sun without shade. This paper proposes use of the concept of affect to investigate the experience of atmosphere and a reconnected public sphere.

Paper short abstract:

Increased atmospheric heat is one of the main consequences of climate change. This paper connects the scientific thinking about heatwaves with the experiences of older adults living through and with increased heat, to understand heatwaves form multiple epistemological and ontological perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

The increased heat and heatwaves are becoming a more widespread phenomenon globally. In this paper we want to think about atmospheric heat through different epistemological and ontological perspectives. The paper stems from an ongoing research project “Embodying Climate Change: Transdisciplinary Research on Urban Overheating”, which combines social anthropology, sociology, climate science, epidemiology and environmental science, to study how one of the most vulnerable groups, adults over the age of 65 years old, are affected by and deal with heat stress in two European locations, Warsaw and Madrid.

For natural scientists, heatwaves are a defined and quantified phenomenon which is a ratio of temperature, humidity and prolonged occurrence over time. While for some older adults living in Warsaw we talked to, heatwave brought joy and energy, for most of them it meant sweating, mental and physical pain, sleepless nights, cancelling plans with friends and family, and increased loneliness. Heatwaves take both the form of numbers, diagrams and maps, as well as drawn curtains, a bowl filled with water, swollen legs. While these perspectives, experiences and materialities might correspond to the same weather event, they are not only understood differently, but indeed are different phenomena. For scientists, heatwaves are phenomena to be studied, analysed and predicted, while for many older adults, these are experiences they often painfully live through. With this paper, we want to ask what is a heatwave from various theoretical and experiential perspectives, and what can we learn from the connections and disconnections between these multiple approaches.

Paper short abstract:

Applying the volumetric lens to the subfield of political ecology, this paper develops an interdisciplinary ecology of atmospheres. It uses the Guiana Shield as a spatial point of reference for examining the ever-evolving interplay of atmospheric spaces in-between that blanket and shape all things.

Paper long abstract:

Emerging scholarship in the social sciences has begun to explore the potential of thinking volumetrically in relation to territory. In so doing, it has convincingly challenged traditional, taken-for-granted surficial modes of analysis, by integrating greater consideration of the subterranean and above ground. Applying this volumetric lens to the subfield of political ecology, this paper develops an interdisciplinary ecology of atmospheres. It uses the Guiana Shield, a highly forested geological formation in the north of South America, as a spatial point of reference for examining the ever-evolving interplay of atmospheric spaces in-between that blanket and shape all things. Building on a social scientific, multi-sited ethnography of avoided deforestation initiatives taking place in the Guiana Shield combined with a humanities-driven awareness of the multiple meanings of the English word ‘weather’ in both its noun and verb forms, this paper analyzes the geological, biological, and socio-political processes through which atmospheres, including climate changed ones, emerge, and go on to encompass their reference points. The conception of atmospheres I develop further integrates an awareness of ecological processes into political ecology, a tradition accused of often assuming the centrality of the ‘political’ in investigating ecological change.