ABSTRACT
In the realm of aesthetics, realism was born the day John Ruskin pulled pathos out from feelings about the weather. Ruskin’s realism grew from a set of aesthetic intentions aimed at scientifically observing nature. Caroline Levine argues that Ruskin’s realism was not an effort to produce objective mimesis but rather to apprehend nature’s infinite variety: “infinity is the sine qua non of Ruskin’s realism”. The core suggestion of Climate Realism, then, is that weird weather today is not weird just because it is unseasonable, but also because it names features of the present that strain the epistemological and historical underpinnings of meteorology, philosophy, realist aesthetics, cultural criticism, and the physical sciences-namely, it erodes traditional distinctions that have stabilized disciplinary work in both the arts and sciences. The realism of climate necessitates moving beyond the God-given right of the self-certain subject doing the thinking, the detailing, and the truth claiming.
