Pragmatic uses of metaphor: Models and metaphor in the nuclear winter scenario

Abstract

The scientific work of Carl Sagan and his co‐authors has been instrumental in bringing before the public the potentially catastrophic effects of even a limited nuclear war. Sagan has presented these findings in scientific discourse centered in the pragmatic use of a novel metaphor. This article examines and describes the pragmatic uses of the “nuclear winter” metaphor in two separate contexts: the original Science article and its subsequent use in Foreign Affairs. I analyze the conditions of the metaphor's birth in the former and its development and use as a conventional metaphor in the latter. Ultimately, the metaphor of nuclear winter becomes a conventional argument in the call for the reduction of world‐wide nuclear arsenals.