Weather-Talk,Cynicism, and Agriculture

For the agriculturist, weather-talk performs two significant rhetorical acts that display cynicism toward nature: first, a faith in technology; and second, a conviction in the cultural myths associated with stewardship toward nature. This study explores these two themes by discussing the results of ethnographic interviews conducted with farmers. Whereas Aldo Leopold (1949 Leopold , A. ( 1949 ). A sand county almanac . London : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar]) articulated a need for a moral relationship with nature, this study illustrates that contemporary weather-talk amends stewardship with rhetorical cynicism. The stewardship ethic embodied by agriculture is transcended into a cynicism whereby nature is distrusted and elusive.