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

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.