In this blog, Hereward Longley explains how the current environmental costs of the Alberta Oil Sands industry may be traced back to a fundamental environmental governance problem that holds true across eras and areas: conflicts of interest between government regulation and resource development in the 1960s and 1970s, as explored in his new article in … More What Caused the Environmental Impacts of the Oil Sands Industry?

In this blog, Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University muses on an intriguing question behind his article (published online first, March 2019) in Environment and History, ‘War of the Whales: Climate Change, Weather, and Arctic Conflict in the Early Seventeenth Century’: can historians write credibly about the future, as well as the past? In an era of … More History for the Future? What the Past Reveals About the Warming Arctic

In this blog, Marco Armiero, Filippo Gravagno, Giusy Pappalardo and Alessia Denise Ferrara, whose paper ‘The Nature of Mafia: An Environmental History of the Simeto River Basin’ has just been published online first in Environment and History (1 Jan. 2019) discuss how the Mafia plays a role in the exploitation of the commons and how … More Commoning as a possible strategy to drive off the Mafia?

In today’s blog, Tor A. Benjaminsen and Pierre Hiernaux introduce the subject of their article, ‘From Desiccation to Global Climate Change: A History of the Desertification Narrative in the West African Sahel, 1900–2018’ in Global Environment, part of a Special Issue on Deserts in Environmental History (Spring 2019). While the Sahel has become greener since the … More The long and successful life of ‘desertification’ in the Sahel

In today’s blog, Dr Christine J. Winter of the University of Sydney, whose paper ‘Decolonising Dignity for Inclusive Democracy‘ is forthcoming in Environmental Values (28.1, February 2019) explains how the landmark legal conferring of personhood on three [Aoteraroa] New Zealand geo-regions has opened up an opportunity to re-evaluate the concept of dignity in a way … More Decolonising Dignity

In today’s blog Rune Svarverud, whose article ‘Ventilation for the Nation: Fresh Air, Sunshine, and the Warfare on Germs in China’s National Quest for Hygienic Modernity, 1849–1949′ has just been published ‘online first’ in Environment and History (subscription access / paywall ), zooms in on the micro-level, exploring questions, problems and perceptions of air quality in … More Polluting smoke or fragrant fumes: The dilemma of a Chinese rural kitchen

In this blog, Matthew Holmes takes a long view on the role – and risks – of agricultural pesticides in the delicate balance between food security and environmental conservation. His article ‘Melancholy Consequences: Britain’s Long Relationship with Agricultural Chemicals since the Mid-eighteenth Century’ has been published ‘online-first’ in Environment and History. The market for organic food … More Agricultural Arsenic: Uncovering a Nineteenth-Century Pesticide Scare

In today’s blog, Thomas van Goethem, whose article with Jan Luiten van Zanden ‘Who is Afraid of Biodiversity? Proposal for a Research Agenda for Environmental History’ was recently published ‘online first’ in Environment and History, considers the role of historians in understanding the drivers of biodiversity loss and calls for historians’ engagement in  tackling the problem. Headlines … More Ecological Armageddon?! What can historians do to help?

The first issue of Environmental Values in 2019 (Vol. 28) will be a Special Issue on Ecological Democracy. Marit Hammond’s article ‘A Cultural Account of Ecological Democracy’, can be previewed here. In today’s blog, adapted with thanks from cusp.ac.uk she asks: are sustainability and democracy in conflict? Some argue saving the planet cannot be left … More A Cultural Shift towards an Ecological Democracy