environmental history

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/7/2021
  

  The Planet Isn't Doomed. That's Why We Can and Must Act

  by Dagomar Degroot

  Climate "doomism" is a dangerous fatalism about our planet that justifies our political failure to take the necessary actions to slow climate change. 

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  10/2/2021
  

  Fire Historian Stephen Pyne: "A Fire Age is Upon Us"

  "The Pyrocene is not just a metaphor: Whatever we decide to call it, a fire age is upon us. Our fire behavior made the problem and will have to unmake it."

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• SOURCE: Rolling Stone
  9/16/2021
  

  Cajun Punk Musician Louis Michot on Saving the Bayous

  by Andy Horowitz

  Can the DIY punk ethos of mutual aid, plus broadly distributed solar power, save the Louisiana Cajun country from the climate threat? 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  8/30/2021
  

  The Globe's Last Supply of Leaded Gasoline is Gone, Ending a Toxic Era

  Despite knowledge of the toxicity of lead, gasoline refiners added lead compounds to gasoline beginning in the 1920s, launching an era of massive low-grade lead poisoning. 

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  8/24/2021
  

  By 2049, China Will be a Climate Disaster Zone, not a Global Superpower

  by Michael Klare

  Instead of inflating the military threat posed by the People's Republic, American policymakers should recognize that both nations face far more dire threats from climate change. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/18/2021
  

  Superweeds are Here

  After a generation of use, agricultural herbicides have pushed weeds to evolve resistance. Industrial agriculture may be at risk. 

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• 8/8/2021
  

  A Community of Necessity: The Quabbin Reservoir's History and the Future of "Managed Retreat"

  by Elisabeth C. Rosenberg

  In 1939 the dammed Swift River submerged four Massachusetts towns beneath the new Quabbin Reservoir. The story of the residents, politicians and engineers of the Swift Valley foreshadows the negotiations that will accompany a managed retreat from places jeopardized by climate change.

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  7/11/2021
  

  The Fires This Time: The Climate View from California

  by Rebecca Gordon

  This month's heat emergencies signal that the catastrophic effects of climate change are definitely here and will hit the disadvantaged the hardest.

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• SOURCE: KPBS
  6/28/2021
  

  Independent Lens Presents: The People Vs. Agent Orange

  Two women activists demand accountability from the chemical industry for the toll of illness and death caused by Agent Orange. 

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• 6/20/2021
  

  Powerline Politics in the 1970s and Today

  by Tyler Priest

  Environmental activists have forged anti-pipeline alliances with rural landowners using the issue of eminent domain. History shows that this might boomerang if farmers oppose the new electric transmission lines that will be needed to implement green electrification. 

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• SOURCE: CBS News
  4/12/2021
  

  Shocking Environmental Disaster Uncovered off California Coast after 70 Years

  A marine scientist using a remote submarine camera recently discovered the visible portion of what may be as many as a half-million barrels of DDT dumped between Long Beach and Catalina Island when new environmental regulations banned the pesticide. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/6/2021
  

  ‘This is Environmental Racism’: How a Protest in a North Carolina Farming Town Sparked a National Movement

  After decades of struggle with little access to resources or power, activists in the environmental justice movement have placed racial equity at the center of the President's environmental agenda.   

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/21/2021
  

  Spin Doctors Have Shaped the Environmental Debate for Decades

  by Melissa Aronczyk

  E. Bruce Harrison shifted American business's response to the environmental movement from a posture of denial and refusal to one of strategic compromise that elevated industry's scientists to an authoritative position which has kept a brake on green reforms and regulation. 

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  2/9/2021
  

  The Fire Next Time: Climate Change, the Bomb, or the Flame of Hope?

  by Rebecca Gordon

  American energy policy has utterly failed to even acknowledge the hazards posed by the production of nuclear waste; concern about climate change must not enable a careless expansion of nuclear power. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/11/2021
  

  The Problem of Environmental Racism in Mexico Today is Rooted in History

  by Jayson Maurice Porter

  The marginalization of Afro-Mexican history in the state of Guerrero is product of a history of government-sanctioned development that harmed marginalized communities; ignorance of that history prevents considering policy solutions that could advance environmental justice in areas harmed by tourism development and deforestation. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/11/2021
  

  Invasion of the Hippos: Colombia is Running Out of Time to Tackle Pablo Escobar’s Wildest Legacy

  Colombian officials failed to castrate the large and potentially dangerous animals when their numbers were small. Now the country faces a potential invasive species calamity. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/20/2020
  

  Trump is Rolling back Protections for Migratory Birds. That’s a Problem

  by Kristoffer Whitney

  Relaxing regulations protecting migratory birds has potentially serious environmental consequences and throws out decades of science-driven activism. 

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• SOURCE: Vice
  12/16/2020
  

  Black People Have Been Saying 'We Can't Breathe' for Decades

  At 73, Dr. Robert Bullard, widely recognized as the 'Father of Environmental Justice,' is now preparing the next generation of Black leaders to lead the movement.

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• SOURCE: Woodrow Wilson Center and National History Center
  12/16/2020
  

  Virtual Event: Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis 12/21

  The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 is typically viewed as marking a first step toward nuclear arms control. But Toshihiro Higuchi argues that it was also one of the first international agreements that addressed a truly global, human-induced environmental problem. He discusses his new book for the Washington History Seminar on Thursday, 12/21 at 4:00 PM EDT.

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• SOURCE: LA Progressive
  12/2/2020
  

  "A Life on Our Planet" Provides Environmental Hope

  by Walter G. Moss

  Although the recent Netflix documentary on the global environment describes a grim present, it explains a path forward that is simple (if the political will can be found).