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climate change

Originally published 06/25/2018
Pope Francis vs. Scott Pruitt

Walter G. Moss

How religion led these two figures to vastly different conclusions about climate change.

Originally published 04/23/2018
Berkeley’s Carolyn Merchant explains what ecofeminism is

Merchant, along with various other female academics, is responsible for integrating two concepts — environmentalism and feminism — into a study known as ecofeminism.

Originally published 01/17/2018
Paying for Climate Change

Stephen Macekura

Despite his extreme rhetoric, Trump is merely the latest in a long line of U.S. leaders unwilling to pony up for global environmental accords.

Originally published 01/12/2018
American Polynesia, Rising Seas and Relocation

Laray Polk

In the next 30 to 50 years, rising sea levels caused by global warming will subsume low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Originally published 01/10/2018
The Historian Who Denies Climate Change? Not so Fast.

Yoni Anijar

The media lumps Emory’s Patrick Allitt in with climate change deniers, but his position is more nuanced.

Originally published 01/04/2018
Doing History in the Age of Trump

An interview with Felipe Fernandez-Armesto on the perspective historians offer.

Originally published 10/06/2017
Historians have a role to play in debunking myths about climate change

Megan Raby

"Most people mistakenly think climate change is new — a recent discovery … In fact, the basic greenhouse effect was understood by the mid-19th century."

Originally published 09/20/2017
The Media’s Silence on Climate Change During Irma Was Deafening

Frank Palmeri

They are doing the oil corporations’ work by harping on the industry’s publicity campaign of doubt.

Originally published 09/13/2017
Was It Bad Luck or Climate Change?

Sam White

Harvey and Irma take us back to an old problem.

Originally published 07/28/2017
Climate Change Used to Be a Bipartisan Issue

Here's what changed.

Originally published 06/03/2017
What Historians Are Saying About Trump's Decision on Climate Change

Their tweets and retweets since Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement.

Originally published 05/18/2017
Stanford researchers: It may not have been an external event (like climate change) that triggered the revolution in technology 50,000 years ago

It may have been culture and migration.

Originally published 04/24/2017
Video of the Week: Climate change has a controversial history

Prior to the late 1800's, people believed the Earth's climate was static and never changing, and it wasn't until a few scientists in the second half of the 19th century began to wonder how giant boulders were in places where they shouldn't be. Today, 98 percent of climate scientists agree additional greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is the primary reason for the current accelerated warming of the planet.

Originally published 04/13/2017
Is America Going the Way of Norse Greenland?

Fred Zilian

Like the Norse, the Trump administration is showing indifference to long-term interests.

Originally published 01/04/2017
Louisiana History Washes Away As Sea Levels Rise, Land Sinks

Louisiana is losing its coast faster than any other place in the world.

Originally published 12/19/2016
Facts, lies and climate change

Jonathan Zimmerman

You shouldn’t ‘teach the controversy’ about something that shouldn’t be controversial.

Originally published 12/15/2016
Trump questionnaire recalls dark history of ideology-driven science

Paul N. Edwards

The Trump questionnaire harks back to the McCarthyist “red scare” of the early 1950s, when congressional committees and the FBI hounded eminent scientists accused of communist leanings.

Originally published 11/28/2016
Three Ohio State professors work together to teach multidisciplinary climate change course

The Climate Change course — new to Ohio State University this semester — covers everything from tree rings and rising seas to endangered species and alternative energy.

Originally published 11/18/2016
In the 1930s Many Ignored Hitler. Now, It’s Global Warming.

Walter G. Moss

Global warming is our generation’s “gathering storm,” but not enough realize it.

Originally published 11/08/2016
Top 5 urgent Climate Change/Election Stories MSM Suppressed

Juan Cole

Corporate television media in the United States is colluding in a cover-up of the threat of climate change, and they have specifically blacked out the climate change issue with regard to this election.

Originally published 10/19/2016
Think Hurricane Matthew Was Bad?

John Withington

These storms changed history.

Originally published 09/20/2016
If You Want a Future with Fewer Floods, Fires, and Other Environmental Disasters, Vote Democratic

Walter G. Moss

Vote for Trump if you want the planet to keep burning up.

Originally published 08/01/2016
How Should Historians Write about the Anthropocene -- And Why Is It Important?

Frank Palmeri

If we have the imagination to borrow an approach from 250 years ago, we might be better able to understand climate change.

Originally published 06/20/2016
What Happened the Last Time the Earth Went Through Climate Change Was Horrifying

David L. O’Connor

The economy collapsed and thousands of people were burned as witches.

Originally published 05/16/2016
Did Climate Change Contribute to Demise of Neanderthals?

A zooarchaeologist from the University of Colorado Denver says he’s found evidence that European Neanderthals may have weathered periods of extreme cold brought about by climate change, based on signs of nutritional stress left behind in their remains.

Originally published 05/11/2016
The Fort McMurray Fire is Nature’s Act of Revenge

Stephen Pyne

A fossil-fuel civilization is unhinging the Earth's climate, reshaping its landscapes, and plunking towns like Fort McMurray cheek to jowl with combustible bush.

Originally published 03/11/2016
How climate change has affected history (especially religion)

Philip Jenkins

The explosive effect of the Laki eruption in Iceland in 1783 transformed the world. So have other exploding volcanoes.

Originally published 01/01/2016
Big Oil braced for global warming while it fought regulations

Exxon and other oil giants made a strategic decision in the late 1980s to publicly emphasize doubt and uncertainty regarding climate change science even as their internal research embraced the growing scientific consensus -- and they spent millions to guard against the risk.

Originally published 01/01/2016
Social Conditions Increase Vulnerability to Climate Disasters

An exhaustive new study has shown that societies with a high vulnerability to food shortages are more susceptible to climate induced disasters. This susceptibility can manifest itself in social changes, as well as environmental hazards.

Originally published 12/28/2015
This Is What’s Needed to Win the Climate-Change Struggle

Walter G. Moss

It’s the same thing MLK, Dorothy Day and Churchill possessed.

Originally published 12/15/2015
Thanks to right-wing deniers, schools still sow seeds of doubt over climate change

Jonathan Zimmerman

Last Saturday, delegates from 195 countries signed a historic pact on human-made climate change. But in many American classrooms, students are debating whether pollution warms the planet at all.

Originally published 12/11/2015
Declassified Snapshot of the Clinton Archives Show that Early U.S. Optimism on Climate Change Frustrated by Disputes over Greenhouse Gas Goals

The documents suggests a number of parallels with the Obama experience.

Originally published 12/02/2015
GOP Presidents Recognized Need for U.S. Leadership on Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

Reagan Overruled Cabinet Members Opposed to Montreal Protocol on Ozone Layer

Originally published 11/10/2015
The American Example Few Follow

Max Boot

In short, Obama’s decision on Keystone was driven by the hoary old theory that the U.S. needs to model good behavior for other countries in the hope that they will emulate what we do.

Originally published 11/09/2015
The Surprising Backstory Behind the Successful Campaign to Derail Keystone

Andrew Needham

The debt environmental activists owe Native Americans.

Originally published 10/20/2015
Rise and fall of agrarian states influenced by climate volatility

Climate variability is one of the major forces in the rise and fall of agrarian states in Mexico and Peru, according to a team of researchers looking at both climate and archaeological records.

Originally published 09/21/2015
Climate change could cause second Holocaust, says Yale historian

According to Prof. Timothy Snyder, the struggle to feed populations may ‘encourage new variations on Hitler’s ideas’

Originally published 09/21/2015
What Exxon Knew About Climate Change

Exxon didn’t just “know” about climate change: it conducted some of the original research.

Originally published 09/18/2015
Should the Pope Weigh in on the Climate Change Debate?

Paul Misner

History suggests the dangers of doing so.

Originally published 09/18/2015
Landmark paper shows Aboriginal memories go back more than 7,000 years

“These stories talk about a time when the sea started to come in and cover the land, and the changes this brought about to the way people lived – the changes in landscape, the ecosystem and the disruption this caused to their society.”

Originally published 09/01/2015
An Economist May Have Just Come Up with the Solution George Kennan Said Is Needed to Protect the Earth from Climate Change Disaster

David Milne

Kennan, the realist, came around to a belief in Wilsonian internationalism late in life, but worried it still wasn't practical. But maybe it is.

Originally published 08/27/2015
How a Volcanic Eruption in 1815 Darkened the World but Colored the Arts

William J. Broad

Investigators are still struggling to understand the most powerful eruption in recorded history, which gave rise to icy weather and pandemics, but also to great literature and art

Originally published 08/23/2015
Is Pope Francis Right on the Science?

James Lawrence Powell

"As remarkable as Francis’s understanding of science is his powerful and eloquent language."

Originally published 08/09/2015
The Great Victorian Weather Wars

Peter Moore

The history of today’s climate change debate may have begun on Feb. 7, 1861.

Originally published 07/08/2015
The Radical and Deep Insights of Pope Francis’s Environmental Encyclical

Walter G. Moss

Many conservatives have criticized it, but it reflects religious values expressed through the ages by people of many religious faiths.

Originally published 06/22/2015
Holy Ignorance

Garry Wills

If Catholic conservatives like Rick Santorum deny climate change in the name of holiness, can Pope Francis persuade them with his own appeal to holy values in creation? I doubt it.

Originally published 06/17/2015
Could Scientists Be Wrong About Global Warming?

Dr. James Powell

These 4 reasons show why it’s very unlikely.

Originally published 06/17/2015
The Hoax of Climate Denial

Naomi Oreskes

Why “Politically Motivated” Science Is Good Science

Originally published 06/16/2015
Naomi Oreskes, a Lightning Rod in a Changing Climate

Dr. Oreskes is fast becoming one of the biggest names in climate science by using historical scholarship to take on denialists.

Originally published 04/23/2015
Climate Change Contributed Towards the Collapse of the Maya

Researchers have found that historic droughts in Central America matched the patterns of disruption to Maya society.

Originally published 03/18/2015
Harvard’s Drew Faust says colleges have a “special” role to play in combatting climate change

They are pushing hard toward breakthrough remedies, Faust says in speech at Beijing

Originally published 02/24/2015
New Study: Plague outbreaks that ravaged Europe for centuries were driven by climate changes in Asia

These outbreaks were traditionally thought to be caused by rodent reservoirs of infected rats lurking in Europe’s cities, or potentially by rodent reservoirs in the wilderness. But research published in the journal PNAS suggests otherwise.

Originally published 02/14/2015
Monster Hurricanes Battered US Northeast 800 Years Ago

A new study of sediment deposits from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, shows that 23 severe hurricanes hit New England between 250 and 1150 CE.

Originally published 02/10/2015
Scientists discovered air pollution that’s nearly 500 years old

Humans have been spewing pollution into the atmosphere for a long, long time

Originally published 01/09/2015
Climate change through history

George F. Will

It has produced warming and cooling, prosperity and cities, war and famine

Originally published 01/05/2015
Senator Inhofe and the Global Warming Deniers

Walter G. Moss

This type of denial is nothing new.

Originally published 12/29/2014
Did Drought and Climate Change cause Middle Eastern States to Collapse in 2014?

Juan Cole

Climate change not only makes agricultural problems worse, it has a direct negative affect. When it is hot, people fight more.

Originally published 12/26/2014
New Evidence Supporting Volcanoes as Cause for Mass Extinction and Rapid Climate Change

66 million years ago, there was an extinction event that wiped out Earth’s non-avian dinosaurs. A recent study by Princeton University has provided fresh insight into what exactly may have caused this dramatic event.

Originally published 11/28/2014
Thanksgiving was always about Climate and Adaptation: Let’s Make it Green Again

Juan Cole

The pilgrims faced a harsher climate than had Leif Erikson when he came to North America during the European medieval warming period.

Originally published 11/27/2014
Conference delves into effects of climate change on native people

As the planet warms and oceans rise, indigenous people around the world find themselves directly and disproportionately confronting climate changes that threaten long-held ways of life.

Originally published 10/27/2014
The global warming hoax

Steve Hochstadt

"This would be the greatest hoax ever, because unlike every other hoax, it is being committed by all the world’s experts, which is precisely what the global warming deniers are claiming."

Originally published 09/11/2014
Awareness of Climate Change Seems Like a Modern Preoccupation. It Isn't.

Jeremy L. Caradonna

The chilling power of humans to change the climate has been recognized for over 250 years.

Originally published 08/30/2014
Could humans cause another Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum?

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum lasted 200,000 years and temperatures soared by at least 5° and perhaps 9°C.

Originally published 08/30/2014
Americans Are Worried about ISIS and Putin. What They Should Be worried About is Climate Change.

Juan Cole

The US public is again being misled by its media and politicians as to the true shape of the world, and is likely to suffer pretty badly for this ignorance.

Originally published 05/22/2014
Is Climate Change a Crime Against Humanity?

Tom Engelhardt

If we think of climate change as a weapon of mass destruction, shouldn’t we do something about it?

Originally published 05/20/2014
Scientists: Climate Change Imperils Historic Sites

All along the East Coast, sites like the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, are imperiled by rising seas and storm surges.

Originally published 03/25/2014
Lessons from the Little Ice Age

Geoffrey Parker

The Little Ice Age of the seventeenth century triggered global disruptions to civilization. Policymakers need to heed the warning.

Originally published 03/12/2014
By the Way, Your Home Is On Fire

Rebecca Solnit

The climate of change and the dangers of stasis.

Originally published 02/27/2014
Decline of Bronze Age 'megacities' linked to climate change

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have demonstrated that an abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon affected northwest India 4,100 years ago.

Originally published 02/25/2014
Why Is It So Hard for Americans to Come to Terms with Our Slow-Motion Environmental Apocalypse?

Ira Chernus

Our religious myths have prepared us for that cosmic spark that will obliterate all life in an instant. It's not so easy to envision that process taking decades.

Originally published 02/07/2014
Ending the World the Human Way

Tom Engelhardt

How climate change became the "anti-news."

Originally published 01/14/2014
Melting glaciers in northern Italy reveal corpses of WW1 soldiers

The glaciers of the Italian Alps are slowly melting to reveal horrors from the Great War, preserved for nearly a century.

Originally published 12/17/2013
Will Humanity Become Extinct Within the Next Generation?

Dahr Jamail

Indeed, climate change may not just trigger human extinction -- it could mean the end of all life on Earth.

Originally published 11/18/2013
Robert Dallek: How JFK fathered the modern presidential campaign

Kennedy made the most of his youth and novelty.

Originally published 11/06/2013
How Diversity Will Alter Black History

Lynette Holloway

Will there still be a need for Black History Month?

Originally published 11/04/2013
Is The Tea Party Really All About Alger Hiss?

Walter Russell Mead

Hiss is the quintessential liberal establishment elite (and closet communist).

Originally published 11/04/2013
The Would-Be Philosopher-King

Michael Ignatieff was an historian... until he became a failed politician.

Originally published 10/27/2013
So You Want to Write?

Vaughn Davis Bornet

A veteran historian's advice.

Originally published 10/21/2013
Did RFK swipe JFK's missing brain?

And is this headline clickbait? You bet!

Originally published 10/07/2013
The Biggest Story Never Told

Rebecca Solnit

The difficulty of looking at climate change.

Originally published 09/29/2013
It's a La Nina Year. So Why Isn't It Really, Really Cold?

Juan Cole

Two words: global warming.

Originally published 08/08/2013
Michael Klare: How to Fry a Planet

When it comes to energy and economics in the climate-change era, nothing is what it seems.

Originally published 05/07/2013
And Then There Was One

Tom Engelhardt

Image via Shutterstock.Originally posted on TomDispatch.com

Originally published 03/18/2013
Ancient rock art at risk from climate change

Some of the world's ancient art is at risk of disappearing, Newcastle University experts have warned.

Originally published 03/05/2013
Historic town walls crumbling 'because of climate change'

For centuries they stood firm against marauding Welsh invaders but now the historic walls of Ludlow are said to be under threat from a new enemy – climate change.

Originally published 01/29/2013
Sealing Norse Greenlanders’ fate?

The mystery of what happened to Greenland’s Norse population is one step closer to being solved, as new evidence suggests that the colony did not die out because its inhabitants were unable to adapt to their new environment.

Originally published 01/25/2013
Juan Cole: Global Warming Is a Domestic Crisis

Juan Cole

As President Obama made clear in his inaugural address Monday, failing to confront the threat of climate change in his second term would be a betrayal of future generations.

Originally published 01/22/2013
How high could the tide go?

What scientists, who study climate history, actually do.

Originally published 01/16/2013
Lawrence M. Krauss: Deafness at Doomsday

TO our great peril, the scientific community has had little success in recent years influencing policy on global security. Perhaps this is because the best scientists today are not directly responsible for the very weapons that threaten our safety, and are therefore no longer the high priests of destruction, to be consulted as oracles as they were after World War II.

Originally published 12/10/2010
Climate Change

Global warming, climate change: Whatever you call it. Here are the articles we've featured on this topic through the years.

Originally published 08/03/2009
History Offers Hope that We Can Reduce the Risk of Global Warming

Jan Kunnas

While still writing on my doctoral thesis, I received as a comment on an early version from a professor in my university, “that few people today believe in history as the vita magistra.” At first this statement shocked me, but later on it turned into a great inspiration for further thought. The first question arising was, that if we do not believe that we can learn from history, then what is the justification of the whole academic discipline history. If it is just for our own fun, is

Originally published 10/21/1976
Kickstarting History

Anthony Clark

I've financed my own research project using Kickstarter.

Originally published 09/05/2017
Payng for Big Storms

Steve Hochstadt

Only an ideologically immovable force like the current Republican Party could ignore the mounting crises caused by our changing weather systems. In their refusal to acknowledge the basic facts of climate change, Republicans in Congress and the White House put Americans at risk of losing everything.

Originally published 01/12/2017
Obama's Legacy in Science, Technology, and Innovation

Infinity, Limited

What will be the legacy of Barack Obama's policies in science, technology, and innovation? His most important policy was not a specific goal but promoting the scientific approach -- experimental, data-driven, open, and transparent -- as an integral part of federal policy making and implementation.

Originally published 10/18/2016
Republican Conspiracy Theories

Steve Hochstadt

Republican voters have been well prepared by their political leaders to believe wild theories which make them victims of vast conspiracies.

Originally published 09/30/2016
Donald Trump Believes in Climate Change

Steve Hochstadt

When he considers his financial interests, Trump is a climate change believer. Trump the businessman was arguing with the Irish authorities about allowing him to make an extraordinary investment to protect his property over the course of this century, because “it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring”. All the while, Trump the politician insisted over and over to the American public that he did not believe in global warming, that the scientists cited in his Irish petition were liars and cheaters, that the whole thing was a hoax.

Originally published 02/16/2016
The Republican Assault on Higher Education

Steve Hochstadt

Republican politicians are angry about public higher education in America. The ideas they and their conservative supporters cherish are repeatedly demonstrated by academic experts to be false.

Originally published 09/02/2015
Science, Averages and Hokum

Steve Hochstadt

When you take the claims of global warming deniers, such as the so-called pause in warming, or the number of scientists who are skeptics, or the lack of consensus of the world’s scientists, and investigate the footnotes or check the math, you see that they are not doing science. Their work cannot stand peer review, so it is published on the internet, where they get maximum readership with minimal credibility.

Originally published 10/23/2014
Same Old, Same Old

There's No There There

How and why it's so very hard for American foreign policy to change.

Originally published 07/27/2014
In Foreign Affairs, Not Doing Anything is the Thing to Do

Liberty and Power

The heartbreaking violence in the Middle East, Ukraine, and elsewhere carries many messages, but here’s one Americans shouldn’t miss: The United States — no matter who the president is — cannot manage world conflict. The corollary is that when a president tries to manage it,things will usually get worse. Foresight is always defective, and tragic unintended consequences will prevail.

Originally published 05/28/2014
What Can a Classics Professor Teach Us About Climate Change?

Stone Age Brain

What a drought in 1200 BC can teach us.