environmental history

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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). 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  11/19/2020
  

  Erin Brockovich to Joe Biden: Are You Kidding Me?

  "Are you really listening to the science or are you listening to an industry insider, who is controlling the message?"

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• SOURCE: West Virginia Public Broadcasting
  9/30/2020
  

  Bob Murray, Who Fought Against Black Lung Regulations As A Coal Operator, Has Filed For Black Lung Benefits

  The coal magnate, who for decades ran the largest privately owned underground coal mining company in the United States, has also been at the forefront of combatting federal regulations that attempt to reduce black lung, an incurable and ultimately fatal lung disease caused by exposure to coal and rock dust.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/18/2020
  

  Scapegoating Antifa for Starting Wildfires Distracts from the Real Causes

  by Steven C. Beda

  The idea of left-wing radicals starting wildfires in the Pacific Northwest dates back to timber companies blaming the Industrial Workers of the World for blazes as a way to discredit demands for workers' power through unions. 

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• SOURCE: Associated Press
  9/2/2020
  

  Cancer Cases Likely in Those Exposed to New Mexico Atomic Test

  National Cancer Institute findings suggest that it is likely that some people exposed to fallout from the Trinity atomic bomb tests got cancer as a result. However, the incomplete data available make it unclear if the findings will help advance legislation to compensate "downwinders" for health damage.   

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  8/26/2020
  

  Why Hurricane Katrina Was Not a Natural Disaster

  by Nicholas Lemann

  Fifteen years ago, New Orleans was nearly destroyed. A new book by Tulane historian Andy Horowitz suggests that the cause was decades of bad policy—and that nothing has changed.

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• SOURCE: JSTOR Daily
  8/18/2020
  

  The Environmental Costs of War

  The effort to secure and refine aluminum ore for war materiel was environmentally damaging and previews the globalized impact of commodity supply chains. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/14/2020
  

  How the World’s Largest Garbage Dump Evolved Into a Green Oasis

  Freshkills is possibly the least likely poster child for urban ecological restoration in the world, and it is radical not just for the way it works — by encouraging flora and fauna do as they please — but for its sheer size. It is almost unbelievable that New York City would set aside a parcel of land as big as Lower Manhattan south of 23rd Street — and just let it go to seed.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/5/2020
  

  In The 75 Years Since Hiroshima, Nuclear Testing Killed Untold Thousands

  The Marshall Islands were exposed to the daily equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-sized explosions between 1946 and 1958, if the impact were spread evenly.

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  7/31/2020
  

  Unnatural Disasters: On the Pandemics We Make For Ourselves

  by Ann Neumann

  Like cholera and poverty, Covid-19 is not the crisis; it’s a disease that feeds on our racialized inequalities.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/22/2020
  

  Learning From the Kariba Dam

  The history of the Kariba Dam is the story of a war over the past and the future of a river. 

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• 7/26/2020
  

  Two Contagions, One Opportunity to Reboot our Approach

  by Steve Pyne

  Outbursts of megafires resemble emerging diseases because they are typically the outcome of broken biotas – a ruinous interaction between people and nature that unhinges the old checks and balances. 

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• 7/12/2020
  

  The Right to Breathe Free: A Showdown Over Race and Nature (Part II)

  by Douglas C. Sackman

  Over time American nature has been retrofitted with an infrastructure of racism, one that gives some people open access to land, clean water, and good air while constricting the access of others to these vital natural resources, or takes them away altogether.