The hottest Environmental History Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top History Topics

Top Links 1038 Oil loses its bite. The historical diffusion of farming. Landscapes of power & the "Chance for Peace".

Chartbook • 557 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. Oil is becoming less central to the American economy and no longer drives prices, politics, or growth the way it used to.
  2. The historical spread of farming fundamentally reshaped societies and landscapes, driving long-term demographic and economic change.
  3. Power structures and geography shape political outcomes, and there are occasional moments—like a 'Chance for Peace'—when conditions align to make peace possible.

The Secret History of Knocking on Wood

Res Obscura • 5909 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. The origins of everyday gestures like knocking on wood are surprisingly hard to pin down in written records. There appear to be two related traditions—touching wood and touching iron—and the practice could be ancient or a relatively recent cultural development.
  2. Much important human knowledge is embodied and learned before literacy, so gestures, handedness, and other implicit habits shape language and moral intuitions but often go unwritten and unnoticed in text-based sources.
  3. Because current AI models are trained mainly on text, they miss bodily experience and these implicit norms; adding historical images, sounds, and simulated physical experiences could help make models more authentically human-aligned, and historians should be part of that work.

Back To The Garden

Adjacent Possible • 142 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. For about four thousand years, thriving settlements grew in lush wetlands rather than arid deserts, with cities built on marshes and supported by diverse local foods like fish, waterfowl, dates, and legumes.
  2. Because these societies built with reeds, wood, and other biodegradable materials, their physical traces mostly rotted away, so archaeology and period labels like the Stone/Bronze/Iron Ages give a distorted picture of the past.
  3. Their dispersed, hard-to-measure 'hortipiscoral' economies made them illegible to would-be rulers and to archaeologists, but a cultural memory of that vanished abundance may survive in ancient scriptures such as the Book of Genesis.

Top Links 996 Democratization and growth. Avoiding the fossil detour. Is AI a failure? And, the first queen of Prussia.

Chartbook • 472 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. The relationship between democratization and economic growth is examined, with a clear warning that simple inferences from the data would be misleading.
  2. A key theme is avoiding a “fossil detour,” meaning energy and development pathways should not fall back into renewed dependence on fossil fuels.
  3. The links probe whether AI can be seen as a failure and mix that debate with cultural and historical pieces, including the first queen of Prussia and a Picasso image.

Greenland Fantasia

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 483 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Environmental History
  1. Greenland's future is framed as crucial to the fate of the whole planet, highlighting its global environmental and geopolitical importance.
  2. Historical imagery of a Moravian mission ties Greenland's colonial and cultural past to present concerns, suggesting history matters for understanding its current challenges.
  3. The content sits behind a paid, subscription-based publication and is presented as exclusive, with clear prompts encouraging readers to subscribe.
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Top Links 986 Shale sliding. Modern whaling. The nuclear dump in the Atlantic & the world according to Standard Oil.

Chartbook • 515 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. The US shale industry is under strain, with the Permian Basin seeing falling rig counts despite political rhetoric about oil.
  2. Modern whaling is highlighted as a significant contemporary issue, raising environmental and conservation concerns.
  3. There is concern about a nuclear waste dump in the Atlantic and about the global influence and legacy of Standard Oil.

The Wetlands Interregnum

Adjacent Possible • 126 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. Corona satellites used mid-air film recovery and dual panoramic cameras to capture stereoscopic, high-resolution photos decades before digital imaging, giving a true 3D view of the land.
  2. Those 3D images showed ancient landscapes were more varied and less permanently arid than earlier archaeologists assumed, which challenges the idea that states arose solely to build irrigation in hopeless deserts.
  3. The 1995 declassification and transfer of Corona film to public archives and the USGS opened a priceless historical dataset for scientists to study environmental change and rethink the origins of agriculture.

Chartbook 347 The trouble with transitioning: putting energy history back on its feet.

Chartbook • 1759 implied HN points • 22 Jan 25
🌞 Climate & Environment Environmental History
  1. Traditional views say that moving away from fossil fuels will solve climate issues and that renewable energy will become cheaper. But this view may not be correct.
  2. An analysis of energy use shows that instead of switching from one energy source to another, we tend to use more energy from different sources at the same time.
  3. Decarbonizing our energy systems is a complicated task that is influenced by history and requires new approaches, especially as countries like China play a significant role in renewable energy technologies.

Denny Hill Still Exists

Street Smart Naturalist: Explorations of the Urban Kind • 79 implied HN points • 22 Sep 22
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. Denny Hill in Seattle is not gone; it's now underwater. You can still find it if you know where to look, like diving into Elliott Bay.
  2. Between 1897 and 1930, they did five big regrades to lower Denny Hill by 100 feet, changing the land right by the water.
  3. Scientists discovered that the underwater area looks different because it has a structure made of dirt from Denny Hill, proving that the hill still exists today.

Selling Kelp

Street Smart Naturalist: Explorations of the Urban Kind • 19 implied HN points • 23 Sep 21
đź’ľ History Environmental History
  1. Kelp was once seen as a valuable resource in America for making potash, especially during a time when the country depended on imports from Germany.
  2. Despite initial excitement and plans for kelp processing plants in Puget Sound, they mostly failed to succeed due to stronger competition and external factors like the end of the war.
  3. Other ventures to use kelp, like creating a candy substitute, also did not meet success, showing that not all ideas for using local resources thrive.

Nils Ekholm – The Influence of Man on Climate

The Climate Historian • 0 implied HN points • 18 May 22
🌞 Climate & Environment Environmental History
  1. Nils Ekholm was a key figure in early meteorological studies and participated in important Arctic research, showing that countries could work together on big scientific projects.
  2. He warned about human activities affecting the climate, especially through the burning of fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
  3. Ekholm's work on climate change was initially overlooked but highlighted that increased carbon dioxide could lead to a rise in Earth's temperatures.

(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About the COP28 Climate Meeting

The Climate Historian • 0 implied HN points • 28 Nov 23
🌞 Climate & Environment Environmental History
  1. COP meetings are important for global climate action. They started in the 1990s and have aimed to create agreements to tackle climate change together.
  2. The 2015 Paris Agreement was a key milestone but many believe the goals set by countries are still not strong enough to combat rising temperatures.
  3. As COP28 approaches, there are concerns about the influence of fossil fuel interests on climate policies, which could hinder real action against climate change.

George H.W. Bush: “The Environmental President”

The Climate Historian • 0 implied HN points • 03 Jan 24
🌞 Climate & Environment Environmental History
  1. George H.W. Bush focused on environmental issues during his presidency, aiming to be known as 'the environmental president.' He made promises to tackle climate change and set up new initiatives.
  2. Under Bush's leadership, important laws like the Clean Air Act Amendments were passed, reducing harmful emissions and addressing air pollution from power plants.
  3. Bush also played a key role in international efforts against climate change, supporting agreements like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to unite countries in combating global warming.

The Origins of Climate Change

The Climate Historian • 0 implied HN points • 21 Apr 22
🌞 Climate & Environment Environmental History
  1. Svante Arrhenius was an early scientist who studied how carbon dioxide affects our planet's temperature. He created a model that helped people understand the connection between CO2 and climate change.
  2. He predicted that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could raise temperatures by around 5 to 6 degrees Celsius. This was a significant insight into how human activities like burning fossil fuels impact the climate.
  3. Although his ideas faced skepticism at first, Arrhenius believed in the potential for better climates due to increased carbon dioxide. He hoped this would lead to more abundant crops and improved conditions for people.