Environmental History Resources

Exploring Environmental History podcast

Exploring Environmental History is the podcast about human societies and the environment in the past. The periodic programmes feature interviews with people working in the field, reports on conferences and discussions about the use and methods of environmental history. You can listen to these audiocasts on your own computer simply by clicking on the "Listen to podcast " links in the list below. Podcast of previous years can be found in the annual archives. The following years are available: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

If you use a podcast aggregator like iTunes or Juice, you can subscribe to the podcast feed to automatically download the files for syncing to portable audio devices. Once you subscribe to Exploring Environmental History, you will automatically receive the lastest episode each time a new podcast is published. For more information on how to subscribe and podcasting clients, view the subscription instructions.

You can also follow the podcast on Twitter @EH_Resources.

Do you have comments about or suggestions related to the podcasts? Send us your feedback.

Podcast 44: Silent Spring at 50: a comparison perspective

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

Rachel Carson ca. 1944. Credit: USFWS

2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”. This publication is often regarded as the beginning of the modern environmental movement, in particular in the US. Silent Spring documents the effects of pesticides on the environment, and in particularly on birds. In addition, Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and government officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Silent Spring had a profound impact on the development of environmental consciousness and led to the regulation of the use of pesticide in North America and Europe.

In order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring this episode of the podcast explores the significance of this book with Mark Wilson, a PhD candidate at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, England. Mark has written a study which compares the response to Silent Spring in the US and Britain. He also agues that Silent Spring is a typical product of its time that was closely connected with the Cold War and the rise of the counter culture at both sides of the Atlantic.

Relevant Websites
The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson, http://www.rachelcarson.org/
Wikipedia page Rachel Carson

Further reading
Graham Jr., Frank, Since Silent Spring (London, 1970)

Hamilton Lytle, Mark, The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring & the Rise of the Environmental Movement (New York, 2007)

Mellanby, Kenneth, Pesticides & Pollution in Britain (London, 1967)

Rome, Adam, ‘“Give Earth a Chance”: The Environmental Movement & the Sixties’, Journal of American History, 90 (2003), pp. 525-554

Sheail, John, Pesticides& Nature Conservation: The British Experience, 1950-1970 (Oxford, 1985)

Smith, Michael B., ‘“Silent, Miss Carson!”: Science, Gender & the Reception of Silent Spring’, Feminist Studies, 27 (Autumn 2001), pp. 745-746.

Walker, Martin J., ‘The Unquiet Voice of Silent Spring: The Legacy of Rachel Carson’, The Ecologist, 29 (1999)

Music credits
"Where You Are Now" by Zapac
Available from ccMixter

"2012Piano" by snowflake
Available from ccMixter

Listen to episode #44

Podcast 43: A transformed landscape: the steppes of Ukraine and Russia

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Sea of grain: agricultural landscape on former steppe land resembling
the colors of the Ukranian flag. Source: Wikipedia.

The steppes of Ukraine and Russia were once a sea of grass on rolling plains on which pastoral nomadic peoples grazed their herds of livestock. From the eighteenth century, the steppes have been transformed into a major agricultural region. This process started after the region was annexed to the Russian Empire and settled by migrants from forested landscapes in central and northern Russia and Ukraine and also from central Europe. By the twentieth century, the former steppe landscape had almost disappeared, save a few remnants protected in nature reserves (zapovedniki).

Map of the steppe region showing Ukraine and location of Askania Nova
Biosphere Reserve. Modified from Pontic/Caspian vegetation zones map,
Wikipedia.

In this podcast episode, David Moon, professor of Russian history at Durham University, UK, talks about his recent visit to the Ukrainian steppes. In addition to conventional historical research in archives and libraries in Odessa, he travelled through the steppes, visited nature reserves, and met scientists to help him understand how the landscape had been transformed over time. This episode provides fascinating insights into the environmental history of the steppes and the way that environmental historians go about studying the history of landscapes and environments.

Relevant Websites
An Environmental History of the Russian Steppes, c.1700-1914, Project page David Moon
Wikipedia page Askania Nova.

Music credits
"Echo of the Steppe" by Julian Kytasty on the Bandura, Link Media, Inc. From: Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/details/linktv_world-music-blog-videos20090504.

"Where You Are Now" by Zapac
Available from ccMixter

"Sooner or Later" by Geert Veneklaas
Available from ccMixter

Listen to episode #43

The production of this episode was supported by the

Podcast 42: Teaching and discovering environmental history online

Monday, 11 July 2011

From 27 June to 2 July 2011 the sixth conference of the European Society took place in the city of Turku in Finland. The meeting consisted of many parallel sessions on a wide range of topics exploring the interactions between human societies and nature in the past. This podcast will report on a paper discussing the results of a novel experiment in environmental didactics involving the web and e-learning technologies carried out by Martin Schmid of the Institute of Social Ecology, Alpen-Adria University Vienna and Rogerio Ribeiro de Oliveira of Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They used web technologies to teach an intercontinental course in urban environmental history involving classes in Rio de Janeiro and Vienna.

The second part of the podcast reports on a roundtable entitled "Towards an online environmental history of Europe". This panel discussed the technical, structural and thematic issues of an online environmental history of Europe which is under development by the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich. The project, dubbed "Arcadia", will be an encyclopedia-like resource with articles in the form of localized histories and each entry will include time, theme and location metadata as well as information about relevant organizations, people and species in order to visualize it on a map and make the material searchable. The site will provide visitors with exploratory tools to aid the discovery of material. The Arcadia online environmental history will be launched in early 2012 as part of the umbrella Environment and Society Portal.

Websites mentioned
Environment and Society (Arcadia): www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia.html
ESEH 2011 conference website: eseh2011.utu.fi

Listen to episode #42

Podcast 41: Energy utopia or dystopia? - A historical perspective on nuclear energy

Thursday, 7 April 2011

Satellite image showing damage after an Earthquake
and Tsunami at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant,
Japan, 16 March 2011.
(Image source: DigitalGlobe’s Flicr Photostream)

For the past decade nuclear energy has been increasingly promoted as a carbon neutral source of energy. By 2010 governments around the globe were seriously considering the construction of new power plants. The Japanese Tsunami of March 2011 threw a spanner in the works when the Fukushima One nuclear power plant was flooded destroying its cooling system. This resulted in a partial core meltdown, hydrogen explosions and venting of nuclear contaminated steam. The accident highlighted the potential hidden risks of nuclear technologies and fuelled fear of radiation and contamination of the environment with nuclear materials among the general public. It is also likely to stall the enthusiasm of a nuclear revival for the foreseeable future.

Considering past nuclear incidents it is doubtful if the Fukushima emergency will prevent the construction nuclear plants in the long run. On this episode of the podcast Horace Herring of the Open University in Britain will explore the utopian origins of nuclear energy and how it became a dystopian illusion. He argues that economics and distrust in science and big government undermined nuclear energy more than environmental or health concerns.

Literature cited
Horace Herring, From Energy Dreams to Nuclear Nightmares: Lessons for the 21st century from a previous nuclear era (Charlbury, Oxon: Jon Carpenter, 2005).

"Lessons from the past", Nature, 471 (2011), p. 547.

Mark Peplow, "Chernobyl’s legacy", Nature 471 (2011), pp. 562-565.

Music credit
"LOVELESS" by Caster Seven
Available from ccMixter

Listen to episode #41