THE Copenhagen climate talks provide the opportunity for world leaders to move boldly and decisively to tackle climate change. Whatever the outcome, the summit will go down in history as a major turning point that determined the fate of humankind on earth.

Throughout history there have been a number of key events that have influenced and shaped our relationship with the environment. In 1972 universal concern about the health and sustainable use of the planet and its resources resulted in the United Nations conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Stockholm conference recognised our failure to manage the biosphere as well as the increasing gap between developed and developing countries. For the first time the environment was placed high on the political agenda. The conference led to the foundation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which had a mandate to protect and manage the global environment. After the conference a number of nations established ministries of environment and developed the first wave of policies to reduce environmental pollution. This period also saw the establishment of many leading environmental non-governmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth.

Twenty years later in 1992, nations of the world gathered together once more at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also know as the Earth Summit. The Summit produced Agenda 21 – a blueprint for action to be taken by organisations globally, nationally and locally to implement the concept of sustainable development. It also led to the adoption of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC entered into force in 1994 with the objective to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The Commission on Sustainable Development was created to monitor and report on implementation of the Earth Summit agreements.

Twenty years after the Earth Summit in 2002 the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was convened by the United Nations to discuss progress towards sustainable development and resulted in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation which was intended to build on the achievements made since the 1992 Earth Summit and realise the remaining goals not yet achieved. The plan promoted the integration of the three components of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental protection.

In 1997 the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC was held in Kyoto, Japan. The meeting led to the adoption of the international agreement on climate change called the Kyoto Protocol. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

All these events have been major milestones in the history of environmentalism and have changed the way we manage our environment from the global to the local level. The fifteenth meeting of COP in Copenhagen (COP 15) will be another such event. However, this event is seen as an end game. The final chance to thrash out a successor to the Kyoto protocol which will prevent runaway climate change. This will mean halting the increase in greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to keep the global temperature below two degrees centigrade. Above this level there will be dangerous and irreparable damage to our climate system.

A reduction of 25-40% compared to 1990 levels are needed and these would need to rise to 80-95% by 2050. The Stockholm Environment Institute in partnership with Friends of the Earth Europe shows how European Union can cut domestic emissions by 40% in 2020, and by 90% in 2050, compared to 1990 levels. This is considered the minimum scale and speed of reductions science says is likely to be needed from rich countries to avoid a climate catastrophe. The 40% emissions cuts can be achieved through a combination of radical improvements in energy efficiency, the accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels, a dramatic shift towards renewable energies, and lifestyle changes.

The big issues are whether developing countries such as China and India can continue to grow and achieve their development goals and whether richer nations are willing to pay for poorer countries to achieve a low carbon development.

Whether talks at Copenhagen succeed or fail it will go down in history as a landmark event. We can only hope that all parties can “seal the deal”. If not then they can at least achieve this goal as soon as possible in 2010. The only thing worse than no deal is a false deal – a deal that raises hopes and expectations but ultimately fails due to broken promises and puts human survival on this planet at risk.

© Gary Haq 2009
To comment click on the title.

Have you ever noticed that bits of the West are like, really amazingly beautiful?¹

This is from the base of lower Yosemite Falls—close enough to get wet, anyway.

And this is the view from the balcony of Lookout Studio. I couldn’t manage to take a picture of the Grand Canyon that didn’t look like a “picture of the Grand Canyon.”

Stuff like this goes under the awesomeness of TR category, which we really ought to actually have.²

Previously, on the grandeur of the Grand Canyon.

The history of those inner courtyards in Helsinki is full of fascinating stories of social and cultural change, oh and environmental change.

These days many of Helsinki’s courtyards are, alas, given over for car parking and, as you can see, the odd bicycle squeezed in around the edges. Oddly there seems to be too little space in many Helsinki yards for bikes, meaning that folks have to leave them on the street. Ideally of course, the courtyard buildings that were once in use as wood stores, laundries, saunas and the like, for the use of all inhabitants, should be turned into bike storage.

For those seeking to keep cities people-friendly the good news is that in fact the use of such space for parking is in fact illegal. The bad news is that the City never gets involved in this form of criminal behaviour.

At least hasn’t until now.

Episode 11 Animals, History, and Environment: November 22, 2009.

Environmental history is primarily concerned with the relationship between humans and non-human nature, but the study of non-human nature holds a different set of problems and poses a different set of questions when considering non-human animals. As environmental historians continue to explore the place of animals in stories of the past, they increasingly cross into the rich literature and theory of historical animals studies.

This episode of the podcast looks at the place of animals in environmental history. We begin by speaking with Erica Fudge, the author of several books in historical animal studies, about her 2006 essay “The History of Animals” on the H-Animal Discussion Network. Then Sharon Kirsch joins us to discuss her new book What Species of Creatures: Animals Relations from the New World.

Please be sure to take a moment and review this podcast on our iTunes page.

Visit the main page at http://niche-canada.org/naturespast

Works Cited

Sean Kheraj, Canadian History & Environment

http://seankheraj.wordpress.com

Loo, Tina. States of Nature: Conserving Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth Century. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006.

Sandlos, John. Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.

Colpitts, George. Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada to 1940. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002.

Ritvo, Harriet. “Animal Planet.” Environmental History 9, no. 2 (2004): 204-220.

Fudge, Erica. “The History of Animals.” Ruminations, H-Animal discussion network, no. 1 (2006).

Kirsch, Sharon. What Species of Creatures: Animal Relations from the New World. Vancouver: New Star Books, 2008.

Music Credits

“Septiembre” by BlondBlood – FG3 Free Guitars Project

“Mirando al Horizonte” Jaime Heras – FG3 Free Guitars Project

“Rumba Sudamericana” by Paco Santiago – FG3 Free Guitars Project

“Epiclatinarabrock” by Daniel Bautista – FG3 Free Guitars Project

Bishop Turquetil at hospital c. 1935 D.L. McKeand / LAC / e004413853

Professor Liza Piper from the Department of History & Classics at the University of Alberta came to UBC for the Nature|History|Society fall event. Graduate students and faculty gathered for a special Q&A seminar on Dr. Piper’s new book The Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada. The following day, Dr. Piper delivered a research lecture on her new work on disease in the Canadian North. For those unable to attend this event, NiCHE has archived Dr. Piper’s lecture, which you can access here or listen directly below.

A mountain is a vertical world. As we move upwards, we travel through layered ecosystems. In the Sierras, we pass through open sagebrush desert (on the dry East side) or rolling grasslands (on the wetter Pacific side), then chaparral, then forest (pine, occasionally mixed with oak), high montane meadows (often wet with mountain streams), until finally we break through the timberline and enter a strange but beautiful land.

Washed by intense sunlight and scoured by strong winds, these high alpine landscapes are a study in contrasts. Delicate, jewel-like plants blossom beneath an endless sky. Miniature columbines and gentians grow amidst massive stone peaks.

I fell in love with these alpine landscapes while still in graduate school. Those long summer breaks seemed designed for long trips to the mountains, and I spent as much time as I could outside, above timberline. This became our summer pattern — to alternate days of hiking or climbing in the high Sierra with lazy days lounging with my papers and notebooks. On one of these rest days, I picked up a copy of Anne Zwinger and Beatrice Willard’s classic Land Above the Trees: A Guide to American Alpine Tundra. First published in 1972, Zwinger’s book remains a classic in the field, presenting a lucid overview of North American alpine ecosystems.

In their preface to the 1996 edition of Land Above the Trees, Zwinger and Willard note that in 1972, theirs was the only book describing North American alpine regions. Today, Land Above the Trees is no longer situated on ecology’s cutting edge, but it is still a model of descriptive natural history. Zwinger and Willard give the reader precise, lyric images of alpine ecosystems. Zwinger’s delicate line drawings are extremely useful, giving form to unfamiliar flora and fauna.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One, “The Alpine World,” describes the alpine landscape’s various components, covering everything from plant adaptations to the geological processes that shape this environment. Part Two, “Alpine Areas,” presents brief descriptions of North American alpine landscapes, taking readers from the Rockies to the Cascades.
Land Above the Trees lifts the veil, for those of us who are mere “day trippers” above timberline, and gives us a glimpse into the forces that shape this extraordinary landscape. They transform these landscapes from static vistas into dynamic systems. After this book, I can never look at a scree field in the same way again. Even the mosses and lichens that mottle the rocks have taken on new meaning, no longer splashes of color but actual living organisms integral to the high alpine ecosystem. Though these ecosystems appear robust, they are actually quite fragile, easily destroyed by a rockfall or a footprint. Zwinger and Willard shed light on the alpine tundra’s delicate equilibrium. It takes decades to establish a bit of alpine meadow turf, and a few minutes to wipe everything out. Above timberline, things are perpetually in flux, and nothing is ever certain.

There are more technical books on the market, but few can match Land Above the Trees in elegance. Those who love to venture above the timberline will enjoy the book’s precise descriptions and crystalline language.

Good news in the world of environmental history podcasting. Jan Oosthoek’s long-running podcast, Exploring Environmental History, was recently nominated for a European Podcast Award. Many readers will already be familiar with Jan’s terrific work (featured in the last episode of Nature’s Past). Now you can support the Exploring Environmental History podcast by voting online.

Click here to vote.

You can listen to the latest episode of the Exploring Environmental History podcast below.

Podcast 27: Biological invasions, culture and biodiversity in South Africa

Speaking of period dramas on television, John Rogers recently told me to watch Life on Mars. So I am. And so far it’s really quite good: early Hill Street Blues meets A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (or something).

Anyway, the thing I’m enjoying most is the show’s relentless critique of nostalgia. The main character, a contemporary British detective who finds himself transported back in time to Manchester in 1973, can’t seem to decide if he misses his friends or his cell phone more. When he’s at his most despairing, in the early episodes at least, he focuses on the dearth of creature comforts available to him. Even if you weren’t trained as an environmental historian, the emphasis on material conditions — a lack of central heat, spotty electricity, a studio apartment appointed with a twin bed — is pretty obvious. It’s a healthy reminder that the past, even the recent past — forget the damp and drafty castles of the Middle Ages — was pretty grim.

The point may be that our current age is wondrous, filled with innovations straight out of science fiction, especially in the realm of policing and medicine. Regardless, though I suspect historians are especially cranky about the emptiness of nostalgia, I think the show gets its view of the historical city just right: unlike Mad Men, which makes the early 60s built environment seem awfully appealing — that furniture! that color palette! — Life on Mars suggests that urban life used to suck.

When US sailors first set foot on Midway (then called Brooks) in 1867, the birds were so numerous on the ground that the men could not walk without stepping on the chicks in their nests. Now we can accomplish the same results without traveling to a remote atoll to do it in person.

Logo of the Nature's Past Podcast

Episode 10 of Nature’s Past, the podcast of the Network in Canadian History and Environment, is now online.

“How have online digital technologies changed environmental history research, communication, and teaching? This episode of the podcast explores this question in the context of the recent NiCHE Digital Infrastructure API Workshop held in Mississauga, Ontario. Online-based Application Programming Interfaces or APIs are just one digital technology that holds the potential to change the way environmental historians access resources, analyze historical data, and communicate research findings. Within the past decade alone, the development of online digital technologies has offered the potential to transform historical scholarship.
This episode includes a round-table conversation with some leading figures in the realm of digital history as well as an interview with Jan Oosthoek, the producer and host of the Exploring Environmental History podcast.”

Check it out here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/30/stratford-london-2012-olympics

The Guardian published another article on the Olympic transformation taking place in West Ham.  Anna Kessel is impressed by the changes in the landscape and she looks forward to the time when the Lea is transformed into a more pleasant river.  Interestingly enough, she is not the first person to bemoan the condition of the Lower Lea and its back rivers that flow through the 2012 Olympic site.  In 1844, decades before the height of the industrial boom in West Ham, James Thorne, in his book Rambles by Rivers, talks about the Lower Lea and its degraded industrial condition:

But by this time our river has ceased to be either picturesque or interesting: lime-kilns, calico-printing, and distilleries are the most prominent objects along its banks; and however useful these may be, they are not agreeable to either nose or eye.

This quote is similar to Anne’s vision of the Lea from today:

Running through the middle of it all is the much-maligned river Lee, a polluted waterway that dutifully shoulders the burden of being a Londoner. Somehow it still manages to provide a home for waterfowl and wildlife despite the shopping trolleys and stolen mopeds that are regularly thrown into its flow. Right now it appears as sorry as ever, its banks strewn with sand and equipment. Its surface reflects back the desolate industrial expanse. Soon, though, it will be restored to its former glory, the mounds of earth smoothed down and carpeted over with emerald-green turf, dotted with trees.

Her hope that the Lea will soon be restored to its former glory, even if this area has no history as a well drained and landscaped Olympic park, also has a long tradition.  William Morris wrote News From Nowhere in 1890 looking forward to a future when the Lea’s wetland returned to their “natural glory”:

…Beyond that the houses are scattered wide about the meadows there, which are very beautiful, especially when you get on to the lovely river Lea (where old Isaak Walton used to fish, you know) about the places called Stratford and Old Ford, names which of course you will not have heard of, though the Romans were busy there once upon a time.

… Past the Docks eastward and landward it is all flat pasture, once marsh, except for a few gardens, and there are very few permanent dwellings there: scarcely anything but a few sheds, and cots for the men who come to look after the great herds of cattle pasturing there. But however, what with the beasts and the men, and the scattered red-tiled roofs and the big hayricks, it does not make a bad holiday to get a quiet pony and ride about there on a sunny afternoon of autumn, and look over the river and the craft passing up and down, and on to Shooter’s Hill and the Kentish uplands, and then turn round to the wide green sea of the Essex marshland, with the great domed line of the sky, and the sun shining down in one flood of peaceful light over the long distance. There is a place called Canning’s Town, and further out, Silvertown, where the pleasant meadows are at their pleasantest: doubtless they were once slums, and wretched enough.

None of the comments are intended to critique this article, as I’m very happy to see the growing interest in West Ham and the Lower Lea.  I just hope the reporters get past the glamour of the Olympic developments and venture out to see the condition of the rest of West Ham.  I would also like them to pay more attention to the history of this space and the many attempts in the past to remake and clean up the Lower Lea.

This November 16th and 17th, Professor Liza Piper will be visiting UBC for the Nature|History|Society Fall Event.

On Monday, November 16th, Professor Piper will participate in a special Q&A seminar about her new book The Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada. This book, published by UBC Press, explores the history of mining, fishing, and transportation in the large lakes region of Canada’s Subarctic. Professor Piper will speak about the process of researching, writing, and publishing this book and take questions from graduate students and faculty.

Professor Liza Piper

The next day, Tuesday, November 17th, Professor Piper will give a research lecture
on her new project on the history of disease and health in the Canadian North. Her talk, titled “Dying to Be Modern: Bodies, Environment, and Science in the Canadian North,” will present an overview of the disease experiences of northern peoples, beginning in the late nineteenth century, to expose the physical and social connections binding Arctic and Subarctic environments to other places in the world.  It will focus in on a case study to illuminate these ties: a 1949 poliomyelitis outbreak in Chesterfield Inlet on the western shore of Hudson Bay.

Download the PDF poster here.

You can listen to Professor Piper’s interview about another of her projects on the Exploring Environmental History podcast here:

It’s the end of week 1 and we’ve got a great line-up for you today, but unlike with ‘ordinary’ conferences, you can still access all the previous presentations and add your comments at any time. There are some great discussions going on, so why not join in – and maybe win a free book for the best comment of the day!

• Introduction to the Conference: Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter): Why Interdisciplinarity?
• Keynote: Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes): ‘The Rainbow Bridge’: Reflections on Interdisciplinarity in the Cybernetic Age
• Paper: Anne H. Charity Hudley (College of William and Mary) & Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County): Communicating about Communication: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educating Educators about Language Variation
• Paper: Daniel Wasserman Soler (University of Virginia): Language and Communication in the Spanish Conquest of America
• Publishing workshop: Michael Bradshaw (University of Leicester): Why Write a Review Paper? And How to Do It!
• Keynote: David Crystal (University of Wales, Bangor): Language Death: a Problem for All
• Paper: Wendy Turner (Augusta State University): Human Rights, Royal Rights and the Mentally Disabled in Late Medieval England
• Paper: Maeve M. O’Donovan (College of Notre Dame of Maryland): The Status of the Learning Disabled in Philosophy of Mind and Disability Studies
• Paper: Nancy Naples (University of Connecticut): Borderlands Studies and Border Theory: Linking Activism and Scholarship for Social Justice
• Paper: Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University) & Joshua Hagen (Marshall University): Theorizing Borders in a ‘Borderless World’: Globalization, Territory and Identity
• Publishing workshop: Kivmars Bowling (Wiley‐Blackwell): The Online Author’s Survival Guide
• Keynote: Mark Macklin (University of Wales, Aberystwyth): Floodplain Catastrophes and Climate Change: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Riverine Societies
• Paper: Susan Morrison (Texas State University – San Marcos): Waste Studies ‐ A New Paradigm for Literary Analysis, Something is Rotten in the Denmark of Beowulf and Hamlet
• Paper: Tim Cooper (University of Exeter): Recycling Modernity: Towards an Environmental History of Waste

Episode 10 Digital Technologies and Environmental History: October 21, 2009.

How have online digital technologies changed environmental history research, communication, and teaching? This episode of the podcast explores this question in the context of the recent NiCHE Digital Infrastructure API Workshop held in Mississauga, Ontario. Online-based Application Programming Interfaces or APIs are just one digital technology that holds the potential to change the way environmental historians access resources, analyze historical data, and communicate research findings. Within the past decade alone, the development of online digital technologies has offered the potential to transform historical scholarship.

This episode includes a round-table conversation with some leading figures in the realm of digital history as well as an interview with Jan Oosthoek, the producer and host of the Exploring Environmental History podcast.

Please be sure to take a moment and review this podcast on our iTunes page.

Visit the main page at http://niche-canada.org/naturespast

Works Cited

Sean Kheraj, Canadian History & Environment

http://seankheraj.wordpress.com

Dan Cohen’s Website

http://www.dancohen.org/

Digital Campus Podcast

http://digitalcampus.tv/

Heptanesian Archives

http://heptanesia.net/

NYPL Map Rectifier

http://maps.nypl.org

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History

http://canadianmysteries.ca

Environmental History Resources

http://www.eh-resources.org/

Environmental History Teaching

http://www.eh-teaching.org/

MSc. Landscape, Environment & History

http://teaching.shc.ed.ac.uk/esh/msc_landscape/examples/

Music Credits

“I Bid Ye Farewell” by AndyExpandy

“Crayonz” by AndyExpandy

“Expandimonium!” by AndyExpandy

“Pancakes” by AndyExpandy

Postcard of Siwash Rock, Stanley Park

If you’re looking for something to do this Sunday afternoon from 2-4pm, I hope you might find your way to the Joyce Walley Learning Centre at the Vancouver Museum for the Friends of the Vancouver City Archives Fundraiser.

I will be speaking at this event about my research on the environmental history of Stanley Park. My talk, titled “Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History”, will examine the history of Vancouver’s landmark urban park from its distant geological past to the present.

For the full PDF event listing, click here.

Sunday, October 18, 2009
2pm to 4pm at

The Joyce Walley Learning Centre in
The Vancouver Museum at 1100 Chestnut Street

View Larger Map

Leo Hickman’s article on the current condition of the river Lea shows how little has changed since the rapid period of suburban and industrial expansion into its wetlands and river valley in the nineteenth century.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/river-lee-polluted-source

Sadly, the problems identified in this article are not new.   The pollution of the Lea gained national attention a number of times in the second half of the nineteenth century.  In 1855, Alfred Dickens, Charles’ brother, investigated the growth of West Ham in the Lower Lea’s wetlands and found many of the homes built for workers at the Victoria docks and new industry in Stratford dumped their sewage into marsh drainage ditches connected to the Lea’s back rivers. Charles published a newspaper article on the terrible conditions of the Lea’s transformed wetlands in 1857:  http://apps.newham.gov.uk/History_canningtown/cdickens.htm.  In 1866 Cholera hit London and killed a disproportionate amount of people in East London who’s water came from the Lea.  Two investigations, including a Royal Commission on River Pollution, examined the condition of the Lea and found a growing problem of sewage flowing into the same river people drank from.  Unfortunately, the science of pollution and disease remained inconclusive and many people continued to believe sewage became safely oxidized so long as it flowed through running water for a few miles.  As a result, the new body created to manage the river and prevent pollution, the Lee Conservancy Board, did not have enough power to force the growing suburbs along the Lea to build an intercepting sewage drain.  In 1884, a hot summer and drought brought the river’s pollution to national attention once again.  One of a series of letters published in the Times in August of that year proclaimed: “The river is now as black as ink.  The Stench emitted causes everyone to sicken who inhales it” (Thos. Francis, The Times, Aug 21, 1884).  The public uproar led to an extensive investigation by a parliamentary committee.  Joseph Bazalgette proposed a comprehensive new sewage system to drain the growing suburbs in the Lea Valley.  In the end only a partial solution was implemented, against the famous engineer’s public protests, which allowed Tottenham to divert the summer sewage into the London network.  At the end of the century, while East London suffered months of intermittent water supply caused by another drought and an inefficient monopoly controlled water system, Stratford had the added problem of heightened levels of sewage in the Channelsea River.  This back river flowed past some of Stratford’s residential neighborhoods and many important factories. Leyton’s and Walthamstow’s population had grown significantly in recent decades resulting in a growing tide of sewage flowing through Stratford.  With all of the river water diverted for drinking and transportation, there was nothing left to flush this pollution through the town.  These four examples demonstrate how a river once famous for its fishing and fishermen – Izaak Walton - became one of the “ultimate sinks” for London’s urban and suburban developments to dump its sewage and industrial waste.  It does not seem like the we have learned enough lessons from this long history of pollution.

Godafoss Waterfall

Very few Canadian graduate students take classes in Iceland. With support from the Network in Canadian History & Environment, five graduate students from Canadian universities traveled to the North Atlantic island country this past June for a special environmental history summer school in Iceland led by faculty from the Reyjkavik Academy. The school included a total of 12 participants, including famed American environmental historian Donald Worster.

The summer school participants have done a very fine job bringing their experience in Iceland to a wider community of environmental historians through the NiCHE website. While the NiCHE website hosts a number of impressive conference and workshop feature pages, including the Hacking as a Way of Knowing Workshop and the Canadian History & Environment Summer School, this new page offers an excellent model for future projects of this kind.

The Svartárkot Workshop website provides a succinct summary of the events, a complete list of the workshop readings, audio recordings of the lectures, a picture gallery, and a finely detailed annotated map, overlaid with photos. If you weren’t one of the fortunate 12 participants, I would encourage readers to visit the Svartárkot Workshop website.

In particular, I think Donald Worster’s two lectures will appeal to those with an interest in environmental history:

Donald Worster, “Knowing Nature: Science and Environmental History”, June 2009.

Donald Worster, “Darwin, Evolution, and Food”, June 2009.

In this video of a presentation he gave in October 2008, historian George Colpitts of the University of Calgary discusses how the records kept in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives can be used to study the history of climate in Canada.  The records kept by the trading posts and ships of the Hudson’s Bay Company have been used by many different types of Canadian historians (economic historians, gender historians, Native Land Claims researchers). Now they are being used by environmental historians working on the very important topic of historical climate change.

HBC Ships in Hudson Strait, Summer 1819

Colpitts gave this presentation at the Canadian Climate History workshop at the University of Western Ontario. You can watch the other presentations here.

Image Source: Library and Archives Canada.

Episode 9 Environmental History Graduate Studies in Canada: September 21, 2009.

After our brief summer break, the podcast returns with an episode that looks at environmental history graduate studies in Canada. Last May, we recorded a round-table conversation with four environmental history graduate students following the Canadian History & Environment Summer School in Ottawa, Ontario. These students discussed their own experiences studying and researching and they spoke about the unique qualities of environmental history training.

Also, Will Knight, the New Scholars in Canadian History & Environment representative, joins us to talk about the New Scholars group and future project ideas.

Please be sure to take a moment and review this podcast on our iTunes page.

Visit the main page at http://niche-canada.org/naturespast

Works Cited

Sean Kheraj, Canadian History & Environment: http://seankheraj.wordpress.com

Music Credits

“Global Misery” by Pitx

“Ice and Chilli” by _ghost

“Summer Dance” by Pitx

“Going on Vacation” by Pitx