In the 21st episode of Climate History, co-host Emma Moesswilde interviews Debjani Bhattacharyya, Associate Professor of History at Drexel University. Professor Bhattacharyya is among the most innovative scholars of past climate change, and the histories she uncovers have clear relevance for the future of the Indian Ocean World.

Moesswilde and Bhattacharyya discuss the history of human responses to climate change at sea; the role of environmental disasters in shape urban trajectories; the role of insurance markets in creating weather knowledge; and how transdisciplinary perspectives on the past can inform our understanding of a hotter future. 

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In the 20th episode of Climate History, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde interview Jim McClure, General Editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson at Princeton University. Recently, Director McClure spearheaded the creation of a unique and important digital resource: a repository of Jefferson’s abundant observations of the weather and climate of his time.

McClure discusses the creation of the Jefferson Weather and Climate Records; explains what visitors can find using this resource; describes how Jefferson wrote about the weather of his time; and details why scholars and students interested in climate change should put "Jefferson to use without accepting all that he was or did."

To listen to this episode, click here to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, you can still listen by following us on SoundCloud or Spotify. 

In the 19th episode of Climate History, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde discuss their work on a major article in the journal Nature. The article coins a new term – the “History of Climate and Society” (HCS) – to refer to the truly interdisciplinary study of the past impacts of climate change on human populations. It offers a detailed critique of the field as it has been pursued to date, presents a new research framework for HCS scholars, and shows how the application of that framework can permit new scholarship into the resilience and adaptability of populations that faced the modest, pre-industrial climate changes of the past 2,000 years. It also identifies five “pathways” that allowed populations to endure and even exploit these changes - pathways from which we might learn today.
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Dagomar Degroot, lead author of the study, explains how he assembled the team responsible for the article, and details the article's most important findings about the past. He describes how HCS studies can move forward from here - and reveals what this scholarship can tell us about our future on a warming planet. 

To listen to this episode, click here to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, you can still listen by following us on SoundCloud or Spotify. ​

In the 18th episode of Climate History, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde interview Vicki Arroyo, Executive Director of the Georgetown Climate Center and Professor from Practice at Georgetown Law. Professor Arroyo explains which climate policies have worked across the United States, and identifies where emissions reductions will be hardest to achieve. She emphasizes a pressing need for greater adaptation across America, and describes which policies the Biden Administration should pursue to confront the Climate Crisis.

To listen to this episode, click here to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, you can still listen by following us on SoundCloud or Spotify. 

In the 15th episode of Climate History, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde interview Kathryn de Luna, Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University.

​Professor de Luna combines paleoscience, archaeology, and historical linguistics to explore the deep history of eastern, central and southern Africa before the 20th century. At Georgetown, she is on the cutting edge of developing new courses and teaching methods that introduce students to ways of understanding the past that go well beyond the traditional practice of history. In this episode, Professor de Luna describes the courses she teaches; outlines the potential and peril of multidisciplinary learning; and gives concrete advice for how to make university education truly multidisciplinary.

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In the 13th and most unusual episode of Climate History, our podcast, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde ​share their reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic, in light of their expertise as environmental historians.

Among other topics, Degroot and Moesswilde consider how historians might someday write about the pandemic, interrogate the parallels between COVID and climate reporting, and imagine how (and how not) to draw lessons from the era of social distancing for the even bigger fight against climate change.

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In the 12th episode of Climate History, co-hosts Dagomar Degroot and Emma Moesswilde interview Amy Hessl of West Virginia University and Valerie Trouet of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona. Hessl and Trouet are two of the world's leading paleoclimatologists. They scour the Earth to measure the growth rings in trees, which they use to uncover ancient climate changes that likely influenced the fate of past societies. Among other work, they have led groundbreaking studies that identified ancient changes in atmospheric circulation, hurricane frequency, the prevalence of  wildfires, and even the precipitation patterns that may have set the stage for the expansion of the Mongol Empire. 

In this interview, we discuss the nature of tree ring research, the challenge of communicating its insights to the public, and Professor Trouet's groundbreaking new book, Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings.

To listen to this episode, click here to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. If you don't have iTunes, you can still listen by clicking here.