#climateheritage — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #climateheritage, aggregated by home.social.
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On the list of Bad Things That Haven't Been Attempted Yet But Are Expected is overturning of the 2009 endangerment finding, which is the legal basis in the US for regulating emissions of greenhouse gasses, as it recognizes them as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
One of the arguments for overturning the endangerment finding is that policy makers in 1970 had no sense of climate change and so couldn't have intended the CAA to address it. Recent research by science historian Naomi Oreskes and team shows that indeed they did have an understanding of climate change and discussion of it was part of development of the CAA. Thus there is sound basis for using the CAA to address climate change.
As the fight against climate change and for the health of the planet continues, we need this research and more like it. So sharing - Happy Earth Day.
#EarthDay2025
#ClimateChange
#ClimateHeritage
#NaomiOreskesAppreciationSocietyYale Climate Communications summary: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/04/the-drafters-of-the-clean-air-act-saw-co2-as-a-pollutant/
original article in Ecology Law Quarterly (Oreskes et al. 2024): https://www.ecologylawquarterly.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/50.3-Oreskes-et-al-InternetReady-1.pdf
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22 years ago I led the first book on the archaeology of how humans learn unfamiliar landscapes. Today I signed the contract for a new companion volume, "Climate Change in Archaeology and Heritage: Learning a Changing World" (working title).
Feeling yay and yikes in equal measure.
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An archaeology of toys may sound like the most inconsequential of things. But new research in Greenland shares evidence that how children learn their environments can shape paths of their communities over generations. I've been wanting to jump up and down about this research and so wish I was doing so now under better circumstances. But as we face climate and all the other changes happening now , it also feels to me as though this work could not be more important.
New Micro-Climate Blog: https://sha.org/archaeology-of-learning-in-the-little-ice-age/2025/02/
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"As current challenges mount against NOAA and other US federal agencies, climate heritage- places, artifacts, and knowledge that track the history of the identification of modern anthropogenic climate change and efforts to address it- may be more important than ever."
New from me and Micro-Climate: https://sha.org/finding-federal-climate-heritage/2025/02/
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Invisibility cloaks do not protect. In this post, Micro-Climate Blog and I start to grapple with impacts of all the US federal changes happening now on our capacity to work with heritage, in its own regard and as part of climate change.
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In the face of climate-accelerated disasters, how can archaeology help? In response to wildfires across the US West, Alta Heritage Foundation has found a way, using skills and techniques of archaeologists to recover what matters most.
With this post, Micro-Climate Blog is relaunched for 2025! With the pace of current news, I feel a need to say - Micro-Climate isn't a take on that. Rather, it's a small piece of a longer process of understanding the world around us. Perhaps, in this way, it can be a small respite.
https://sha.org/look-for-the-helpers/2025/01/
#ClimateHeritage
#Archaeology
#LAFiresAn archive of all Micro-Climate Blogs is here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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A recent survey by the UN Development Program (UNDP) found that 86% of respondents want their governments to work together on climate and more than 50% think about climate change daily or weekly. Results such as these matter because individual action on climate has the most impact when it is aggregated and collective action becomes more possible as individuals hear and feel that others share their concerns and also want to take action.
Which is why it is important and fitting that in early January 2025, The Society for Historical Archaeology, in partnership with the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology, will host its annual conference on the theme Landscapes in Transition - showcasing many of the connections archaeology holds to climate, environment, and other changes in our world. This will bring many different voices on this together.
More on these connections in Micro-Climate #27: https://sha.org/a-global-community-for-landscapes-in-transition/2024/12/
This is the final Micro-Climate post of 2024. I hope you've found this series interesting and useful so far!
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The Svalbard Seed Vault in northern Norway is an important safeguard for plants and the agriculture and ecosystems they support against rising climate stress. But - the archaeological sites in melting permafrost across the Arctic cannot all be put in a vault, nor are there secure safeguards for the culture and knowledge linked to the vaulted seeds.
I jump up and down about this in Micro-Climate Blog #26.
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This fascinates me. British Sign Language (BSL) has added new signs to talk about climate change and related concepts such as sustainability, tipping points, and greenhouse gas emissions. The new signs aren't finger spelling or compilations of existing signs, but rather new sets of motions that convey what is happening or envisioned. In Micro-Climate Blog #25, I of course raise the question of what should a sign for "climate heritage" convey?
https://sha.org/signing-climate-change-and-heritage/2024/12/
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The work of rewilding is not about creating new places where people are not, but relearning ways to live within a range of environments that move beyond histories of dispossession and the values that created them. Micro-Climate Blog #24 shares rewilding work now underway in Ireland and the many threads of understanding this effort is bringing together.
https://sha.org/rewilding-and-relearning-in-ireland-and-elsewhere/2024/12/
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In this week of Thanksgiving in the US, it’s a tradition to look back to experiences of early English colonization in North America. And from grade-school replica Pilgrim hats onward, it’s easy to think we know enough about what happened. But in Micro-Climate Blog #26, new research on dogs during the early settlement of Jamestown is showing us, as historical archaeology so often does, that there is much more to learn about this time - even as climate change is removing some of this capacity out from underneath us.
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I’m firmly of the opinion that if it is possible to reference or highlight the work of Carl Sagan, one should do that. This Micro-Climate Blog #22 reminds us that Sagan testified to Congress about climate change and its anticipated consequences in 1985, and that an alternate path was charted by an eloquent scientist those decades ago. Where we are now was not inevitable.
It also notes that, to date, sciences of archaeology and our ability to study what it means to be human have not found a voice with the range and impact of Sagan. What could such a voice help us see and do now?
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"At the end of September this year, an historic point was reached: England turned off its last coal-fired power plant, ending a 142-year history of coal-fired power in the country...[w]hat happens in climate change is inextricably linked to human action...for this sort of event is where trajectories of history and present-day real-time meet."
Sharing my Micro-Climate blog post here that explores this arc of centuries and its human and landscape contexts.
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Micro-Climate Blog #20! which shares one small step of recognizing and attempting to redress some of the injustice held in a historic marker in Wisconsin, with an eye toward inspiring more local steps that together can lead to global steps.
I also so appreciate the perspective from the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers of the term "prehistoric" which I will do my best to honor and use going forward.
https://sha.org/change-for-culture-and-history-small-and-large/2024/11/
Micro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #19! which looks at climate #COP29 and the fundamental role of archaeology as part of this:
“(T)o maintain a living planet where people and nature thrive, we need action that meets the scale of the challenge…nothing less than a transformation of our food, energy and finance systems.” — World Wildlife Fund (WWF)”
https://sha.org/cop29-and-building-a-vision-from-below-z/2024/11/
#ClimateHeritage
#ClimateChangeMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #18! which shares the power of community archaeology to link past and present, people living now with the land around them and all who have come before.
As we take in the results of the US election and what it will mean for action on climate, raising up those who are strengthening connections between communities and their local environments feels like one of the most important things I can do.
https://sha.org/building-care-and-knowledge/2024/11/
#ClimateHeritage
#Community
#Archaeology
#Election2024Micro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #17! Today is Election Day in the US. If you have not yet voted, please do! And as writer Rebecca Solnit has eloquently said, “a vote isn’t a valentine, it is a chess move for the world you want to live in.” So this blog shares the 2015 For the Well-Being of Future Generations Act of Wales that sets culture and heritage as an essential component of that well-being as one direction in which it may be possible for us to go.
https://sha.org/wellbeing-of-future-generations/2024/11/
#ClimateHeritage
#Wales
#Election2024
#HopeMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #16! which speaks to traditions of Halloween-time that recognize thinning of the separation between worlds. And so it also seems fitting to share recent research on thinning of glaciers in west Antarctica, which brings enough scary to be getting on with-
https://sha.org/ghosts-and-glaciers/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#Glaciers
#Thwaites
#Halloween
#ScaryMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #15! which weaves together layers of water and history in the American West, how people have lived with variable water through time, the diverse cultural values for water held there now, and the importance of deep-time data on water in planning for a climate-changing future
https://sha.org/water-in-the-west/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#Water
#AmericanWest
#ArchaeologyMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #14! in which archaeological practices of finding things that aren't seen on the surface and drawing together multiple lines of evidence to understand them are applied to artificial intelligence (AI) and climate
https://sha.org/digging-into-emissions-from-artificial-intelligence/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#AI
#Energy
#ArchaeologyMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #13! on new capacity to care for heritage in Ukraine and the heart-bending intersections of heritage, conflict, and climate change
https://sha.org/new-help-for-heritage-under-conflict-in-ukraine/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#Ukraine
#Conflict
#HopeMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #12! which looks at a new compilation of historical hurricane tracks and the capacity that archaeology brings to look at how we (meaning a big collective we) remember and incorporate experiences of disasters into how and where we live and how sometimes we don't, and why. Recent hurricanes Helene and Milton have shown us again how climate change is changing and accelerating the devastation hurricanes can bring. In the face of this, our ability to understand more about ourselves is becoming even more important.
https://sha.org/hurricanes-and-history/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#ClimateChange
#HurricanesMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #11! on interconnections of memory, taste, language, biodiversity, loss, and baking.
https://sha.org/because-heritage-isnt-remotely-plain-vanilla/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#ClimateChange
#LossAndDamageMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All Micro-Climate blog posts are here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #10! which looks toward a possible point at which the growing recognition that protection from climate change is a human right and the slower but also developing acknowledgement that heritage is a human right may meet.
https://sha.org/climate-heritage-and-human-rights/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#ClimateChange
#HumanRightsMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All of the blog posts are available here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Micro-Climate Blog #9! which speaks to the ongoing challenge of finding, let alone centering, people in the educational structures being developed for climate change.
https://sha.org/ongoing-challenges-of-relevance-in-climate-education/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#SocialScienceIsAlsoScienceMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All of the blog posts are available here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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It's rare to see cultural heritage integrated into an article about climate adaptation overall. This by Jake Bittle I think does it well.
"In order to make moral evaluations of an adaptation effort...we need to know more about what kind of society we are trying to build once we make it to higher ground."
"One can imagine bringing a holistic approach like Rockman’s to a nationwide adaptation strategy that is centered on the needs of people, rather than the cultural artifacts that are the purview of the National Park Service."
(yes, that Rockman is me).https://grist.org/migration/climate-change-home-buyouts-displacement-managed-retreat/
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Micro-Climate Blog #7! on the ongoing necessity and often invisibility of human behavior in climate action.
This post reminds us that our focus should shift to how quickly governments can ramp up climate policy ambition. This parallels what archaeological research and theory have been saying for over a century - that human responses to environmental stress determine outcomes. This includes transitions in technology and relationships between people, places, and power
https://sha.org/the-ongoing-necessity-and-invisibility-of-human-behavior-in-climate-action/2024/10/
Micro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All of the blog posts are available here: https://sha.org/category/heritage-at-r
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Micro-Climate Blog #5! exploring buildings, adaptive reuse, carbon, architectural connections to place
https://sha.org/an-above-ground-view-climate-and-historic-buildings/2024/09/
Micro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All of the blog posts are available here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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The Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) has launched a new climate blog series - Micro-Climate! - written by me.
Climate change is the outcome of the development of the modern world. Historical archaeology is the study of the development of the modern world. In recognition of this, SHA has set up its "Climate Heritage Initiative" to link the people and practices of historical archaeology with climate research and response more fully.
The new blog, Micro-Climate, is part of building these connections. Twice weekly, climate archaeologist Marcy Rockman (me, and occasionally a guest) will share short discussions of current climate news from an archaeological point of view.
Posts to date include:
Welcome to Micro-Climate!: https://sha.org/welcome-to-micro-climate/2024/09/
International Connection Announcement and Opportunity!: https://sha.org/international-connection-announcement-and-opportunity/2024/09/
Fighting for Global Equity with the IPCC: https://sha.org/fighting-for-global-equity-with-the-ipcc/2024/09/
Present and Past Experiences of Wildfire Management: https://sha.org/present-and-past-experience-of-wildfire-management/2024/09/
SHA isn't yet on Mastodon, so I'll share forward future posts as they go up. All blog posts are available here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
(photo credit: View of buildings on the Merrimack River, Lowell, MA, Boott Mill in foreground, 1910 [source: University of Massachusetts, https://ecs.page.link/DAFXb])
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Sharing this because watching Jon Stewart listening intently to historian Heather Cox Richardson is a joy.
And I would love for his recommendation at the end to become regular practice (with maybe archaeologists and anthropologists added in to the mix):
“I gotta tell you guys something. I think there should be a historian in every conversation- can we use historians as like - mods? As moderators just in every conversation that occurs because there’s so much history that echoes the current state of affairs and it gives you so much context and so much knowledge… It so brings into focus how we got to this current moment and how we get out of it.”
Jon Stewart, 51:38—52:20