{"id":55511,"date":"2025-04-07T12:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T19:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/?p=55511"},"modified":"2025-04-07T12:44:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T19:44:00","slug":"event-what-environmental-history-reveals-about-our-current-planetary-risk-podcast-recording-from-mongabay-newscast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/event-what-environmental-history-reveals-about-our-current-planetary-risk-podcast-recording-from-mongabay-newscast\/","title":{"rendered":"Event: What Environmental History Reveals About Our Current &#8216;Planetary Risk&#8217; Podcast Recording from Mongabay Newscast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mongabay_v2\/img\/logo\/mongabay_logo_news_black.svg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2025\/03\/17050949\/peru_221217-768x512.jpg\" alt=\"Rainstorm over Pillcopata in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by Rhett Butler\/Mongabay.\" width=\"857\" height=\"571\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center\">What environmental history reveals about our current \u2018planetary risk\u2019<\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/podcast\/2025\/03\/what-environmental-history-reveals-about-our-current-planetary-risk\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Recording Link<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Recent and major shifts in international environmental policies and programs have precedent in history, but the scale and urgency of their potential impacts present a planetary risk that\u2019s new, podcast guest\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sunilamrithauthor.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Sunil Amrith<\/a>\u00a0says. A professor of history at Yale University, he joins the show to discuss the current political moment and draw comparisons across time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u200aWhen we look at examples from the past, [societies\u2019 ecological impacts] have tended to be confined to a particular region, to those states, and perhaps to their neighbors. Because of where we are in terms of anthropogenic warming [and]\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/series\/planetary-boundaries\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">planetary boundaries<\/a>, I think the scale of any risk, the scale of any potential crossing over into irreversible thresholds, is going to have impact on a scale that I\u2019m not sure historical precedents would give us much insight into,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Amrith is the author of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wwnorton.com\/books\/9781324007180\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\"><em>The Burning Earth: A History<\/em><\/a>, which examines the past 500 years of human history, colonization and empire, and the impact of these on ecological systems. In this conversation, he details some historical parallels that can be ascribed to the current global political moment \u2014 like the U.S. withdrawal from international agreements such as the Paris climate accord \u2014 and what history can teach us about these actions.<\/p>\n<p>When asked what periods of history resulted in the greatest cooperation and peace, Amrith pointed to the post-World War II era, when \u201cthe U.N. and its agencies \u2014 a flawed but genuine attempt at global cooperation that came from that accompanied [by the] process of decolonization and political freedom coming to most parts of the world, allowing them for the first time to chart their own futures.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"container in-column full-width single-article-meta\">\n<div class=\"about-author gap--16\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10410,"featured_media":34103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[11],"tags":[299,511,8231,398,40,8230],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10410"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55512,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55511\/revisions\/55512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}