Dagomar Degroot

In this episode, I take listeners (or readers!) through the history of the archaeological and scientific research that has revealed the history of this community, at an archaeological site now known as Star Carr. I ask: can - and should - their history give us hope in a warming world? #EnvHist

YouTube video by Dagomar Degroot The Bones at Star Carr: Trailer for Episode 13 of The Climate Chronicles

The newest (13th!) episode of The Climate Chronicles is truly special to me. I zoom in on one little community that survived #ClimateChange 11,000 years ago.

Here's a trailer. You find the full episode wherever you listen to podcasts, or at TheClimateChronicles.com.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWj...

And great to see this @newscientist.com article on Ripples, "an epic book" that "shows how important it has been for humans to look outwards." #EnvHist #Astronomy #Environment #Climate

The @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social version of "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean" is out today! It includes an audiobook, which I recorded last December at a sound studio here in Washington, DC. Now you can read or listen to the book, even if you live outside of the US and Canada. #History 1/2

And if you're interested in the making of the Chronicles, check out this new article. #EnvHist #ClimateChange #History #Archaeology
online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article...

I'm really excited about the third season of the Chronicles! Combining archaeology, history, and the paleosciences, it explores the early Holocene, taking listeners (or readers) through everything from the drying of the Sahara to the experiences of a small community beside a dried-out lake.

This episode's story centers on the Natufians of the Levant. Natufian communities teetered on the brink of farming just as much of the world cooled and dried at the end of the last Ice Age. I ask a single, deceptively simple question: Did climate change make agriculture inevitable?

YouTube video by Dagomar Degroot The Natufian Wager: Trailer for Episode 12 of The Climate Chronicles

The Climate Chronicles is back!

Season 3 — Into the Holocene — opens with one of the great turning points in human history: the emergence of agriculture.

Here's a trailer. You find the full episode wherever you listen to podcasts, or at TheClimateChronicles.com.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSfq...

How our planet connects to the Solar System around it | Instant Genius We often think of our planet as an isolated island, solitary and cut off from the cosmic ocean it resides in. But the truth is, Earth is intimately connected w…

Human history was shaped not only by the non-human Earth, but also by dynamic cosmic environments swirling around our planet - or so I argue in "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean." Here's a new discussion about the book, on the BBC's Instant Genius podcast. #EnvHist #Space www.rova.nz/podcasts/ins...

Our Ancestors Coped with the Collapse of Ocean Currents. Can We? - Science Politics Climate history points to past disasters, but it also suggests strategies for survival.

The 2nd article in my new column explores the possible collapse of a crucial system of Atlantic Ocean currents. I explain why such a collapse has happened before, describe how a collapse would affect us today, and propose a plan of action. #ClimateChange #EnvHist sciencepolitics.org/2026/02/11/o...

Check out "Ocean Empire," a column on entanglements between the US, "an empire of political and cultural influence" and another empire, "the global ocean, which makes up 70 percent of our planet" - by the brilliant ecologist and journalist @fieseler.bsky.social.

sciencepolitics.org/2026/02/05/o...

'The past is an underused tool': An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm In a deadly cold period known as the Little Ice Age, clever Elizabethan designs kept a magnificent stately home unusually warm – with lessons for how we can heat our own homes better.

I enjoyed speaking with Graihagh Jackson of the BBC about the adaptations to #ClimateChange that may be embedded within Elizabethan architecture. History, I maintain, is an underused tool for helping us understand the present and imagine possible futures. #EnvHist www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Really enjoyed chatting with Greg McNiff about "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean." In a wide-ranging conversation, we touch on everything from dreams of terraforming Mars and colonizing Venus to the role of solar storms and asteroid impacts in shaping history. #EnvHist newbooksnetwork.com/ripples-on-t...

A NewSpace Age Is Upon Us - Science Politics SpaceX and Blue Origin offer two different visions for the future: create Planet B, or preserve Earth. Which will it be?

In my debut article, I introduce the New Space (or "NewSpace") Age - the era in which big corporations and emerging space agencies set the agenda in outer space. As I argue in my article, some visions of its future are far better than others. #Futures #SpacePolicy sciencepolitics.org/2026/01/13/a...

Horizons of Humanity - Science Politics Introducing a new column on the existential risks and opportunities that will shape humanity’s future.

Introducing my monthly column, "Horizons of Humanity," for a new magazine-slash-journal: Georgetown's "Science Politics." In the column, I'll explore what the past could tell us about a future that's still full of promise, but feels more precarious by the day. sciencepolitics.org/2026/01/13/h...

“History is full of examples of profound regional droughts. As we're heading into the future, drought seems to be becoming a lot more common, more severe.”

@dagomardegroot.bsky.social & @alimacewen.bsky.social talk about climate change’s role in societal collapse.
www.landclimate.org/regime-change/

The Nautilus Winter Reading List 2025 The Nautilus Winter Reading List 2025: Ten books we loved to start your new year off right.

Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean is "one of the most fascinating histories of space exploration we know," according to Nautilus, because it shows how "space exploration doesn’t distract us from urgent Earthy issues; it helps us solve threats to Earth." #EnvHist nautil.us/the-nautilus...

Climate Lab Book Discussions on various aspects of climate science. Click to read Climate Lab Book, by Ed Hawkins, a Substack publication.

📣 New estimates shed light on late-18th century temperatures!

🕰️🌡️🌎 New research provides the first global record from near-surface air temperature measurements, peering back in time to the late-18th century.

Read more about it here: brnw.ch/21wYn3Z

10 Years After Paris, China Is Shaping Our Climate Future The seminal global climate agreement changed the world, just not in the way we thought it would.

This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. I wrote about the biggest change to global climate politics since its passage: The climate story *is* the China story now, and how countries pursue decarbonization is itself a wager on China’s future. heatmap.news/climate/pari...

In "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean," I chronicle how early efforts to defend against #asteroid and #comet impacts broke down over a simple question: should we focus on asteroids big enough to alter Earth's climate, or should we care about smaller city-killers, too? Today, we can do both! #EnvHist

The Scientific American Staff’s Favorite Books of 2025 Here are the 67 books Scientific American staffers couldn’t put down this year, from fantasy epics to gripping nonfiction

Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean, "a fascinating tour of the environmental history of the inner solar system," is a @sciam.bsky.social favorite book of the year. Check out the other books (both nonfiction and fiction) on the list! #Space #EnvHist #History www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

Thanks! I’m recording it in a couple weeks.

🔭 The new @esa.int budget secured today is a big deal imho. +30% compared to the current budget with largest chunk going to space transportation ie 🚀. Science/astro is also getting a big bump, which DG Aschbacher called ”the backbone of the ESA programme”. Some funding optimism to close off 2025! 💫🥹

I've now written ten articles for @nichecanada.bsky.social, and I've long worked with environmental historian/cartographer extraordinaire @geoffmakesmaps.bsky.social, so this is special to me. A beautiful representation of 20+ years of increasingly global #EnvHist.

#40 - Dr. Dagomar Degroot (GT)

Mira Sha is a high school junior - and an emerging leader in #ClimateChange communication. She recently interviewed me for her podcast, "Signs of Change." And check out her other short interviews - she's got more than 40! open.spotify.com/episode/1d79...

3 years ago, NASA crashed the DART spacecraft into an asteroid at 22,000 kilometers per hour. The event changed the asteroid's orbit and tilt & sent it tumbling.

A nearby cubesat captured these remarkable images of the asteroid immediately after the impact. 🧪🔭

aasnova.org/2025/11/03/s...

The students who developed a plan to stop Armageddon In the 1960s, when the possibility of an asteroid impact alarmed the American public for the first time, MIT students drafted a blueprint for saving the Earth.

How do you teach when the world could be ending? In this new article, I show how, in the 1960s, an MIT course provided a possible answer. Students were tasked with stopping an inbound asteroid - and worked out the principles of planetary defense. #EnvHist www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

I got it... I actually got it... Interstellar comet 3i, imaged from the middle of light-polluted Kendal, at 6am this morning, using my Seestar S50... This comet was already billions of years old before our Sun was even *born*... Very chuffed with this!

My new book will be out in early December 2025 via
@mitpress.bsky.social

Details at: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255348...

#HistSci #Computing #History #Books 🗃️

U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students

This is lunacy. The Chinese scholars I know are among the hardest working, most selfless people I've ever encountered. They want to contribute to our intellectual endeavors, and they make our research teams better.