JD Roberts

a green beetle against bright white grit

Green tiger beetle, Cicindela campestris

A green grasshopper perched on the edge of a leaf facing the camera

Common green grasshopper, Omocestes viridulus

My rule of thumb with quantitative data is that it's better to have simple graph or table which tells your reader something useful than a fancy analysis which tells your reader nothing because it's wrong

I'm delighted that @royalhistsoc.org has published our roundtable article on 'The Future of (Environmental) History'.

This came out of a workshop in April 2023 with @northernenvhistory.bsky.social

I've summarised our paper (link to OA article) in a blog 👇

blog.royalhistsoc.org/2025/07/27/f...

Hope / Magic, by MEANS 12 track album

“We can choose to submit to the hopelessness of the world, dense, intoxicating as it is - or we can choose to find hope in every small nook and cranny, every minor act."

Some great stuff in the latest MEANS, including two of our tracks!
meansmag.bandcamp.com/album/hope-m...

Exciting news! A new publication by ‪@hibbertsalex.bsky.social, @islayshelbourne.bsky.social @thenickpepper.bsky.social @alexworsfold.bsky.social @robertsuits.bsky.social @jdroberts.bsky.social (amongst others) which developed from our first workshop back in 2025. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A white butterfly seen from the side with its wings closed perched on a white flower

Small white (Pieris rapae)

Noticing my perennial irritation with universities and buzzword brigade academics talking about interdisciplinary research without doing anything about the structural barriers which make it bloody difficult to actually do coming through again here, but oh well

Our thingy on environmental history is out! In which we talk about interdisciplinarity, scale, interdisciplinarity, landscapes, the place of the discipline within institutions, and interdisciplinarity again doi.org/10.1017/S008...

‘Long-lived and lucky’ ship wrecked off Orkney was at siege of Quebec, experts find Archaeologists and volunteers identify Sanday timbers as from 18th-century Royal Navy frigate turned whaler

'archaeologists and local volunteers have managed to identify the ship and to piece together the surprising history of a vessel that witnessed some of the most dramatic events of the 18th century before finally being wrecked off Sanday in 1788.' 1/2

The impact of multiple infections and community knowledge on engagement with a historical deworming programme: hookworm and Ascaris in Jamaica, 1913–1936 AbstractIntroduction. Community engagement with public health efforts often depends on existing knowledge of a health issue.Methods. Here, qualitative anal

Sharing one of my favourites again. We showed how an ecological relationship between two parasitic worms (widespread coinfections) became an epistemic relationship: widespread folk knowledge of one worm promoted uptake of biomedical knowledge and treatment of the other doi.org/10.1093/trst...

Jamaican Petrel was Pterodroma caribbea, extinct circa 1879. It is depicted as a typical dark petrel with a white rump.

Bird Book of the Dead no. 47 - Jamaican Petrel

There have been several petrel extinctions, but as species that are often both pelagic and nocturnal it can be difficult to determine where extinctions happen. In the case of the Jamaican Petrel it hasn't been confirmed since 1879.

My feeling is always that sheep farming is part of our cultural heritage and it would be a shame to lose it entirely, but we don't need 13.8 million sheep, many of which are essentially ornamental and paid for by the state, and are also ecologically destructive. There's middle ground to be had here

Yesterday's sitting in the shade with a synth

An orange grasshopper perched on the intersection of three red grass stems. The grasshopper faces upwards towards the left-hand side of the picture

I don't think I'd ever seen a grasshopper quite this shade of bright orange before! Didn't get a definitive species ID, but I think it's probably a common green (Omocestes viridulus)

A brown grasshopper sat on dark green bracken

Field grasshopper Corthippus brunneus sat in a sunbeam

I read about the government's NHS plans and think "improved and better-funded primary heathcare is very welcome, but I'm not at all convinced by these fancy new technologies." And then I get historical deja vu because we've been having this debate for the best part of a century, if not longer

A red beetle taking flight from a white flowerhead

Takeoff (Soldier beetle, Rhagonycha fulva)

Well yes, I agree, but the question then is what kind of society embraces capitalism, knowing what it does?

Number of new UK entry-level jobs has dived since ChatGPT launch – research Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32%, Adzuna finds

What kind of society produces a generation of educated, skilled and motivated young people, tells them work is a moral good and that working hard is the greatest of virtues, and then won't *let* them work? What could possibly justify that sort of cruelty?
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

A small orange butterfly perched on a grass seedhead

Small skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris)

A chocolate-brown butterfly with three dark spots on the forewind and five dark spots on the hindwing perched on a buttercup flower. Its proboscis is visible, but curled up. Aphantopus hyperantus

Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus) season is upon us

The mindset behind LLMs feels very alchemical to me. The philosopher's stone promised to turn lead into gold, and LLM boosters promise to turn terrible data into intelligence. 'Garbage in, garbage out' no longer applies: if you simply put enough garbage in, they say, you will magically get gold out

The more I look at this data, the less usable it seems

Ah okay, I see what you mean! I think that says something interesting about ideas around control - livestock are assumed to be 'under control' while INNS are thought of as out-of-control by default, and needing to be controlled through scientific violence

I don't think I understand what you mean by innate here? Obviously there's never been a problem-free society, but the environmental effects of industrial capitalism are different to those of agricultural manorialism, for example, neither is innate to humans or cows, even though both involve them

Tbh I dislike the impulse to frame 'humans' as the problem: I think it obscures the actual problems, which are social, political and economic in nature and not innate to humans at all. Unlike invasive species we get to choose our (socio)ecologies, and we can and should choose better ones!

I can't say this was a particularly enjoyable paper to be involved in, but I think we were right to write it

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

Ecologists’ horror as nature reserves around the world are emptied of insects - with rising temperatures joining habitat destruction as likely causes:

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Did Somebody Say…Ambient? Music Podcast · Ambient music podcast showcasing under the radar artists and creators making music in the ambient genre.

Very pleased that me and Dmytro are on the latest episode of the legendary Did Somebody Say...Ambient? podcast introducing one of our new tracks!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...