My week at @historicivertellen.bsky.social has come to an end. For anyone reading Dutch, I spun this long thread, highlighting some of the most interesting finds from my dissertation research.

Wish I could attend this one!

✨For our second talk in this semester’s colloquium series, @mininghistory.bsky.social will present “Mining the Past: What is the role of historians in the mining industry?”⛏️📜 📅 Date: November 24, 2025 ⏰ Time: 3:00–4:30 PM CET Learn more and register: bit.ly/MiningThePast #histSci

Hopeful sci-fi?

Voor vanmiddag lees ik met collega's 'Chaos in the Heavens' van Jean-Baptiste Fressoz en Fabien Locher, waarin ze de vergeten geschiedenis klimaatdebat van grofweg 1492 tot midden 20ste eeuw reconstrueren. Goed moment om even door andere klimaatboeken te bladeren.

Het duurde vrij lang voordat stoomgemalen een grote rol kregen in de Nederlandse waterhuishouding, maar met de kennis van nu—iets met kolenverbranding en zeespiegelstijging—krijgen zulke plaatjes een hele andere betekenis.

De klimaatcrisis is volgens Fressoz en Locher een schok omdat vanaf ca. 1900 twee verhalen de overhand hadden gekregen: het Aardse klimaat is op grote tijdschalen vrij stabiel én moderne samenlevingen hebben weinig te vrezen van kleine veranderingen.

Deze prachtige draad maakt echt nieuwgierig!

Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

Een ‘zondvloedland,’ zo karakteriseerde ik het beeld van de Lage Landen in 17de- en 18de-eeuwse geleerde natuurgeschiedenissen. Het denken over het verleden van de Aarde bewoog tussen Bijbelse zondvloed en de volgende dijkdoorbraak, tussen schriftgeleerden en turfstekers. 1/

Even voorstellen: ik bestudeer de kennisgeschiedenis van klimaat en milieu. In 2023 promoveerde ik aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op een proefschrift over Aardgeschiedenissen in de zeventiende- en achttiende-eeuwse Lage Landen, ofwel geologische ideeën lang voordat ‘geologie’ bestond. 1/4

Sinds een jaar werk ik bij het Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis in Amsterdam. Het @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social is niet alleen een KNAW-onderzoeksinstituut, maar heeft ook eigen collecties en archieven over de lange en internationale geschiedenis van arbeid en sociale bewegingen. 1/5

This week I'll take over a Dutch account offering a platform to historians to present their research and daily work to a wider audience. Expect a few more Dutch posts!

Komende week neem ik @historicivertellen.bsky.social over om te vertellen over mijn onderzoek naar de lange geschiedenis van de energie- en klimaatvraagstukken. Goede timing in de tweede week van #COP30.

Deze week vertel ik hier over mijn werk: Mathijs Boom, historicus bij het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG) in Amsterdam. Veel van mijn onderzoek draait om de lange geschiedenis van de klimaatcrisis, nu weer extra zichtbaar dankzij de COP30 in Belém.

Interesting agro-environmental history PhD projects in Basel: “Agents of trust: The spread of fertilizers in Turkey 1930s-1960s”: jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...

Well… “2025 is effectively tied with 2024 as the highest global CO2 emissions on record.”

5 more days to get your submissions in on the topic “Critical Minerals and Media Technologies.” We can't wait to read your submissions! @mediaenviron.bsky.social @gustavelester.bsky.social

Here's a look at the extent of the "warmth" across the #Arctic in October. This map uses my normal anomaly scaling for each month, but it clearly doesn't work for something this extreme. Data from doi.org/10.24381/cds...

On the glorious Congo peatlands and their "underground forests". “It’s not the storms,” he said. “It’s the ditches. A single trench can flip a healthy peat forest into a carbon source within a few seasons.” www.fossewaytreeservices.co.uk/11-11-2025/1...

To all concerned with climate finance! In my article published in @climate-policy.bsky.social, I find that overlooking the influence of banks’ types of equity on sustainable lending narrows the scope of analysis and limits the tools available to reach Paris-aligned portfolios. See abstract for more!

I cannot believe that I didn't know Namibia's first president Sam Nujoma wrote a masters' thesis about copper mining in Southern Africa after retiring from politics!

Sunrise like this improves even the most agro-industrial farmland.

Met plezier neem ik vandaag het stokje over: Suze Zijlstra, universitair docent publieksgeschiedenis van het slavernijverleden aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam, onderzoeksconservator bij Het Scheepvaartmuseum, en auteur van 'De Voormoeders. Een verborgen Nederlands-Indische familiegeschiedenis'.

Apply now for a free week-long PhD course on Energy Humanities organized by the Greenhouse and the project Energy Lives! project run by @melinabuns.bsky.social Takes place in Stavanger, Norway, 1-5 December 2025 www.uis.no/en/research/... #envhum #envhist #energy

This is why everyone needs at least a mild form of climate denial to function.

I found this a really illuminating thread on what demonstrations do and why they matter.

In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.

2 doctoral positions on the '(Dis)Empowered Communities: A Comparative Study of Decommissioning Nuclear Sites' project led by Davide Orsini at the @carsoncenter.bsky.social Deadline: 30 November #histtech #envhist #energyhistory #nuclearhistory www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/about_rcc/jo...

Open PhD position at KTH: "AI Planetary Futures: Climate and environment in Silicon Valley's AI paradigm". Apply by Oct 23! lnkd.in/dCs8eZjb The project analyzes the climate and environmental aspects of Silicon Valley-based general-purpose AI systems developed by Big Tech companies.

There are many versions of this nuclear fuel cycle diagram, but I like this hand-drawn one with a little A-bombs being jettisoned by various nodes in the process.

Volgende week dinsdagavond bij het IISG!

This Friday, 12h, I'll talk more about the place of Urenco's enrichment facilities in Almelo and Namibian uranium in the Dutch nuclear debates of the 70s at the @uvahumanities.bsky.social's Environment & Society seminar.

Cool posters for what turned out to be the largest ever demonstration against nuclear facilities in the Netherlands, in March 1978. The one about Brazil's military dictatorship is creepy though, with its 'third world' imagery.

Volgende week dinsdagavond bij het IISG!

I am really excited to announce the call for the PhD Course in Energy Humanities! Held at the @greenhouseuis.net from 1-5 December. Applications are welcome until 24 October. #envhum #envhist #energyhistory

Het is nu ondenkbaar dat er honderdduizenden mensen de straat op gaan tegen kernenergie en -wapens, zoals in de jaren '80 gebeurde. Terwijl minstens zo actueel is. Voor iedereen die meer wil weten over de antikernenergiebeweging tot nu toe. iisg.amsterdam/nl/events/de... @mathijsboom.bsky.social

Ubiquitous assumptions about ‘peak oil’ and shifts in energy use, in a ‘82 DHV report about Dutch energy policy and developing countries.

Back to 80s energy scenarios at the Nationaal Archief where letters offer a good reminder of serious ’computing costs’. Modeling futures demanded time, energy and digital infrastructure.

Our Institute’s Colloquium Program 2025–26 is now available online! This year we will be "Rethinking Time in the History of Science" 🕰️⌚️ 📍 MPIWG & Harnack-Haus 🔗 For the full program and information on registration, please check bit.ly/42Zq98m #HistSci #DeepTime #Anthropology #ReligiousStudies

Western politicians love the excuse “Why should we invest in renewables when China isn’t doing anything?” adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-... Well, this is what China is upto: China installing wind & solar equivalent of 5 nuclear plants per week globalenergymonitor.org/report/china...

250.000 marching in Amsterdam, in solidarity with Gaza, and to ask our government to finally draw a f-ing line.

Very happy to announce that the Handbook of the Historiography of Earth and Environmental Sciences I coedited with Elena Aronova and Marco Tamborini is now available, for free (open access) via this link: link.springer.com/referencewor...

Still love this Erdrich story: “A stone is a thought that the Earth develops over inhuman time.” podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/t...

Gotta love the poster collection at @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social

1974 thoughts on the 'distant future' (2015) from a Dutch committee for energy research: modeling pol and soc-econ change is silly, but modeling demand for energy and raw materials is less so.

Stunning indeed. Reminded Jason Grek-Martin and Bruce Braun's research ("vertical territory") on the geological survey of Haida Gwaii in 1878 by George Dawson. Dawson took ethnographic notes and simultaneously disappeared the Haida in his geological maps—irrelevant to future extractive purposes.

Scenario methods (like models) have a complicated legacy: they did (and do) help to think through consequences of intended policies, but they also have their own "politics of anticipation" (doi.org/10.1017/sus....), helping to bring about the worlds they imagine.

Fascinating gov't archives on Dutch energy scenarios of the late 70s and early 80s: in the wake of the Arab oil boycot and intense public debate about nuclear energy different policy scenarios for 2000 and 2025 were developed, including a zero-growth one.

Voor de maand van de geschiedenis en als onderdeel van ons onderzoeksproject organiseren we bij het @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social een avond over het kernenergiedebat van nu in historisch perspectief: over activisme, energietransities en een reactor in je achtertuin. iisg.amsterdam/nl/events/de...