A reminder that you can join our online book talk with John Scanlan on The Idea of Waste: On the Limits of Human Life (Reaktion Books, 2025) tomorrow (Monday 27 Apr 2026), 4pm Central European time / 3pm in the UK / 10 am Eastern Info to join: newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...

Humanities gives you discernment.

As I enter Day #2 of a workshop about A.I. and the humanities, one dominated by philosophers, I am recalling the danger of "charismatic technologies" Charisma is a powerful attribute. But so is wisdom. lareviewofbooks.org/article/sell...

In case you missed it, links for our massive book talk series 👇

You can listen to/watch our recorded Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk conversation with Michael Lobel on Van Gogh & the End of Nature here: 🎥 newnatures.org/greenhouse/e... 🎧 newnatures.org/greenhouse/p... #EarthDay #envhum

I'm thrilled to mark 10 years at University of Nebraska at Kearney. Honored to be part of this dynamic campus. I'm grateful to my student colleagues most and dedicate this to them. It's been a very special thing to share these moments with you over the years. Thank you.

Due to technical difficulties with no internet service for the author, our #envhum book with John Scanlan on The Idea of Waste: On the Limits of Human Life (Reaktion Books, 2025) will be NEXT MONDAY, 27 April, at 4pm in Norway / 3pm in UK. newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...

I'm thrilled to talk about some of my latest scholarship next week at Colorado State University's Sustainable Landscape Collaboratory. If you are in Fort Collins, please stop by. Excited to discuss shelterbelts.

Now available for preorder (publishes in June 2026): Unsettling Extinction, edited by Roman Bartosch, Ursula Heise & Kate Rigby www.bloomsbury.com/uk/unsettlin... I have an article in this called "Extinction as Cultural Heritage"

Excited to see this project with the University Library of Agder and Center for Gender Equality with Dr. Hilde Røsstad. Only wish I lived closer to attend these in person.

“A.I. chatbots contain the sum of all human knowledge” is so egregiously wrong that I don’t know what to say. Chatbots have been trained on corpus of digital(ised) text - ABSOLUTELY NOT the sum of all human knowledge. Paper, experience, embodiment, oral tales all missing. These people are fools!

Spring has started to sprout and the @greenhouseuis.net is looking forward to full month with events on everything from climate justice in education over the sea urchins on the menu to the architecture of low-voltage cabins. 🌿 #envhum

When the NSF was founded in 1950, it was after 5 years of debate and resistance that the agency would be too independent of congressional/presidential oversight... www.science.org/content/arti...

"...any metric of agricultural intensity was always the best predictor of acceleration of the decline.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/c...

Official opening of the PITCH project intervention “Carbon Culture. Museum of the Fossil Fuel Age” at the German Museum of Technology in Berlin tonight. Special congrats go to curators Nora Thorade & Eike Heine who have done a fantastic job.

Someone asked me last week what I thought the worst thing about AI products in higher ed was - I replied that they eroded and destroyed the social compact of trust and expertise between teacher and student.

If this passes, it will be a broken promise (even if less than originally planned) that will be hard to forgive. The arts and humanities are the lifeblood of our state. This is poisonous. And the rationales for going forward with this are equally in bad faith. I'm sad for our state.

New article: Carbon cultures of progress in history of technology museums, by me & Nora Thorade. We examine how #histtech #museums narrate our industrial heritage and make its energy reliance visible or invisible. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #envhist #petrocultures

Humanities Here. Some questions about A.I.: Aren't the short-term risks and hazards too dangerous for very, very maybe positives? How many learning and job casualties are acceptable? Why give our freedom to know over to a machine that steals and flattens for profit?

"I made a lot of money by stealing the work of other people. How should I share my wealth?"

"The computer has begun to be an instrument for the destruction of history. When society legitimates only those 'data' that are in 'one standard format' and that 'can easily be told to a machine,' then history, memory itself, is annihilated." (Weizenbaum, Computer Power & Human Reason, 1976)

It is so important to keep hammering in this point. People always ask me why I would have to go visit archives - why not just look at a scan? Because they haven’t been scanned! And they are never going to be! There are millions & millions of pieces of paper in every archive.

Tomorrow, if you can make it. Kearney Public Library.

On "wishful worries" and other myths of technology (“When someone says ‘algorithm,’ start searching for the people.”) @dcbrock.bsky.social's 2019 essay is worth a re-read lareviewofbooks.org/article/our-...

We need an additional "I might be a robot" button for websites.

I am running a course on the Histories of Energy Transitions this spring, starting 2 March! The course is fully online and asynchronous and it is open to students at ECIU universities as well as anyone enrolled at Norwegian universities. #energyhistory For more information, see below ⤵

We have an online information meeting about our new Masters in Public Environmental Humanities program TODAY (Jan 27) at 14:00 Central European time. If you are interested in finding out more, register to attend the meeting (near bottom of this page): www.uis.no/en/studies/t... #envhist #envhum

Coming up in about 20 min! Hope to see many of you there for the live talk and discussion.

I will be sharing some of my latest research on the history of shelterbelts and conservation in the Great Plains on Februrary 11 (12pm) at Kearney Public Library. And, I'll bring some items to showcase too! Everyone is welcome. Hope to see you.

I have completed one of my favorite LEGO builds of all time: The U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) with accompanying Onizuka Shuttlecraft! Star Trek: The Next Generation is my favorite crew. Boldly Go! @finnarne.me @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social

"A wonderfully readable look at the interface between book history & computer history." — @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social In "README," historian @patrickmccray.bsky.socials uses the oldest literary technology—books—to explain how computers became popular. Available now: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255348...

Just sent back corrected proofs for ‘Outdoor Singing in Modern Britain: A Sensory & Emotional History’ 🥳 Huge thanks to my excellent co-writer @draflint.bsky.social for making this fun as well as incredibly rewarding. Merry Christmas to us! 🥂🎄 www.cambridge.org/core/element...

A must read on the history of chemical plant protection in Norway. More brilliant scholarship from Dr. Hilde Røsstad. #envhum ##envhist ##histsci www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I found a life-changing treasure at Bluestem Books in Lincoln today: A first edition, first printing of "Silent Spring" signed by Rachel Carson!Her writing and advocacy for the environment has always guided me. And now to have such a rare artifact in my personal library is a powerful gift.

First Lego build of the winter season. Hot chocolate stand with special friends Mr. Yeti and R2-D2 to help with cheer.

Creative Human > Generative A.I.

Have been thinking a lot about this hard season we are all living through: Do not wait to tell someone that you love them or delay the gratitude you have for who they are and how they live. Go now with all haste. We need each other more than ever.

I repaired my 1989 Gameboy! It's alive!

One of my life hopes since childhood was to see the northern lights in person. Tonight they found me.

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

Humanities are the heart. We must protect and promote them. They are not dispensable. From 2013:

Take Note. Please support your local humanities council however you can. This is urgent. Humanities are essential to you, me, and us.