Crude Impact
This award-winning film exposes just how deep-rooted our dependency on fossil fuels has become, and what this means for those who live in regions affected by oil extraction and for the future of life itself.
fossil fuels
The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and the Industrial Revolution
The author argues that the analysis of historical energy systems can provide an explanation for the basic patterns of different social formations.
Lajos Racz on "An Environmental History of Hungary"
Lajos Rácz, Carson Fellow from June 2010 to June 2011, talks about his research project, “An Environmental History of Hungary.”
"National Metabolism and Communications Technology Development in the United States, 1790–2000"
National metabolism of the US grew exponentially from 1790 to 2000, increasing 1600 per cent…
"Was Brazilian Industrialisation Fuelled by Wood? Evaluating the Wood Hypothesis, 1900–1960"
Two substantive criticisms of Warren Dean’s ‘wood hypothesis’ are offered here: the wood hypothesis is accurate in general but underestimated the industrial consumption of fossil fuels, without conclusively rejecting the competing ‘hydroelectricity’ hypothesis; the method used for estimating potential energy supply from forest area was erroneous.
"The Paradox of Smokeless Fuels: Gas, Coke and the Environment in Britain, 1813–1949"
In Britain, a large proportion of the soil and groundwater pollution that occurred during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century came from gasworks and coke plants…
"The Limits of Agricultural Growth in the Nineteenth Century: A Case Study from the Mediterranean World"
With reference to the principle of Coevolution between Nature and Society and the nineteenth-century Spanish agricultural sector, this paper aims to verify a fundamental hypothesis and, in so doing, suggest a new way of looking at the past of Mediterranean agriculture and its late incorporation into the more advanced agricultural world.
"Estimates of Air Pollution in York: 1381–1891"
Plume dispersion modelling has been used to estimate the smoke and sulphur dioxide concentrations for historic York in five individual years, 1381, 1672, 1841, 1851, and 1891. Historical data concerning population, housing, industrial distribution, fuel imports and exports have been used to generate a source matrix for sulphur dioxide and smoke for the model.
"From Resource Scarcity to Pollution Problem: The Production and Environmental Impact of a Swedish Alum Works, 1723–1877"
Wood scarcity at Lovers Alum Works (LAW) restricted the amount of alum produced during a large part of the period of activity (1723–1810s). During the shale fuel period (1810s–1877) the emissions of volatile substances such as cadmium and sulfur increased.
Graphics: The Last 420,000 Years of Climate Change
Two graphs covering the last 420,000 years. One indicates the concentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere, the other fluctuation in the average temperature on earth. Both include predictions for the remainder of the twenty-first century.