Roundtable: What Can Environmental History and the History of Technology Contribute to Today’s Challenges—and How?

This roundtable event provides an opportunity for all participants to give their own responses and ideas to the following questions that frame the mini-series on usable pasts of environmental history and the history of technology:

• What selective or simplistic histories of the environment permeate the thinking of policy-makers, business leaders and opinion-setters and how can they be challenged by historians?
• What helpful analogies to past crises exist and what false analogies should be subjected to criticism?
• In what ways do ‘presentist’ framings of the climate/environment crisis limit our ability to understand its characteristics and potential responses?
• What legacies from the past—institutional, cultural, political, socio-economic, material—constrain action or restrict options for addressing the climate/environment crises?
• What lost or discarded alternatives from the past could enrich our response to climate and environmental change?
• What risks do historians need to be aware of when engaging with contemporary debates on environmental or climate policy and practice?

Rather than responding to prepared inputs, participants are encouraged to consider answers to the above and additional questions of their own in advance of the event, so that—in true roundtable style—everyone is given the space to reflect upon these issues and engage with the comments of others. 

About the Series

This mini-series of online events, entitled "Usable Pasts - Insights from Environmental History and the History of Technology for Today's Challenges," explores the potential—and pitfalls—of enrolling these fields of scholarship to inform, challenge and inspire responses to the climate and environmental crises of our day. It is motivated by the conviction that historians have an important contribution to make to this societal challenge and that their voices need to be better articulated for them to be heard and considered. The organizers invite historians, non-historians and practitioners to exchange ideas and experiences around the practice of using historical knowledge to address modern-day issues. The overarching purpose of the mini-series is to specify what and how historians of technology and the environment can contribute to current debates on the environmental and climate crises and their resolution. The following questions are designed to guide the presentations and inspire the discussions:

• What selective or simplistic histories of the environment permeate the thinking of policy-makers, business leaders and opinion-setters and how can they be challenged by historians? 
• What helpful analogies to past crises exist and what false analogies should be subjected to criticism?
• In what ways do ‘presentist’ framings of the climate/environment crisis limit our ability to understand its characteristics and potential responses?
• What legacies from the past – institutional, cultural, political, socio-economic, material—constrain action or restrict options for addressing the climate/environment crises?
• What lost or discarded alternatives from the past could enrich our response to climate and environmental change?
• What risks do historians need to be aware of when engaging with contemporary debates on environmental or climate policy and practice?

Historical scholarship cannot be expected to provide ready-made solutions to the climate crisis and, indeed, is not equipped to do so. However, it can help practitioners rethink the present, encouraging them to appreciate the temporal context of their aspirations, reflect upon the implications of their actions and reframe their discourses. Taking first steps along this path is the ambition of this mini-series.

If you would like to register, please send an email to Jan-Henrik Meyer. For further information, please visit this website.