Shannon Lectures, Winter 2023
Convenor: Professor聽Joanna Dean, Department of History, 杏吧原创 University.
Climate Histories
A series of Monday night lectures on the history of weather and climate, held at 7 PM 杏吧原创 Dominion-Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper St., Ottawa, or online. Sponsored by the Shannon Endowment through the Department of History, 杏吧原创 University. Co-presented with the support of the聽Department of Geography and Environmental Studies.
Registration is recommended.
January 9:聽Climate in the Age of Empire: Three Centuries of Canadian Weather Observations
7 PM 杏吧原创 Dominion-Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper St., Ottawa
Victoria Slonosky, McGill University
Canada has a long聽scientific heritage in weather and climate observations. Letters, diaries and weather records from the 18th and 19th centuries tell us not only about the weather, but about the people, 聽relationships and networks that existed in North America and Europe. They reveal the history of theories聽about聽weather and climate change in Canada as far back as the 1740s.
These records are not only interesting for the history of science: they鈥檙e also used in current scientific research. Millions聽of weather observations have been transcribed thanks to citizen science during the 2010s: analysis of these observations for the St-Lawrence Valley region reveals some surprising results for climatic change and variability, extreme events and hazardous weather.
Biography:
Victoria Slonosky is an historical climatologist. She is currently leading McGill鈥檚 Data Rescue: Archives and Weather (DRAW) interdisciplinary citizen science project and is an affiliated member of McGill鈥檚 Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal. Her book,听Climate in the Age of Empire: Weather Observers in Colonial Canada, tells the story of Canada鈥檚 scientific heritage in the field of climatology.
January 16:聽Observation Nation
7 PM 杏吧原创 Dominion-Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper St., Ottawa
Alan MacEachern, Western University
When the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) was founded in 1871, it saw its principal duty as enlisting an army of ordinary Canadians in daily weather聽observation, with the long-term goal of a steadily improved understanding of the nation鈥檚 weather and climate. But the government and public were so enticed by the possibilities of weather聽prediction聽that the MSC was soon drawn into that. Meanwhile, the observers continued jotting down both quantitative data (temperature, precipitation, etc.) and qualitative remarks (about the changing seasons, extreme weather, etc.) 鈥� but the MSC never found a way, or the time, to use the qualitative ones. With the Environment Canada meteorological collection now at Western University,听Alan MacEachern聽is studying what these records can tell us about Canada鈥檚 weather, climate, and people.
Biography:
Alan MacEachern聽teaches history at Western University. He is the author of聽The Miramichi Fire: A History聽(McGill-Queen鈥檚, 2020) and co-author of聽The Summer Trade: A History of Tourism on Prince Edward Island聽(McGill-Queen鈥檚, 2022). He is writing a book about the first century of the MSC鈥檚 observation program.
January 23:聽Resilience and Adaptation in the History of Climate and Society
Online lecture
Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown University
The cause and likely magnitude of today鈥檚 global warming have no parallel in human history. Yet Earth鈥檚 climate has changed repeatedly over the 300,000-year history of our species. This talk will explain how and when it has changed 鈥� and how researchers know it has. It will then introduce the History of Climate and Society (HCS), an interdisciplinary field that considers how human populations responded to past climate changes. It will describe popular case studies in the field that identify vulnerability to climate change in past populations and focus on examples of crisis and collapse. It will then introduce new research in the disciplines of archaeology and history that uncovers examples of resilience to climate change in past populations. It will describe a series of strategies that these populations used to endure, adapt to, and even exploit past climate changes, and it will consider the extent to which we can learn from them.
Biography:
Dagomar Degroot is an associate professor of environmental history at Georgetown University. His first book,听The Frigid Golden Age, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018 and named by the聽Financial Times聽as one of the ten best history books of that year. His next book,听Ripples in the Cosmic Ocean, is under contract with Harvard University Press and Viking. He publishes equally in historical and scientific journals, including聽Nature聽and the聽American Historical Review, and writes for a popular audience in, for example, the聽Washington Post,听Aeon Magazine, and聽The Conversation. He maintains popular online resources on the history of climate change, including the podcast Climate History. He has shared the unique perspectives of the past with policymakers, corporate leaders, and journalists in many countries, from Wuhan to Washington, DC.
February 6:聽Climate Diplomacy and its Histories: Inside the IPCC
7 PM 杏吧原创 Dominion-Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper St., Ottawa
Ruth Morgan, Australian National University
A planetary challenge such as climate change suggests the logic of an international collaborative response. The climate diplomacy that emerged at Fukuyama鈥檚 鈥榚nd of history鈥� was founded on the notion that its technocratic internationalism, underpinned by climate expertise, offered a politically neutral alternative to liberalism. These origins encouraged the expectation that climate diplomacy would neatly follow scientific advances, and produce multilateral solutions to the climate problem. That this process has proven to be more complicated warrants further inspection. In the wake of the conclusion of the IPCC鈥檚 Sixth Assessment cycle, this paper reflects on this organisation鈥檚 turn towards the humanities and social sciences in its efforts to inform the climate diplomacy of the early twenty-first century.
Biography:
Ruth Morgan is the Director of the聽聽at the Australian National University. She has published widely on the climate and water histories of Australia and the British Empire, including her award-winning book,听Running Out? Water in Western Australia聽(2015). Her current project, on environmental exchanges between British India and the Australian colonies, has been generously supported by the Australian Research Council and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She was a Lead Author on the Water chapter in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change鈥檚 Assessment Report 6, and co-author of Cities in a Sunburnt Country: Water and the Making of Urban Australia (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Her next book聽Climate Change and International History聽is under contract with Bloomsbury.