Every month I carefully track the most popular and significant environmental history articles, videos, audio, and other items making their way through the online environmental history (#envhist) community. You can read all of our past #EnvHist Worth Reading lists right here. Here are my choices for items most worth reading from May 2025.
1. 30 years of environmental justice, dismantled in 100 days
As an American living in Canada, I have watched the unfolding work of the Trump administration to target environmental, social justice, scientific, and other initiatives and programs with dread. This piece by Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco for Grist provides an accessible overview of how the current US administration has negatively impacted environmental justice work in just the past few months. Ramirez-Franco shows how the targeting of environmental justice initiatives is directly tied to going after broader civil rights protections, specifically Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If you would like to write about these developments, I’m editing the series, Tracking the Effects: Environmental History and the Current United States Federal Administration, with Shannon Stunden Bower and Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, and we’re accepting submissions on a rolling basis.
2. Berkeley research finds feeders literally reshaped Calif. hummingbirds
I love a coevolution story with potential for deeper historical analysis. Last month the internet was awash with news of a UC Berkeley study that finds that our backyard hummingbird feeders have led to an evolutionary adaptation in range and beak length. The primary researcher, Nicolas M. Alexandre, was actually inspired to undertake the the study after reading a 1928 National Geographic article on the earliest hummingbird feeders.
3. New Books Network – Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America
In this New Books Network – Environmental Studies interview, Daniel Moran sits down with Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin, authors of Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America. They discuss what these chemicals are, their origins, and how they are now impacting the lives of Americans and people globally, as nearly all of us have absorbed them into our bodies. They also discuss grassroots efforts by activists to get these chemicals regulated.
4. Outside/In – Black Sheep Metal
Continuing the ubiquitous toxic substance theme, this episode of Outside/In, part of their “Elements of Surprise” series, looks at lead. They discuss why it is toxic and the history of its use in human society, which goes back thousands of years. They also ask “if medical authorities acknowledge no amount of lead exposure is safe – especially for children – why do so many of us have lead in our water and our homes?”
5. Mount St. Helens: Eyewitness to History, a KGW+ Special
May 18th marked the 45th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, which naturally led to a flurry of content related to the event. In this local take on the anniversary, KGW News of Portland, Oregon, shares historical footage from the time of the eruption and firsthand account interviews.
Feature Image: Electrolytic lead refinery at trail, B.C. Credit: Canada. Dept. of Mines and Technical Surveys / Library and Archives Canada / PA-013656.
