#EnvHist Worth Reading: February 2026

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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 February 2026.

1) “To Wither in the Same Way We Shall”: Talking Archives, Diseases, and History with Edna Bonhomme

Though not explicitly environmental history, the agency of pathogens throughout time is an environmental topic, and thus I highly recommend spending some time with this Public Books interview with Edna Bonhomme, that focuses specifically on her new book A History of the World in Six Plagues. Bonhomme discusses how she reimagines public health through historical episodes linking illness to colonialism, war, and inequality in the book. Drawing on biology, history, and psychoanalysis, she centers embodied experiences and social contexts. Her approach critiques laboratory isolation by foregrounding care, community, and structural conditions. Shaped by activism and precarity, she urges public health to “educate, organize, agitate.”

2) They Just Wanted to Grow Food. Their Suburban Neighbors Declared War.

This Mother Jones article is adapted from Kate Brown’s new book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present and Future of the Self-Provisioning City. In it, Brown highlights the story of Nicole and Dan Virgil. The Virgils built a thriving backyard garden in the suburbs of Chicago, producing most of their produce and even selling surplus. Brown shows how their success clashed with suburban zoning norms prioritizing lawns over food production. The Virgils fought a lengthy legal and political battle, exposing tensions around class, race, and land use. With support, they helped inspire Illinois’ Vegetable Garden Protection Act. Their story, Brown argues, reflects a broader, historical movement reclaiming suburban spaces for sustainable food production and community resilience.

3) The Inhuman Condition: Rethinking Anthropocentrism

“We need a new and more diverse notion of humanity, its needs, and its wants,” Jonatan Palmblad writes towards the end of this Springs essay challenging our current notions of anthropocentrism. Palmblad argues that rejecting humanity ignores how ecological destruction also harms humans and reflects unjust systems, not human nature itself. Proposing “ecological anthropocentrism,” he suggests centering human experience while recognizing our dependence on the environment. Rather than opposing human and ecological interests, this view links them, emphasizing care for both. The ecological crisis stems from global economic and technological systems that create an “inhuman condition,” not individual failings. Drawing on philosophy, history, and Indigenous thought, the essay calls for rehumanizing environmentalism by grounding it in lived experience, justice, and collective human flourishing.

4) Our Ancestors Coped with the Collapse of Ocean Currents. Can We?

I appreciate the Dagomar Degroot consistently seeks to communicate with those in science. For this Science Politics piece, Degroot tackles the probable collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Past events like the Younger Dryas, he argues, show such disruptions can trigger rapid, severe climate shifts. Today, consequences could be catastrophic: extreme winters in Europe, intensified storms, disrupted monsoons, sea-level rise, and massive agricultural losses. Unlike mobile ancient populations, he notes, modern societies rely on fragile global food systems, increasing vulnerability. Preventing collapse requires cutting emissions and preparing resilient agriculture, food reserves, and adaptive systems to withstand potential climate shocks that could threaten billions worldwide.

5) War on the Land | APTN Investigates

This investigation by APTN National News explores the toxic environmental legacy left by World War II munitions production in the small Ontario town of Nobel. Reporter Kenneth Jackson uncovers how Defense Industries Limited (DIL), a crown corporation, and Canadian Industries Limited (CIL) polluted the land and water with chemicals like TNT and cordite, creating a site now known locally as Gun Cotton Creek. Residents recount stories of finding dangerous explosives as children and the devastating prevalence of rare cancers in the community.

Feature Image: “Scenes from an Urban Garden” by Visible Hand is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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Jessica DeWitt

NiCHE Editor-in-Chief, Social Media Editor at Jessica M. DeWitt: Editing and Consulting
is an environmental historian of Canada and the United States, editor, project manager, consultant, and digital communications strategist. She earned her PhD in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. She is an executive member, editor-in-chief, and social media editor for the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). She is the Managing Editor for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and Associate Editor for Environmental Humanities. Closer to home, she is the President of the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society, a Coordinating Team member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Saskatoon-Treaty Six, and a Conservation Advisory Committee member for the Meewasin Valley Authority. She focuses on developing digital techniques and communications that bridge the divide between academia and the general public in order to democratize knowledge access. You can find out more about her and her freelance services at jessicamdewitt.com.

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