Jacob Darwin Hamblin's Blog, page 2

Speaking at Princeton University on Environmental Transformation and Nuclear Reactors

Here’s the info for my talk at Princeton University on May 3, 2017, at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. ‘Water was Blood’: Environmental Transformation and Nuclear Reactors in the Middle East Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Oregon State University WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2017 – 4:30PM TO 6:00PM LOUIS A. SIMPSON INTERNATIONAL BLDG., RM. A71 […]

Environmental Transformation and Nuclear Reactors

Here’s the info for my talk at Princeton University on May 3, 2017, at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. ‘Water was Blood’: Environmental Transformation and Nuclear Reactors in the Middle East Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Oregon State University WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2017 – 4:30PM TO 6:00PM LOUIS A. SIMPSON INTERNATIONAL BLDG., RM. A71…

Hamblin Wins the Davis Prize of the History of Science Society

I have scheduled this post ahead of time, because I can’t contain my enthusiasm, yet I’ve agreed to hold off talking about it until the prizewinners are announced. But I’m delighted to report that my book Arming Mother Nature has won the 2016 Helen Miles Davis and Watson Davis Prize, from the History of Science […]

Winning the Davis Prize

I have scheduled this post ahead of time, because I can’t contain my enthusiasm, yet I’ve agreed to hold off talking about it until the prizewinners are announced. But I’m delighted to report that my book Arming Mother Nature has won the 2016 Helen Miles Davis and Watson Davis Prize, from the History of Science…

Love Canal Across the Centuries

  In the 1970s, residents of a Niagara Falls neighborhood realized that chemicals from a toxic waste dump had leached into their homes, parks, and neighborhood school. Their cancers, miscarriages, and myriad chronic ailments told the tale, and in 1978 they organized, filed lawsuits, and demanded intervention. The federal government eventually complied, evacuating the residents…

Sustainable Development: the Painful Birth of an Idea

  U.S. President George H. W. Bush captured the malleable meaning of sustainable development when he announced at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that “to sustain development, we must protect the environment. And to protect the environment, we must sustain development” (261). Sustainable development might call to mind a managerial ethos similar…

Scientists who Collaborate with the Military

  A memorable scene in the 1983 film The Dead Zone provides an ethical justification for actions that harm innocent people. The protagonist presents his friend and psychiatrist with a well-worn hypothetical query: If he could travel back in time to pre-Nazi Germany, would he kill the young Hitler? His friend responds cannily, “I’m a…

Hidden Consequences of Banning DDT

  The sacred success story in environmental literature is that of Rachel Carson, who awakened America to the dangers of indiscriminate pesticide use, and led the charge to ban the sale of DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons in the United States. In her best-selling 1962 book Silent Spring, Carson introduced many readers to the concept…

Remembering Ron Rainger, 1949-2016

At our graduate student conference in May 2016, I broke the rules of etiquette by checking my email on my phone, and instantly regretted it. It was news of Ron Rainger’s passing. Knowing that his illness had gotten worse, and that he did not have long to live, I expected the news. But it was still painful to…

Getting Lost in the Woods

Yesterday I accidentally ran a trail marathon. It was a weird moment in which my personal life collided with my professional one in a roundabout way.  Because I teach environmental history, and I direct our Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at the university, I am constantly aware of the huge range of experiences that people have…