The Burning Earth is Yale history professor Sunil Amrith’s fifth book, and his first that focuses his academic eye on the climate crisis. 

“As a citizen and then as a parent,” he says, “the climate crisis just became unavoidable in my mind.”

His first books, notably Crossing the Bay of Bengal and Unruly Waters, focused on the history of migration and ecology in Southeast Asia. The Burning Earth takes a global tack, covering the history of the climate crisis from hundreds of years ago, when the Industrial Revolution ignited the mass commodification of natural resources, to now, with the elimination of CFCs and recent climate tech. He sees history through the lens of human needs and desires, and specifically, the luxurious wants of a small slice of elites. 

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, with a secondary appointment as Professor at the Yale School of the Environment. 

“The desires of a small elite, and the violent pursuit of inequality through empire, has turbocharged our impact on the planet,” Amrith says. As he writes in the prologue: 

I can no longer separate the crisis of life on Earth from our concerns with justice and human freedom that inspired me to become a historian in the first place. 

What is the main focus of the book?

The core question in The Burning Earth is really: How much is human freedom dependent on the destruction of our planet? I do not think that human flourishing necessitates the sheer and irreparable harm that we have done to our planet. I think a lot of that has been driven more by the desires and the consumption of a small elite amongst human beings. 

You write about need, want and desire and how it relates to the climate crisis. How have those base human traits contributed to the climate breakdown? 

I see two long-term paths towards our climate crisis. One is the story of human need. Food and shelter account for a significant part of our impact on the planet — the search for food and shelter, both of which are still very unequally accessed. And that is a long-term story, that the search for food contributes not just to greenhouse gas emissions, but overwhelmingly to biodiversity loss.

The second story we need to tell is that for at least 500 years, the desires of a small elite, and the violent pursuit of inequality through empire, has turbocharged our impact on the planet. It is the vast and disproportionate resources consumed by those with wealth and power in the world. Their identity has changed over time. For several hundred years, it was mostly Northern Europeans. And now that group of people is certainly much more distributed across the world. 

You write in the book that elites looked at groups of people who are close to nature as being less human. 

I think one of the questions we ask ourselves as we face this climate breakdown is, how did we ever come to believe that the health of the planet didn’t matter to all of us? And yet I think that there has been a period in global history where proportions of people around the world have acted as if it wasn’t true – that we could disregard the health of rivers and forests and simply consume at any rate we chose. That is a mentality that I do also associate with a mentality that imposes a hierarchy on other human beings. 

If you look at, for example, the early colonization of the Americas, the language that the Iberian colonizers used to talk about Indigenous people is very often: they are close to nature. They are not fully human like we are. That legitimizes plunder and exploitation and violence, but it also legitimizes mass deforestation and extraction. 

Was there any way, historically, to stop the inevitable march towards our climate crisis? 

The motivations that are driving people to want to expand their lifespans, to improve the conditions and the security with which their families live – I never want to lose sight of those kinds of baseline human aspirations. 

There are deep human dreams which you can see shared across cultures to simply want one’s descendants to have a better life, to want one’s family to continue. I do see that there is a progression in human beings’ ability and power to mold their surroundings, to make those surroundings more hospitable or more habitable for the human societies.

Then there are parts of the story which I think weren’t inevitable. There was nothing ordained about plantation production, for example, which is a very particular kind of cultivation which has to do with exploiting nature as quickly as possible for rapid gain. I think that is a very specific kind of innovation. 

I think there are technologies that could have had multiple different kinds of uses. And what we’ve tended to see is that their use has been towards maximum extraction. 

You write about silver mining and sugar plantations. How were these some of the earliest environmental catastrophes?

There’s no question that silver mining in the Americas was an environmental catastrophe, and we now have archaeological and genetic evidence that suggests just what a catastrophic impact that had on the health of workers. It was the use of mercury in extracting silver that was so devastating to both the landscape and above all to people’s health. That silver is at the root of what becomes a global economy. 

One could probably make the argument that no single crop has caused greater harm than sugar both to human beings and to nature. Sugar began as a very, very rare luxury. It was treated as one of the fine spices in medieval Europe. And it’s only when you start to get large-scale plantation production combined with the social and economic transformations of early modern Europe that it becomes an item of mass consumption. 

What effect did large scale steel and iron production have?

It’s largely a 19th century story. The age of industrialization coincides exactly with the fossil fuel era, because if we begin with coal in the second half of the 18th century, we start to see widespread use of coal first in England, then in northwestern Europe and in North America. 

I think what changed more than anything else is scale – both the scale of resources that are needed for factory production, and the scale of impact that can be had. I think the story of the railroads is a classic example of this. One of my favorite works of environmental history is Bill Cronin’s book Changes in the Land, which shows how the city of Chicago really reshapes the entire American Midwest. And it does so through the rail lines. Suddenly, Chicago’s markets and exchanges become accessible. And that hastens the destruction of forests, that hastens the expansion of wheat production and monocrop production. And I think we see similar stories all over the world, which is what happens is that as people can travel further, as goods can travel further, you start to get global markets for commodities. And that pushes forward the commodification of nature, the idea that this is not a forest, this is timber, that shift in mentality. 

You describe how the “war machine” is a mechanism of climate destruction. 

That is the part of the book that was the biggest surprise to me. I did not expect that I would conclude that of all the forces driving climate breakdown, warfare is possibly number one. I think the two world wars came to strike me as being pivotal transformative moments, not just because of the scale of resources which went into both of those wars, but also because of the scale of destruction that those wars then made possible, culminating in atomic weapons by the end of the second world war.

Military emissions are not counted in most of our climate targets and most international contributions that have been agreed to. The best estimate we have is that military missions account for about 5% of greenhouse gas emissions, but that is a guess because we don’t know.

You write about the data project of 1957 and 1958, one of the first climate data projects. Tell me about the through line between that and the sheer amount of data we have now. 

This is the International Geophysical Year, and it was this year that the Mauna Loa Observatory was set up in Hawaii, which is, to this day, sort of the gold standard that we have for measuring cumulative concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in 2008. Ken Dewey / University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources

This data came during the height of the Cold War. This project is drawing in countries from both sides, drawing in countries that don’t necessarily get along. This is the data that first makes us aware that we are living through a period of unprecedented climate change.

With the acceleration the amount of data today, does it not seem to reason that more data would help our imperiled planet? 

More data is undeniably important to climate scientists as they make projections and formulate their models. But more data hasn’t necessarily led to more consensus. More data has not necessarily changed the overall narrative about climate change. I think the data is essential, but I’m not sure that we’re at a point where more data is going to change more people’s minds. Those are political questions, those are cultural questions, and those are much harder to shift.

Why won’t more – and better – data change more people’s minds?

Firstly, I think in the U.S. more than anywhere else, there has been a politically motivated skepticism of that data. We know that the fossil fuel companies have been directly involved in promoting that sort of distrust all over the world. We’re in a broader populist moment of distrust of expertise. That is one reason why I think more data won’t necessarily change people’s minds.

Another is that data is complicated, and the way in which climate scientists and other earth scientists think about uncertainty doesn’t necessarily translate very smoothly into broader general consciousness. 

And finally, the data is sometimes on a scale that is just unfathomable for all of us, so detached from our everyday lived experience, that I think we need more translation. And maybe that is where a creative artist, or a novelist like the great Richard Powers, have had more impact on shifting people’s awareness and consciousness perhaps than more data. 

As an educator at Yale, how did researching and writing this book change what you bring to the classroom? 

I’ve been teaching environmental history for about 15 years. And there are classes I’ve taught where the questions students have raised, the projects they’ve done, the conversations we’ve had in the classroom have just stayed with me. So, it’s not just what I bring to the classroom, but really what I get from the classroom that is translated directly into this book. 

I think we need to bring the environment into everything, not just into environmental history, but I think we need to be thinking about these questions across our humanities curriculum. I mean, in that sense, that’s partly what I was trying to do with The Burning Earth, which was to say, let’s not separate the environmental story from perhaps more familiar stories about the rise and fall of empires, about unfree labor, about migration, about global transformations. And I think more broadly, that’s what I would love to see happen, which is a kind of weaving in of the more-than-human, the planet, the ecology into how we study literature, into how we study philosophy. 

Might one of the hopes of this book be for people to look at the world around them and to realize that everything that’s made here possibly comes from a place of environmental destruction? 

I would love readers of The Burning Earth to make connections between the material that I present, especially that which is most unfamiliar in their everyday lived experience. My aspiration is not to make people feel guilty. Quite the opposite. I want to give readers the impression that everything is interconnected. 

This is about looking at choices with a sense of hopefulness that that means that a shift in consciousness or new forms of collective action can bring about change and perhaps even bring about change quite quickly. 

As a historian, any predictions for the future? 

I think we are living through a period, you know, just this decade, I think, of such unpredictable change that I think there are so many different trajectories that could lie before us, some of them terrifying, and some of them more hopeful.

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Wisdom, a 74-year-old Laysan albatross, is the oldest-known wild bird on the planet. First fitted with a band in 1956, the Hawaiian seabird has laid her first egg in four years, according to United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) officials.

Wisdom returned to the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge to lay what could be her 60th egg, USFWS said, as reported by The Guardian.

“We are optimistic that the egg will hatch,” Jonathan Plissner, Midway Atoll’s supervisory wildlife biologist, said in a statement, as The Associated Press reported.

Wisdom, at left with red leg tag, stays close to her recently laid egg as her new mate settles down to incubate from their ground nest on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge on Nov. 27, 2024. Dan Rapp / USFWS volunteer

Millions of seabirds come back to Midway Atoll each year to nest and rear their chicks.

Wisdom and lifelong mate Akeakamai had been returning to the Hawaiian atoll to lay and hatch their eggs since 2006. However, it has been several years since Akeakamai has been seen, and Wisdom started interacting with another male upon her return last week, officials said.

Laysan albatrosses lay one egg each year, and, according to Plissner, Wisdom has raised up to 30 chicks.

October and November represent mating season at the refuge. Albatross parents share the incubation of an egg for roughly seven months. They then fly thousands of miles over the ocean in search of food to bring back to their young.

Wisdom stands at right with red leg band, facing her new partner at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge on Nov. 26, 2024. Dan Rapp / USFWS volunteer

About five or six months after they hatch, chicks fly out to sea, where they will spend most of their lives soaring above the ocean feeding on fish and their eggs, crustaceans and squid.

Adult Laysan albatrosses fly as much as 50,000 miles each year, so USFWS said Wisdom would by now have flown multiple trips to the moon and back, reported CNN.

“It’s really amazing to encounter the world’s oldest known wild bird and see her add to the record year after year, but it fascinates because of its apparent uniqueness and not for any scientific or conservation or management implications. It’s interesting that the next oldest bird here that we know about is currently just 45+ years old. Almost thirty years apart in age is a big gap, especially with the tremendous number of albatross that were banded here in the 1960s,” Plissner said, according to USFWS.

Laysan albatrosses typically live to be 68 years old, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration has said.

As many as three million Laysan albatrosses travel to the Midway Atoll wildlife refuge to breed, Plissner told BBC Radio 4’s Today program. The atoll is not part of the state of Hawaii, but is an unincorporated U.S. territory. The largest albatross colony on Earth lives at the refuge.

“It’s really been remarkable,” Plissner said, as BBC News reported. “Wisdom seems to pique the interest of people across the world. We wait each year with bated breath for her return.”

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In a new report, researchers estimate that the economic value that mangroves provide as protection against flooding amounts to about $855 billion globally.

The report, led by researchers at the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at University of California, Santa Cruz, utilized advanced flood risk modeling over around 700,000 kilometers (434,960 miles) of subtropical coastlines and 121 countries to evaluate the value of mangroves.

The results, which were published in the The Changing Wealth of Nations 2024 report by the World Bank, revealed that even with declining mangrove cover in the face of coastal development and agriculture, the economic value of mangroves has continued to increase since 1996. According to the report, the value of mangrove forests based on their flood protection abilities increased $130 billion from 1996 to 2010, then increased another $502 billion from 2010 to 2020.

Globally, the researchers determined that mangroves save around $855 billion through flood protection as of 2020, with the highest monetary value from mangroves found in China, Vietnam, Australia, the U.S. and India.

“The results are clear: Mangroves play a critical role in reducing flood risks and should be viewed as valuable natural assets,” Pelayo Menendez, co-leader of the research, said in a statement. “They offer cost-effective protection to coastal communities and support national wealth by preserving lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure.”

As explained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), mangroves, or mangrove forests, are made up of trees and shrubs growing along coastal waters in tropical and subtropical regions, where temperatures don’t drop below freezing. They thrive in low-oxygen soil and can even grow in salt water. 

In a 2020 study (co-authored by Menendez and Michael Beck, director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience and an author of the research in The Changing Wealth of Nations 2024), researchers determined that without mangroves, 15 million more people globally would experience flooding every year. The size, shape and density of the trees and the extent of mangrove forests help reduce wave impacts, and their roots stabilize soil to prevent erosion.

Mangroves are not just beneficial for their flood prevention benefits. As Conservation International reported, one square mile of mangroves can store carbon emissions equivalent to the annual emissions from around 90,000 cars on the roads.

According to The Changing Wealth of Nations 2024 report, the rate of global mangrove loss decreased from 2010 to 2020 to about 0.66%. While the total was small overall, some countries experienced major rates of decline of mangrove forest cover of more than 10%, including Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Sudan, Pakistan and Jamaica. 

Further, a 2024 report from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed that more than half of global mangrove ecosystems could collapse by 2050, presenting higher threats from flooding and an increase in emissions from the lost carbon storage.

The new report in the latest edition of The Changing Wealth of Nations reveals how important mangrove preservation will be now and into the future.

“Protecting and restoring mangroves isn’t just good for the environment — it’s a smart economic choice,” Beck said in a statement. “These ecosystems provide invaluable services that help build resilience against the growing threats of climate change.”

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Testimony from the United States during the ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing on Wednesday evoked anger from climate activists and vulnerable nations, as the planet’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter argued against nations being legally obligated to take measures to fight the climate crisis.

The oral arguments were part of the historic climate hearing in The Hague, where climate-vulnerable countries like Vanuatu and other small island nations are calling for rich polluters that are most responsible for global heating to be held accountable.

“The International Court of Justice’s proceedings are a profound moment in global climate accountability. The hearings elevate science to the forefront, ensuring international law reflects the realities of climate impacts and the urgent need for global action,” said Dr. Delta Merner, lead scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Science Hub for Climate Litigation, in a press release from UCS. “Yet in today’s oral arguments, the United States — the world’s largest historical polluter of heat trapping emissions — resisted calls for climate accountability. Instead of taking responsibility for its contributions to the climate crisis, the United States used its 30-minute slot to downplay the role of the courts for global climate action, emphasize non-binding national commitments under the Paris Agreement, and reject the notion of historical responsibility.”

“By framing climate change as a collective action challenge without clear legal obligations for individual states, the United States dismissed the potential for redress or binding accountability measures that advance justice for climate-vulnerable nations,” Merner added.

In its arguments, the U.S. emphasized sticking with the 2015 and Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as other treaties, reported The Guardian.

“Any other legal obligations relating to climate change mitigation identified by the court should be interpreted consistently with the obligations states have under this treaty regime,” Margaret Taylor, legal adviser for the U.S. Department of State, told the ICJ judges, as The Guardian reported.

The response from climate activists illustrated the need for wealthy nations to be held accountable for their disproportionate contributions to the climate crisis, as well as their outsized evasion of responsibility.

“Once again, we witness a disheartening attempt by the U.S. to evade its responsibilities as one of the world’s largest polluters,” said Vishal Prasad, campaign director for the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, as reported by The Guardian. “The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights and reject climate justice.”

Other of the world’s largest fossil fuel economies and biggest greenhouse gas emitters — China, Australia and Saudi Arabia — also argued against being held legally accountable for the pollution they produce.

“It is absurd for the Biden administration to argue before the ICJ that countries do not have clear legal obligations to reduce carbon pollution, especially as it prepares to turn over the executive office to a proven climate denier like president-elect Trump, whose policies are likely to deeply harm U.S. climate action,” said Ashfaq Khalfan, climate justice director at Oxfam.

Vulnerable nations fought for years for rich polluters to be held accountable, and the UN responded by asking the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on the obligations of states in combating climate change, along with what the legal consequences would be if they do not do their part.

“The ICJ’s advisory opinion has the potential to reshape international climate governance by providing clear, authoritative guidance on nation’s obligations under existing law. This process showcases how the best available science can illuminate pathways to protect human rights, advance equity, and compel ambitious climate action,” Merner said in the press release. “In the face of stonewalling from major polluters, we applaud the leadership of Vanuatu and others for advancing this process. These proceedings must continue to center the voices of frontline communities.”

More than 100 countries and organizations are providing testimony over the 12-day hearings.

Advisory opinions by the ICJ are not binding, but nonetheless carry significant weight both legally and politically. The opinion of the court will be cited as an authoritative statement during future international climate negotiations and litigation.

Ralph Regenvanu, special climate change envoy for Vanuatu, on Wednesday expressed disappointment in the U.S. and other major polluters on behalf of his country.

“These nations, some of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, have pointed to existing treaties and commitments that have regrettably failed to motivate substantial reductions in emissions… these treaties are essential, but they cannot be a veil for inaction or a substitute for legal accountability,” Regenvanu said, as The Guardian reported.

Vanuatu is leading the push for financial support and compensation for loss and damage for the countries that are most vulnerable to climate impacts — especially Pacific island nations — such as sea-level rise, flooding, drought and wildfires.

Taylor was dismissive of the ICJ weighing in on historic emitters being held responsible for their past pollution.

“An advisory proceeding is not the means to litigate whether individual states or groups of states have violated obligations pertaining to climate change in the past or bear responsibility for reparations… nor would it be appropriate to do so,” Taylor said, as reported by The Guardian.

There are three international courts of law responsible for providing advisory opinions concerning the climate crisis, including the ICJ, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

Earlier this year, ITLOS found that nations have a legal obligation to control greenhouse gases as pollutants.

“By leveraging science and law together, the ICJ can help course-correct the international response to climate change, providing justice and hope for future generations as they endeavor to stave off some of the worst climate harms. No matter what the court decides, civil society must continue to push for decision-making guided by science and climate-vulnerable communities, as well as challenge the outsized political power wielded by fossil fuel interests seeking to obstruct and delay climate goals for the sake of their own bottom lines,” Merner said in the press release.

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Wolves in Europe will go from being “strictly protected” to “protected” next year after the Council of Europe backed a proposal by the European Union to downgrade their status.

Conservationists are concerned about the survival of the species, which bounced back after being on the edge of local extinction, reported The Guardian.

“This decision is a green light to shoot wolves, given by the international community in white gloves,” said Marta Klimkiewicz, science and policy advisor at ClientEarth, as The Guardian reported.

Last December, the status change was proposed by the European Commission at the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats in preparation for amending the EU’s nature protection law, reported Euronews.

The downgraded status, which was welcomed by hunters, reduces the standards for shooting a wolf. The EU has said wolves kill 65,000 animals annually that were intended to be slaughtered for human consumption, The Guardian reported.

During the last two centuries, wolf populations were decimated across much of Europe. They recovered following habitat protections and regulations to reduce hunting, and it is estimated that there are now 20,000 wolves roaming the continent. The more robust numbers have led to increased conflict with farmers, who have called for culls in rural areas.

Animal rights activists said the move puts the wolf population — which once disappeared completely from France — at risk, reported AFP.

Sofie Ruysschaert, nature restoration policy officer with BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, said the downgrading of wolves’ protected status risked “undoing decades of European conservation progress,” as The Guardian reported.

There have been no documented killings of humans by wolves this century.

“The risk of downgrading this status is to weaken or even cause the decline of this species in Europe,” said Yann Laurans, head of WWF-France’s land biodiversity team, as reported by AFP.

Some have said the culling of wolves will not reduce attacks on livestock.

Nathan Horrenberger of the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research said the decision to lower protection for wolves in Europe is “not going to help solve the problems facing livestock farmers, because wolves have been shot in European countries for years… and it’s not bearing fruit.”

Horrenberger told AFP that killing wolves could actually disrupt pack behavior, creating “more solitary animals, who turn to easier prey, namely farm animals.”

Just five countries voted against the proposal, according to environmental association Green Impact, who referred to the decision as a “disgrace” and promised to bring it to European courts.

According to the commission, the status change will go into effect on March 7 of 2025, unless one-third of its members object.

Assessments by the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe suggest that one wolf population is vulnerable and five are “near-threatened,” The Guardian reported.

Scientists overall have said the wolf population in Europe could survive the change, but also warn it could be fatal for local populations hovering near the survival threshold.

“Downgrading a species’ strict protection status for the political gain of a few, against scientific evidence, puts decades of conservation efforts at risk,” said Sabien Leemans, senior biodiversity policy officer with WWF’s European branch.

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