Saving the World the First Time: Global climate theory and desiccation 1765-1960

This research project will document and explain how desiccation theory provided the intellectual impetus that launched and guided the environmental movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How global climate-change knowledge circulated, where it succeeded, and where it failed will directly inform parallel environmental concerns that we face today. Understanding how the world's first global climate theory changed both society and nature will also enhance the ability of the public and of policy makers to make historically-informed decisions that will advance the environmental sustainability of Australia and the entire world.