Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
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fredrikjonsson.bsky.social
Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
@fredrikjonsson.bsky.social
Historian at the University of Chicago. Co-editor of The Journal of Modern History. New book: Scarcity with Carl Wennerlind (Harvard 2023). Next: Britain's fossil transition 1760-1870 and, with Moritz von Brescius, The Long Acceleration 1500-1950.
Pinned
With @mbrescius.bsky.social I am very happy to announce the launch of a major new project in #Anthropocene history. The Long Acceleration brings together more than 20 scholars to consider the planetary emergency. Many thanks to Moritz and the Institute for European Global Studies for hosting us.
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
I'm no Luddite - far from it - but the ways in which in this development has been spoken of seem blind to, or completely uninterested in, what cannot be machine read and searched for: the pounce, sweat marks, soot, or wax; the non-semantic yet semiotically rich substrate that OCR strips away.
November 26, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
This, by @giacgrassi.bsky.social, remains one of the simplest and best climate visuals
November 23, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
“We were here in the 1980s when the federal government threatened to take the California Coast and pollute it, drilling for oil, gas and now, for seabed minerals and they want to do that again,” said Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley. 🔌💡
www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/10/29/s...
October 30, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
For @diagrammes.bsky.social, I had a conversation with @naomioreskes.bsky.social on the history of denial from the Cold War to the present climate crisis, on agnotology, on Trump 2.0 and much more.

Link to full interview including many portraits and historical sketches (French and English) ⬇️
November 19, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.

Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Submit a Claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Happy to have written about plastic for @thepolycrisis.bsky.social. Thanks to @70sbachchan.bsky.social for sourcing the excellent graphics. And thanks to @rebecca-altman.bsky.social and @anjakrieger.bsky.social for being my go-to's on all-things plastic.

www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/pla...
Plastic Planet | Venus Bivar
Stalled negotiations and accelerating accumulation in the global petrochemicals industry
www.phenomenalworld.org
November 17, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Best readings on historical disasters? Any time period, and though my eventual focus will be the US, glad to hear suggestions about other places, too.
November 14, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
November 8, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Dawn is breaking
For a bit I forgot that the current political movement was won with a weak minority and is managed by annoying dorks who nobody likes who have terrible vibes. This video has 1.3 million likes and is a good reminder that better things are possible, even for those of us outside NYC. A good night!
November 5, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
JOB
Assistant Professor in the History of Knowledge Pre-1400,
University of Cambridge

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor in History of Knowledge Pre-1400
Applications are invited for the position of Assistant Professor in History of Knowledge Pre-1400, in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. Please note
www.cam.ac.uk
November 1, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨
Many things are changing before our eyes. Others are harder to see

Like the US economy

Americans are spending more 💲 recovering from disasters and preparing for the next one. 36% of US GDP growth since 2000 is related to climate disasters.

Welcome to the Disaster Industrial Complex 🎁🔗
Disaster Recovery Is an $8 Trillion Driver of US Growth
Investors are on the hunt for companies powering the disaster industrial complex, which are fueling US growth and outpacing the S&P 500
www.bloomberg.com
October 21, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
There's just a day to go until @manchesterup.bsky.social publish my latest book Songs of Seven Dials: An intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London.

I thought I should explain a bit about where the book came from.

1/15
October 20, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
“what happens if we also reconnect with the mule? What can mules teach us about the black history of land and violence in the United States?”

A terrific piece of #envhist on mules, labor, and how “empire doesn’t always win” from @roguechieftan.bsky.social

www.sciencehistory.org/stories/maga...
Mule Power
Unpacking empires and diaspora in Mexico and the United States.
www.sciencehistory.org
October 19, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Gripping video of the last 2 Slender-billed Curlews at www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/S.... I couldn't afford to join some mates who did a trip to Morocco to see them in 1992, 2 years before they disappeared. And last week, we declared the species extinct in our update to the IUCN Red List 😢
Slender-billed Curlew Declared Extinct
IUCN confirms the loss of a once-widespread Western Palearctic wader after three decades without a verified record
www.rarebirdalert.co.uk
October 17, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
October 15, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
October 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Excellent article from @jamborg.bsky.social about "genetic" mercantilism. Highly recommended
'Mercantilisme animal. Contrebande de #races animales, diplomatie du mouton et #géopolitique du capital génétique dans la France du xviiie siècle'

par @jamborg.bsky.social (Uppsala)

👉 dx.doi.org/10.1017/ahss...

#skystorians #race #climate #merinos 🐑
September 17, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
The Call for Papers for 'Talking Records: Pollution in the Archive', a symposium at The National Archives in London, 4 December 2025, is now open!

Submission deadline: Friday 19 Sept

See the CFP and details about bursaries for speakers here: orlo.uk/Z8StS

#envhum #envhist
August 13, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
For the last several months, I've been digging through endless scientific literature on what happens when pregnant mothers are exposed to plastic chemicals in their food, water, and everyday household products.

The result is this story.

I hope you'll take the time to read.
wapo.st/4g3ZoFc
The health risks from plastics almost nobody knows about
Researchers have linked phthalates, chemicals found in plastics, to premature birth, infertility and ADHD.
wapo.st
September 4, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
I don't think we fully grasped yet how important solar will be as an energy source.

Great graph @carbonbrief.org based on @iea.org data.
August 29, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Please take a moment to join the class action!
There are tons of graphic novels, academic papers, film and TV scripts, & prose novels/nonfiction on the LibGen list Anthropic used.

As settlement approaches, make it easy for the class action lawyers to contact you! Here’s how

Part 1: is your work in Libgen?

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
August 28, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
New data paper out: Ammonia doesn't often make the headlines – but it’s one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss and air pollution in Europe, harming ecosystems and our health. > 90% of it in Europe comes from one source: agricultural fertiliser and manure 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
August 27, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Apropos of nothing, a reminder that German stock markets kept climbing in an almost uninterrupted fashion in the run-up to WW2. Investors are really, really bad at pricing serious institutional and political risks.
August 26, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Do not trust AI or ChatGPT-5 to do the most basic things like labeling a picture of the hydrologic cycle. Here's what it gave me.
(Evaporation arrow pointing into the ground. Both surface water and the "ocean" labels underground. Transpiration arrow coming from the #water surface, not plants...]
August 15, 2025 at 7:06 PM