Philippe Forêt

Environmental crises confront humanity with challenges that reach into all areas of society ‐ from poverty and exclusion, capitalism and finance, to forced migration, global health, and artificial intelligence. This article traces the history of saguf ’s working group Environmental Humanities from 2014 to 2025 and reflects on its contributions in Switzerland and beyond.

Cet article propose une critique de l’histoire des sciences du climat pendant la première moitié du xx^e siècle en mettant en rapport l’histoire de l’environnement de la Haute Asie comme sujet de recherche pour l’Europe savante, et l’évaluation de théories et de données sur le changement climatique. Nos sources d’information sont les publications de Sven Hedin et les archives et les cartes de la mission scientifique sino-suédoise en Chine occidentale. Réalisées en Asie mais conçues pour des lecteurs européens, les cartes topographiques de la Route de la Soie montrent les processus du savoir de l’époque, et représentent des agents de l’histoire ainsi que des identités professionnelles en construction.

Environmental issues require answers from science, society, and culture. How can we apply the humanities and arts to these issues while cultivating methodologies that value context-dependence, multiperspectivity, relativism, and subjectivity?

Would the 'real' observed dataset stand up? A critical examination of eight observed gridded climate datasets for China Qiaohong Sun, Chiyuan Miao, Qingyun Duan et al. Climate variability, food production shocks, and violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa Halvard Buhaug, Tor A Benjaminsen, Espen Sjaastad et al. Climate and glacier change in southwestern China during the past several decades Zongxing Li, Yuanqing He, Wenling An et al. Warming spring air temperatures, but delayed spring streamflow in an Arctic headwater basin Xiaogang Shi, Philip Marsh and Daqing Yang Modified climate with long term memory in tree ring proxies Huan Zhang, Naiming Yuan, Jan Esper et al.

The Environmental Humanities draw from insights of the human and natural sciences for proposing new concepts and solutions to society's pressing environmental problems.

The environmental humanities as a metadiscipline provide a new forum for enabling continuous and reciprocal conversations within the humanities and with other sciences in environmental research.