The Climate Chronicles

By: Dagomar Degroot
  • Summary

  • Today’s global warming has no precedent in Earth’s history. Yet long before we started overheating the planet, natural climate changes shaped our past. In the Climate Chronicles, Dagomar Degroot, one of the world’s leading historians of climate change, explains how climate change influenced humanity’s history, from the evolution of our species to the onset of today’s climate crisis. Find out more at TheClimateChronicles.com.
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Episodes
  • Episode 7: Avoiding the Apocalypse
    Feb 18 2025

    Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

    In the first episode of our second season, Escaping the Pleistocene, Professor Degroot describes the two biggest explosions in human history: the catastrophic eruptions of the Los Chocoyos and Toba super volcanoes, about 75,000 years ago. These cataclysmic blasts chilled the Earth—but recent research suggests that, against all odds, most of our ancestors survived unscathed.

    Season two of The Climate Chronicles is an immersive journey through the extreme climate shifts that influenced some of the most important events in the history of our species, from a wave of extinctions that transformed ecosystems around the world to the emergence of agriculture. The season also explores the history of the sciences that have revealed how climate change shaped our deep past.

    For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.

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    32 mins
  • Episode 6: Growing up in the Glacials
    Feb 11 2025

    Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science. In the fifth and final episode of our first season, Becoming Human, Professor Degroot tells the epic story of how climate change spurred the evolution of the last hominin species - including our own. He explains how ancient DNA is uncovering previously hidden chapters in this remarkable tale. He shows how industrialization and famine originally brought it to light. And he closes the season by considering the implications of the deep histories we've explored in the past five episodes. The Climate Chronicles is really an audio book. The complete first season gives a unique overview not only of how climate change may have created our species, but also of the history of science that revealed our origins, and the creative detective work that climatologists, archaeologists, and geneticists use to dive into the deep past.

    For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.

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    41 mins
  • Episode 5: Miracles of Resilience
    Feb 4 2025

    Created and narrated by Professor Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University, The Climate Chronicles reveals how climate change has shaped humanity’s past—and what history can tell us about the future of global warming. With clear, dramatic storytelling, each episode brings history to life through gripping narratives and cutting-edge science.

    In the fourth episode of our first season, Becoming Human, Professor Degroot explores how our hominin ancestors learned to cope with, and even exploit, the wildly fluctuating climate of the Pleistocene. He uses the extraordinary migration of a hominin species named Homo erectus to introduce the concept of resilience: a key but contested term that can help us understand our fate on a warming world.

    The Climate Chronicles is really an audio book. The first season gives a unique overview not only of how climate change may have created our species, but also of the history of science that revealed our origins, and the creative detective work that climatologists, archaeologists, and geneticists use to dive into the deep past.

    For an episode trailer and a transcript complete with maps, graphs, and other images, visit TheClimateChronicles.com.

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    30 mins

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