The Weekly Anthropocene

Monday, June 22 was the hottest day in the history of France. Until the record was broken on Tuesday. Then again on Wednesday, with the temperatures in the capital reaching a shocking historic high of 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 Fahrenheit). Paris, where I now live, was at the epicenter of this historic European heatwave. I felt it personally, nonstop. I feel it now, writing these words on Friday June 26. My apartment has no air conditioning, like most Paris apartments.

Abi Olvera served as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department for ten years, including as one of the core team negotiating directly with China. In 2025, she founded the DC Abundance Community, inspired by the hit book Abundance and dedicated to promoting “abundant housing, energy, science, and infrastructure.” She writes Positive Sum on Substack at Abi Olvera.

I’ve written several articles primarily about history (a longstanding passion of mine) in The Weekly Anthropocene over the years, whether as interviews, book reviews, segments of travelogues, or standalone deep dives. Here’s a collection of some highlights, in approximate order of publication date! Enjoy. Deep Dives Repost: The Climate Crisis of 536 CE In the year 536 CE, a massive volcanic eruption occurred, probably in Iceland.

Several recent news items raise hopes for the future of climate-resilient coral reefs! A landmark new study analyzing 45,000 coral surveys from around the world has identified and mapped nearly 166,000km2 of existing coral reefs, across 71 countries, that are showing promising signs of being capable of surviving and/or regenerating after climate change-induced stressors like bleaching, cyclones, and marine heatwaves.

The 13th Monthly Dose of Climate Hope event took place on June 16, 2026! Sam Matey-Coste hosted an in-depth conversation with Jan Rosenow, energy policy advisor to multiple EU governments and Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford! The YouTube recording is above! Below are some excerpts from Jan’s recent articles on his new Substack, Bright Spots . “Hot, growing, energy-hungry, often saddled with creaking grids and expensive imported fuel.

This article is wildly different in tone than my usual writing, but I feel ethically bound to write it nevertheless. I believe that the data clearly show that human civilization is rapidly morally improving itself overall1, but a hideous crime has lately been committed and must be faced. This article is extremely dark and disturbing, very much unlike my usual subjects. But I think it’s an important one-time exception. Read on only if you’re comfortable with that.

World-leading think tank Ember is increasingly widely recognized for its deeply researched reports on the accelerating global electrotech revolution! One highlight visualization from their recent “A clean break” report underscores the vital yet underreported dematerialization (aka ephemeralization) aspect of that epic upgrade.

A mangrove forest seen from underwater. “An Underwater Forest by Marelo Johan Ogata, Indonesia.” A landmark new study on mangrove forests, published in Science and analyzing satellite imagery from 1984 to 2023, has unexpectedly found that global mangrove coverage shifted from net loss to net gain around the year 2010, thanks to a combination of effective restoration and habitat protection efforts, natural regeneration, and warming temperatures increasing their range.

Before and after the 2025 removal of the Mill Pond Dam on the Sabattus River in Maine, which reopened 75 miles of stream to sea-run alewife fish. Hundreds of thousands of small dams were built during the Industrial Revolution, but many are now completely obsolete and disused, doing nothing but sitting there, blocking fish passage, worsening flood risks, and keeping river water too warm with stagnant pools instead of free flow.

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