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In this essay I outline core themes in the political geology of twentieth-century volcano science. The essay explores volcano science at the intersection of cross-disciplinary preoccupations with the role of the earth sciences in shaping the social and environmental crises of the present and how to find a way out of them. The essay then turns to volcanology in Indonesia at the turn of the twentieth century to destabilize persistent narratives in the historiography of volcano science that center European and North American actors. I show how starting an account of twentieth-century volcano science from the slopes of Indonesia's volcanoes reveals the roles of Indonesian intellectuals and knowledge traditions in shaping volcano science and, more broadly, modern theories of the earth, its evolution, and structure. The aim and provocation of starting from Indonesia are to open new epistemic pluralisms in the earth sciences, in particular around conceptualizations of the relationship between geological matter and society, history and ancestrality, and the politics of the earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Focus section introductory essay makes a case for new histories of volcano science. While studies of individual volcanoes are pervasive and well known, the twentieth-century history of volcanology remains largely written by practitioners. The essays in this focus section—written by scholars with specialisms in the history of science, the environment, culture, agriculture, and geography—draw out the wider significance of volcano science in a range of regions including Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, and Antarctica. The essays highlight the significance of imperial and colonial contestation in the formation of volcano science and the fraught relationship between Western, Indigenous, and local forms of volcano knowledge. The essays also point to the importance of volcano science to new conceptions of earthly evolution and history. The introduction concludes with reflections on potential new research directions in the historiography of volcano science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers the possibilities of re-thinking what a climate change observatory might be. Rather than reproducing science as usual, climate change observatories assembled with faith institutions, might open new potential for experimental environmental knowledge practices. The essay examines these ideas through an account of an experimental environmental observatory based in churches in the Solomon Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Mabberley, Mel Gooding and Joe Studholme, editors JOSEPH BANKS' FLORILEGIUM Botanical treasures from Cook's first voyage 320pp. Thames and Hudson. 64.99[pounds sterling]. 978 0 500 51936 3 Helen and [...]

Decolonizing geology was a discussion held on July 3, 2020, hosted by the New Earth Histories Research Program at the University of New South Wales. It was moderated by Adam Bobbette and included Ruth Gamble (La Trobe University), Cin-Ty Lee (Rice University), and Christopher Wilson (Flinders University). The discussion was about how researchers from different fields—history, earth sciences, and archeology—understand the relationship between geology and society, time, cosmology, Indigenous knowledges, and what it means to decolonize geology. The discussion began with a welcome to country, the convention of recognizing Aboriginal land and its traditional custodians in Australia. Because the event was held over Zoom, with speakers in four locations on two continents, welcome to country acknowledged the Aboriginal and Indigenous land of each place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that discourses of climate change in the Solomon Islands are being significantly shaped by legacies of Anglican conversion. To understand how climate change is made meaningful therefore means being attentive to the histories and geographies of conversion. Climate change in the Solomon Islands is not only a physical process but a negotiation between new material realities and a Christian cosmos. This paper demonstrates how climate change is made compatible with a Christian cosmos. It also shows how that cosmos is transformed in the process. In the Solomon Islands, this means being attentive to spaces such as shorelines, horizons, ships, names and churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a case for the analysis of urban grounds as urbanizing agents at the intersections of the material and cultural. Through a case study of four decades of landslide management in Hong Kong, it casts new light on the role of urban nature as a participant in the generation of urban forms and conceptions of city life. It demonstrates the active role of anticipation, its differential distribution and materialization through a close study of how geotechnical engineers, film, literature and capitalists portrayed and operated on a territory on the verge of material collapse. In conversation with theories of urban assemblage, this paper contributes the process of ‘consolidation’ as it operated in geotechnical discourses in Hong Kong (and elsewhere) as a useful framework for analysing urban socio-natural interactions in contexts of volatile nature. This positions the city within fraught entanglements with a ground that is projected upon, surfaced, shaped and metamorphosing at variable rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the argument "A Philosophy of Fire Insurance" from 1925, presented by Albert Flandreau Dean. Topics discussed include fire insurance underwriting, reduction of contingency, and Dean's statement regarding the need for the city to protect the relations between material and culture in the U.S.