The anthropogenic climate change is one of defining moments in the contemporary scientific, environmental, and economic history. It has become one of the frameworks for intergovernmental policy and technological innovation and is increasingly shaping environmental regulation throughout the world. Yet climate change -- and specifically, anthropogenic climate change -- has been discussed throughout the antiquity, Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
Long before the appearance of modern 'greenhouse theory', climate change caused considerable scientific and political debates which are in need of revisiting.

As historians of science, What can we say about the continuing interest in this phenomenon and how do we explain this continuity in our teaching? in particular, how do we go about historicizing an issue which is generating so much public visibility and political action?
Does contemporary climate change even needs a historical reconstruction to be fully understood? And if so, would a historical reconstruction present a problem for students who take environmental science classes?

This presentation uses experiences from an undergraduate course in History of Climate Change as a guide to reflect on the pedagogic and otherwise meanings of historical reconstruction of environmental issues in general and global warming in particular. How does one avoid triumphalist accounts of environmental knowledge in the age in which such knowledge already commands vast human and material resources in an attempt to prevent irreversible damage to the planet?
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