About this site
Technosphere Earth is an independent publication launched in September 2025 by James Dyke. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this site possible. Thank you!
What can you expect?
By signing up, you'll get access to the full archive of everything that's been published before and everything that's still to come. There will be a weekly newsletter which reflects on recent events relating to climate change and policy, along with wider musings on sustainability science, complex systems, politics and society.
Who am I?
To some people, I'm one of the co-authors of the net zero article that Greta Thunberg called one of the most important and informative texts I have ever read on the climate- and ecological crises. My day job is Associate Professor in Earth Systems Science at the University of Exeter where I’m the Assistant Director of the Global Systems Institute and Director of the Environmental Intelligence Centre for Doctoral Training. I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the European Geosciences Union, and sit on the editorial board of the journal Earth System Dynamics. When I'm not being a full-time academic I write for international publications that includes The Ecologist, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Conversation. Since 2019 I’ve been the environmental columnist for UK newspaper i. My book Fire Storm and Flood: the violence of climate change was published in 2021 by Bloomsbury imprint Head of Zeus.
You can find out more about my research, writing and media work here: www.jamesgdyke.info
Why a newsletter?
I've been doing climate, environment and science journalism and commentary for over a decade. I am very grateful to all the editors that commissioned me, or at least took the time to reply to my pitch emails. For a while I think George Monbiot and I were the only environmental columnists writing a weekly in-print column for a UK newspaper (mine was in the I paper). This takes a great deal of time and energy. While the stories I covered were always interesting and I hoped I was making some sort of positive contribution, the need to continually convince an editor that what I wanted to write about is what they want to publish was becoming increasingly frustrating. And there are so many completely compelling stories right now, many of these driven by the reality that the planet is fundamentally changing and so will societies. So, I thought I would try independent an independent newsletter. Will anyone read it, find it interesting? I really don't know. It's a punt!
Is this free?
Yes. By subscribing you will receive a weekly newsletter and be able to access the full archive of previous articles. I have a full-time permanent job (something that is far from the norm in academia) and I am happy to pay the membership fee to host the newsletter on Ghost. I am offering paid subscriptions because I am working with a researcher and editor and they need to be reimbursed for their time and effort. If you can afford it, then selecting a paid subscription would be really appreciated!
Weren't you on Substack?
Yes I was. I ran a newsletter called Eccentric Orbits. My initial enthusiasm for independent publishing on Substack was first tempered with how the platform was increasingly locking in writers, and then more recently some very dubious decisions on not just allowing but promoting far-right content pushed me over the edge and so I decided to move.